Sound of water leaking + hot water coming from cold water side

14 years ago

Hello.

Two days ago, we noticed two plumbing problems.

One, hot water was coming from our bathroom sink when the cold water handle was turned. The water is, at first, quite hot, but then quickly (as in, within 5-10 seconds) cools off.

Two, and in my mind, more importantly, we heard the faint noise of water running from the bathroom.

Upon doing this, I checked under the sink and in the panel behind the bathtub. No water anywhere, as far as I can tell.

We live in a condominium community and have an upstairs neighbor. Her bathroom is directly above ours, so I thought that perhaps she was having some sort of tub leak and that the noise we heard was a constant drop due to a bad seat or gasket. I contacted the community manager. He went upstairs, found no leak. He noticed, however, that they had the exact same problem in their bathroom sink. He called a plumber.

The next day, we notice the water noise has increased in volume (to the degree, now that, we can hear water from our master bedroom).

Today, my wife called me at work. She said that the plumber called our community manager back and wants to "troubleshoot from offsite". If I am understanding things correctly, it seems as though both our community manager and the plumber see the hot water coming through the sink as the more pressing problem (which, to me, makes absolutely no sense).

At the moment, I am working under the theory the section of the hot waterline going to the sink (located in the walls and perhaps underground?) has sprung a leak and is leaking hot water onto the cold water line. Therefore, the cold water line is warmed up and gives you hot water at first. Then, as the water starts to flow, it moves too quickly to be heated up by the surrounding hot water.

Of course, I haven't found any water, so can't verify that this is happening. I have, however, noticed that the tiles directly in-front of our sink seem to be warm, suggesting that perhaps hot water is leaking underneath the sink.

Does my explanation sound reasonable?

And, if so, is wrong for me to completely flip out and demand that a plumber (either the community's preferred plumber or one that will actually come out) comes out investigates the situation?

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Comments (2)

llaatt22
14 years ago
Only happening with one bathroom sink, no hot water in toilet tank or bathtub cold faucet or kitchen sink?

In large buildings hot water pressure is kept slightly higher than cold so that problems like this can be detected and fixed quickly because of costs involved in hot water loss. Ask your manager if the hot water system pressure was worked on or any new single lever sink faucets installed anywhere at the time your problem started.

At a guess the water flow you hear is not an external leak but some sort of cross connect fault that is then slowly dumping through a leaking toilet tank or perhaps some system valve that isn't tightly shut.

If this problem is stumping the person hired to fix it, your condo is not hiring very competent people.
dan_martyn
14 years ago
Dwillits,

Sounds like you may have a recirc pump on the hot water system. In residential construction some times the pump recircs the hot water back through the cold water side to the water heater. One draw back is the cold water becomes hot/warm. The sound you hear maybe the water flowing through the pipe. When there is air in the pipe, the water can sound like a dripping noise. In commercial construction, there is a separate recirc line from the farthest fixture, which returns the water directly to the water heater cold water inlet line. Ask your manager if there is a recirculation pump on the hot water system. If so, this is the most probable cause of your problems.
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Sound of water leaking + hot water coming from cold water side

Comments (2)

llaatt22

dan_martyn

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