American Standard Pressure Balance Valve Rough-In with Integrated Diverter - AMS-RU520

The RU520 pressure balance rough-in has an integrated diverter, but the cartridge that runs it depends on how you want the outlets to behave. For discrete 2-way or 3-way operation (water goes to one outlet at a time), cartridge M970787-0070 does the work and it ships with the Aspirations trim, not with the rough-in. If you want to run up to three outlets at the same time, you need the shared cartridge M970789-0070, which is sold separately. Order the trim and the correct cartridge alongside the valve body or the job stalls at trim-out.

Aspirations trim. The RU520 valve body is built for that line and the trim is sold separately, so the rough-in and the finished escutcheon and handle are two purchase lines. That is also why the valve itself carries no finish, the finish comes from the trim you pair with it.

No soldering. The RU520 has solid brass inlet connections that go on without adaptors, which is the point of the design, fewer joints means fewer places to leak. For a contractor doing a run of bathrooms it takes the torch out of the rough-in step entirely.

It handles either. With the discrete cartridge M970787-0070 the valve alternates flow between 2 or 3 separate outlets, one at a time, so a shower head plus tub spout, or shower head, tub spout and hand shower. If the customer wants the rain head and the hand shower running together, that is the shared cartridge M970789-0070, which lets up to 3 outlets flow simultaneously and is a separate order. Decide which behavior the client wants before trim-out, because it is the cartridge, not the valve body, that sets it.

Yes, the RU520 has screwdriver stops built into the valve, so you isolate hot and cold right at the body and pull the cartridge. For a property manager with a stack of units on one riser that is the difference between a 20 minute cartridge swap and shutting down a floor.

The RU520 body is compact with a flat back, and the plaster guard is rated to act as mounting support for thin-wall installations as well as protecting the valve during construction. That covers the tight-cavity case a remodeler runs into on an interior partition, and the flat back gives you something solid to bear against rather than blocking out a round body.

RU520 is the American Standard manufacturer part number for the pressure balance rough-in valve with integrated diverter. It ships unfinished because it goes in the wall, so there is no finish code to specify on the valve body itself, only on the Aspirations trim you order with it.

Pressure balance. The RU520 holds the hot and cold mix steady against pressure swings elsewhere in the building, so a toilet flush next door does not scald the shower. What it does not do is let the user dial a numeric temperature setpoint and return to it, that is a thermostatic valve. If the spec on the drawing calls for a set temperature or for separate volume and temperature control, pressure balance is the wrong family and you want a thermostatic rough-in instead.

It does double duty. The plaster guard protects the valve body through drywall and tile work and acts as a guide during installation so you set the body at the correct depth relative to the finished wall. The screw holes are self-aligning, so when you pull it to test and put it back on before the tile goes up, you are not hunting for the threads behind mud.