No hot water to shower, TACO circulater possible problem

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jakedai

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Hi all,

I'm new to this forum, but have gotten a ton of great information here in the past...thanks! And, hopeful that someone out there might have an idea of what's going on with our master shower.

We moved into our house a year ago, and have never had good hot water in the master shower. The sink right next to it gets good hot water, so I thought for sure it was not an issue anywhere but in the shower assembly. So, I dug around and ended up replacing the cartridge and mixing kit (all the guts) of the American Standard shower kit that is installed there. (I got genuine parts from American Standard, so am assuming they are good.) But, after installing them, the issue is not resolved.

I then remembered the weird (to me) device on the hot water heater I had seen during our inspection. It's a TACO circulater and timer. My understanding is that this should circulate the hot water - with the timer making it happen at key times - and allowing for less wait time for hot h2O to come out of the faucet fixture. It's installed in a weird location that makes it tough to access and adjust, so I figured I'd just unplug the whole unit and see if that made a difference. Well, it has, but not in the right way - we now get only somewhat warm water from any tap in the house. (And, yes, the water heater is turned up high - almost all the way.)

I haven't yet plugged the TACO unit back in, but am confused as to what might be the problem, since when the TACO was on (and supposedly circulating water to the taps) I would get good hot water from the sink in the master bath, but not from the shower.

So, my questions - sorry for the rambling post:

- Is there something I'm missing and should check that could be the culprit here?
- I saw that the TACO unit can be switched to an "always on" position. Is that worth trying? I assume that this will eventually burn out the motor/pump, but could be used to trouble shoot, and if that fixes the issue, I guess I could just remove the unit altogether.
- Is there a chance that the Am. Std. cartridge and mixer from the factory are bad and not mixing correctly? FWIW, I did adjust the hot water stop, and when it was still not delivering adequate hot, I removed the stop altogether to be sure that was not the issue.

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated, and I'm happy to add more info and pics if that'd be helpful.

Thanks in advance,

Jake
 

hj

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The most likely reply is that there is either no check valve between the pump and the water heater, or there is one and it is broken. Without a functioning check valve, (and the pump running is only slightly effective in that case), the cool water at the bottom of the heater is flowing backwards and gets to the tub, and other faucets faster, (and easier), than the hot water can.
 

jakedai

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Thanks for this info, HJ. What would I look for in a check valve? And, if it is there, is it relatively easy to fix?

Thanks again,

Jake
 

hj

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Well, first you have to see if there is one. If so, the only way for you to tell if it is working is to remove the top and see if the "flap" opens and closes. A plumber, however, would be able to tell without taking the valve apart.
 
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