Hot Water Fun and Games...a Puzzle.

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Montalvo

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OK, I'm not a plumber (just a fairly experienced homeowner) but this just seems weird to me. First, some background: I've got two shower heads in the master shower. A circulating pump comes on for 15 minutes, once an hour, to keep us from waiting two days for the water to heat up. The shower valves are Price-Pfister models PR89955P. The two shower heads often appear to get differing amounts of hot water, with the taller one (mine, of course) usually getting more than my wife's.

But when taking a shower the other day, my shower was barely warm enough (even with the valve turned to all hot), likely because I was showering just before the pump was going to come on. To draw the cold water through the pipes faster, I turned on my wife's shower head to all hot and found that my shower then got very hot. I assumed that the hot water had coincidentally just finally made its way from the hot water heater (even though my wife's shower was just lukewarm) so I turned my wife's shower off...and my shower cooled back down to lukewarm! I turned my wife's shower back on and mine became hot again. Off and it cooled down again. Whassup wid dat???? :confused:

I've read on this forum about special thermostatically controlled valves but as far as I know, my valves are your fairly basic vanilla valves. Any thoughts on how come the hot water is playing games like this?

Thanks for any solutions you experts can offer.

Bob
 

Jimbo

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I don't know what model your valves are, but I suspect they are pressure balanced; and I suspect your problems revlove around having 2 pressure balanced valves which are working against each other. I would contact PP and see if they have any suggestions. These may need to be plumbed differently than you have them.
 

Montalvo

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Thanks, Jimbo...

I've submitted my question to Price-Pfister and I'll summarize their response when I get it. Their website promises a reply in two days.

Bob
 

Montalvo

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Price-Pfister's response...

Here's what P-P said:

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your recent email describing the difficulties you are experiencing with your unit. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate that you have taken the time to contact us.

The parts necessary to repair your unit are being ordered to you at no charge under our product warranty, and should arrive within 10 working days. Upon installation, these parts should return your faucet to normal operation. Any necessary installation instructions can be founded on our web site - Customer Support Section.

Thank you for choosing our product(s) and for giving us the opportunity to be of service to you.


So it looks like it was the valve(s) and that they're under warranty. Hope their fix corrects the problem. I'll let you know after receiving/installing the parts they send me.

Bob
 

Jimbo

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Thank you very much for keeping us up to date on the progress of this job. Happy to hear that PP was responsive.
 
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