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Plumbing Bathrooms

Weird Hot Water Issue

2 years ago

Have a very strange hot water problem in my house right now. Hoping someone here can help shed some light on it cause it makes no sense to me.

Here’s what’s happening:

I have a 1 bathroom house. The water heater is only a few months old. The temp it set around 130 degrees. Still the shower, bathroom sink and kitchen sink never get more than luke warm. I thought it was a problem with the water heater. BUT. The other day I had the shower on and while waiting for it to heat up I turned the bathroom sink on and it was scalding hot. This ONLY happens when the shower is on. Makes no sense to me.
Anyone have any ideas?

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Comments (4)

Lyndee Lee
2 years ago
Did this problem start when the water heater was installed? How old is the house? Somewhere there is a partially clogged supply line or an interconnect between hot and cold pipes. Good luck tracking this down!

My previous house was built in 1931 and had original plumbing. The shower controls were in two sections. There was a mixer valve to control temperature and then separate on/off controls for the main shower head and the body sprays We had a problem when we went to replace the water heater and couldn't drain the heater after shutting off the cold water supply. Turned out the shower mixer connected the hot and cold system and water was flowing through the valve; in our case sending warm water to the cold water feed at the bathroom sink.
Fix izin
2 years ago
If this is an electric WH, I'd say only your upper heating element is working, so due to convection, you only have a few gallons of 130degF water at the very top, and the rest of the tank is lukewarm. The scalding burst from your bathroom sink probably did not last very long, and just happened to draw-off a "slug" of very hot water, right off the top. Only one heating element is on at a time. The LOWER element does 90% of the work, heating the WHOLE tank, from the bottom up (convection). The UPPER element only kicks on WHILE you're using hot water, trying to compensate "on the fly" for the incoming cold water, to let you take a little bit longer shower.

Your lower element might be bad from the factory, or just not connected. Turn your circuit breaker OFF before checking, OR... just exercise your warranty. ;')
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So I have a few questions: Has it ever worked correctly - is this a new problem? Was this recently installed / changed? A bad dip tube would result in the water temp at the top of the tank getting up to the correct temperature, but it would be diluted with cold water as soon as you turn on the faucet. A digital thermometer (about $10) applied to the hot water nipple at the top of the tank without running any water will tell you if it's getting up to temp. Apply the tip of the thermometer against the nipple as close to the tank as possible and wrap with a rag or other insulation to get a good reading. A bad thermostat on the gas control will cause the top of the tank to not come up to temp - and/or to overheat. If that's t he case, you might look at replacing the tank completely. Do make sure this tank wasn't hooked up backwards (hot and cold reversed). doing that would cause the water leaving the tank to be cool all the time because it's drawing off the bottom of the tank. Your thermometer at the top of the tank would be hot when the thermostat has been satisfied and no water is being used and would cool to incoming water temp immediately when water was run. Here is a link that might be useful: Digital thermometer
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You never get hot water at those two faucets? Only cold from both sides at those locations no matter how long the water is run?? Someone isn't bustin your chops by swapping the supply lines, right?? That's exactly what I do to my father in law, keeps him on his toes!!
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Typically only 2 things happen to cause electric h/w heaters to not produce enough hot water. One is faulty heating elements. The h/w heaters have 2 an upper to maintain hot water at the top of the tank and a lower which does the main heating function. If the lower one burns out you get only the small amount of warm water from the top of the tank. The other problem can be a faulty thermostat which is not calling for enough power to the elements to reach your desired temp. My guess is a faulty lower element in your primary tank.
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Comments (13)
Omg, that's really strange. Hope you'll find a way out! I just hate when such situations occur. Last year after several works on the pipes the water temperature started to fluctuate from hot to cold. Imagine you're taking a relaxing shower and suddenly your water turns ice cold. Terrible! Anyway, I took a look at my water heater, followed all the instructions from its manual and everything seemed to be fine. Therefore, I turned to professional advice and help to goldcoastplumbingcompany.com.au. They helped me several times with my gas pipes, so they can deal with all plumbing issues. Anyway, they solved the problem in about 10 minutes. I wish I had called them earlier!
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PRO
BobH
2 years ago
Run a faucet at full hot. Feel the pipe coming out of the water heater. Is it hot to the touch or Luke warm after 30 seconds?
klem1
2 years ago
Two days have passed since question was posted and Lyndee requested additional info to better answer. Another drive by.

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