Hot Hot Hot Shower

[Emmanuel]

Dear Experts

I hope you can provide some advice on my shower problem.

The Background

My apartment is at the top of a house which is divided into several other apartments. When I bought it, I installed a basic mixer shower (hose with a shower head on the end of it connected next to the taps). The shower is situated about three meters below the cold water tank in the attic and the hot water comes via a boiler in another room on the other side of the apartment.

The Problem

Ok you guys may already be able to guess what the problem is. The water comes out of the shower scorching hot, so generally you have to hold the shower head in one hand and constantly adjust the taps with the other hand in order to get something close to a normal shower. A very stressful experience indeed and not the best way to start your day.

The Solution(s)

My wife and I suffered with this problem but now the apartment is rented to tenants who understandably would prefer not too. I have just read that a simple shower set-up of the type I describe above is totally unsuitable if your hot and cold water supplies come from different sources (as they do in my apartment) and can lead to all kinds of problems...no doubt the kind of daily torture I have been subjected too. So what now? The agency which rents out my apartment have sent two plumbers to have a look and have come up with two fixes for the problem.

(1) A thermostatic tap could be fitted, which would help to regulate the water temperature. My reply to the agency was that this sounded like something you would fit for an elderly person to stop burning themselves by accident and was unsuitable for us. Our tenants have complained again and after having done some more reading, this does sound like the correct and most inexpensive solution.

(2) The other solution suggested was to re-route the cold water supply from the mains rather than have it from the cold water tank. This sounds like it could involve a lot of new pipework and perhaps be very expensive.

I am looking for an effective solution which provides value for money. I would be very grateful for your advice on the problem and a solution. Apologies for the rather long message, but I thought I had better explain things properly.

Kind regards,

Emmanuel

 

[hj]

shower

A pressure balanced unit might be preferrable. Using the main line for your cold feed could introduce a different set of imbalances, and a thermostatic unit might not react quickly enough to temperature changes due to its latency.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jimbo]

Since you are in a different country than most of us, some of us do not fully understand your plumbing set-up, which in our ignorance we would describe as "strange". I wonder if some sort of tempering valve would help. This would be used to reduce the maximum possible temperature which could come out of the hot side. Then some cold could be added for comfort.

Since other homes in your area must have the same type of installation, have you talked to a local master plumber to see if they have a recomendation?

 

[Jadnashua]

When I was last in London, the hotel used a Grohe thermostatic shower valve. The pressure varied all over the place as toilets were flushed, etc., but the shower temp stayed the same; the volume varied, but the temp stayed the same.

An interesting aside, when I lived in Kuwait for awhile, with their water supply tank on top of the roof, for over half of the year, we turned off the hot water heater, used the cold water as hot, and god help you if the water stored in the hot water tank ran out, otherwise, you'd have hot on both side of the tap! It was ackward on the transion of seasons, though, until eventually, you had to turn the hot water heater back on for a couple of months.

 

[Emmanuel]

Thanks!

Thanks for all the advice. I am glad that some of us at least are speaking the same language. After getting some additional advice from a UK plumber, I think I will go with option (2) of my original post, which is to have the cold water to the shower re-routed so that rather than coming from the tank in the attic it will come directly via the mains. I guess this means that while someone is showering, it will not be advisable to simultaneously use everything which is "up the line" ahead of the shower such as the clothes washer and faucets in the kitchen, because this will lead again to temperature variations. However at least hopefully there'll be more chance of having a decent shower. I suppose that in a house which is 105 years old and has been divided into 5 separate apartments, some compromises will always have to be made.

Happy plumbing,

Emmanuel

PS: How is the plumbing business in the US? In the UK there is such a shortage of them that city bankers and other office workers are leaving their jobs to learn plumbing and are making a fortune. We have the one-hit wonders who don't know anything, strip out your whole system, charge you the earth for doing it and then disappear and then far fewer really good plumbers that you have to try to book an appointment with months in advance because they are in such demand. Does this phenomenon exist on your side of the pond?