I could’ve sworn there was a Seinfeld bit about the shower temperatures being sensitive when you adjust the tap but I can’t find it now
Probably American build.
Okay I’m gonna be real. I didn’t understand the meme at first and thought you were showing a melted door handle and the guy in the meme was trying to melt another door handle with his mind
I was fully prepared to read a bunch of comments about how are door handles so sensitive to heat due to their metallic composition and how you absolutely cannot melt things with your mind that the actual comments tripped me
You need at least the heat of your hand to melt metals. Or at least at least the heat of a cold but not cold wave winter day.
Also I can melt steel with my mind.
See this is what I was expecting thanks
They’re so sensitive because the person who installed them didn’t care enough to adjust the regulator. If this bothers you, you can take the handle off yourself with an allen wrench and adjust the valve so that when you turn it on, it’s the perfect temperature for you every time.
This is a great idea if you are the only one using your shower. If you have 4 family members, each of whom likes a different shower temperature, it is less ideal. I think controls that allow separate on/off and hot/cold dimensions are best for most scenarios.
From my understanding when I fixed mine, when you adjust it it just makes for a more gradual heat change
Yes, but this wastes water, so if you’re trying to be green, you should be able to open up the valve to full hot.
Not only does it waste water, your shower will take longer to heat up.
Also, depending on where you live the perfect temperature changes a lot because of outside temperatures. If you use all the room temperature water in your cold lines then start pulling cold water from the outside. You’re going to have to adjust it. Bigger the house, the more the problem.
But if you have to dump out your entire hot and cold lines to even begin to step in the shower, that’s a ton of wasted water.
Answer is a thermostatic valve. It will just use hot water until it needs to mix in cold. If your cold water temperature changes, it will adjust it automatically. You really do pick a temperature to set the valve at, and then the handle just controls the flow rate.
The regular for a standard mixing valve is there only so you can’t turn the valve to burn you. When people keep their water tanks at 160°F, a full turn to the left would be devastating if you’re standing in it.
That’s 70ºC, 49ºC (120ºF) is usually plenty hot enough and the recommended temperature. It can actually cause burns with long enough direct exposure at 50, 70 is madness.
I tried that and it still ends up either freezing or burning, unless I turn the handle all the way on, then half way, then creep it up.
Is that what a bad mixing valve looks like?
If you live in the US, then you probably have a standard mixing valve
If you live elsewhere, it’s probably a thermostatic one
For US:
You want to turn your handle all the way hot to clear your hot water lines fast, it’s room temperature in the hot water lines. Once the water is hot, then you start mixing in cold water.
The first cold water is from the lines in your house. It is heated or cooled by your home, basically room temperature water.
So say I turn the valve on full hot. Pure hot water is pouring out. Now you add some of that “room temperature cold water” to get to your perfect temperature.
Now, once you run out of “room temperature cold water,” it will start pulling water from the street.
I’m guessing you live in a cooler climate area?
120°F + 70°F = perfect temperature
But if the outside water becomes, say 50°F after you use all your water stored in your cold water lines
120°F + 50°F = colder water
So you have to add less 50°F water, which means slowly creeping your valve up until you have steady temperature water going to the valve.
Things like the type of water heater matters. If you use a tank then as you use water it adds water. If you keep your tank at 120° and you’re adding 70° cold water or 50° water to the tank matters. You also have “room temperature water” in your cold lines going to your tank at first, then colder water. So that creates another “lag” in temperature
US standard mixing valves aren’t as nice as a thermostatic valve. They are just cheap and standard and work well enough in most places.
Thermostatic valves allow you to select, say 100°F water, and the knob just controls the water flow rate. No matter what, the water that comes out of your shower will be 100°F. As the water coming into your house gets colder it will automatically adjust. As the water from your tank gets colder, it will automatically adjust.
Sounds like your valve is working as intended though
That’s fantastic info. Thank you! Though it sounds like I want to upgrade to thermostatic.
I hope it doesn’t fail open :)
Yeah, you need a new cartridge for yours.
Well, if you turn it all the way on, it should have the same temp as if you did it the way you described, so yeah, the regulator might be broken. A valve should last you several years before it starts leaking or breaks, so if you’ve had yours that long, it might be time for a new one.
The good news is that replacements are pretty cheap, and for this style of faucet they’re pretty easy to install, usually requiring only a screw driver and probably a pipe wrench to loosen the retaining ring. And if you have a name brand like Delta or Moen, it’s covered under a lifetime warranty as well.
Observe while I shower comfortably with:
Yes, but that is not a fair comparison, these are European.
This technology is only possible with degree Celsius. It is impossible to adapt to degree Fahrenheit.
Except British homes which have two separate showerheads, one fully hot and the other fully cold.
The trick is to spin.
British when straight into inventing the radar and completely skipped over the invention of warm water.
When I first moved to Japan over twenty years ago they were already about a hundred years ahead of typical US toilet/bath technology. For me, using one of these faucets where you can just set the temperature by number was like Liko getting beamed from her hut directly onto the damn Enterprise.
Growing up in rural France, we had these at home for as far as I can remember. They may not have been the norm 30 years ago, but at least common.
Interesting, so it adjusts the flow of hot/cold in the fly to keep a consistent temp? That’s amazing, thought I imagine it would have the same issue I have at the end of the shower where it’s on 100% hot just to eke out a bit more time
You can adjust the temp on your water heater to solve that.
What’s that called?
Thermostatic (shower) tap. They are pretty common where I live in Europe. They actively adjust the water mix to stabilize output temperature. Also great for when somebody flushes the toilet or turns on a tap elsewhere in the house while you’re showering.
Same man, it’s been a dream since installing this.
These things existe for at least 30 years, I don’t understand why anyone would want to use anything else for a shower or bathtub.
Do they hold for 30 years?
Definitely not :) I had to get it replaced at my flat this year. There is a filter inside that can get block if you have hard water or debris.
Ah, see, we have high calcium here, didn’t even know this thing exists.
Don’t let that stop you getting the ultimate shower experience! My parents also have water with very high calcium at their house and I don’t think they had any problems with the faucet in the past 15 years.
I live in a rented place, they were doing repairs to the heating systems, several times we had brown water coming out the tap. I bet they installed the cheapest option, plus the debris in the water, this fucked it.
Just invest in a good thermostatic faucet and never look back !
What is this?
Thermostatic faucet
So there are lots of good answers, but there’s one I haven’t seen: The type of shower control in the photo is probably low quality, cheap, meaning the internal parts do a poor job of mixing the hot/cold water.
Adjusting the water heater may help, but you might also consider upgrading the shower faucet.
Set your water heater lower. Like: make sure it’s above 120 at all times (130+ preferably) to prevent legionnaire’s, but 140 is PLENTY for most home uses. And it means you get a bigger range to move your mixer taps to.
That’s Fahrenheit right? Or are you suggesting 100+ Celsius?
It’s Kelvin
Your water heaters don’t have a “Steam Blast” setting? How do your bidets even work? Do they just dribble cool water on your anus? How weird.
Celsius of course. Only babies shower in 140 Fahrenheit!
Last i checked, that would no longer make it hot water, but I use the dumb numbers where 212 is boiling
Actually at household water pressures, water’s boiling point is somewhere from 140-160°C, so it’s actually somewhat plausible. I’m sure some less heat tolerant stuff would have to be upgraded, but the system’s total pressure would be about the same (with the added danger that the consequence of a pressure failure would be a steam explosion instead of a leak).
And of course turning your faucet on hot would now blast out a stream of boiling water propelled by superheated steam, which is probably less than ideal.
So you’re saying I can make lattes from my tap with a small upgrade? Sold.
Came to say the same thing. Not sure why people want boiling water on tap. If I need to boil water I use my kettle, and save money by not heating a tank of water to near boil all day.
Weird.
I saw “melts tungsten” and my brain decided this was in German.
Fun fact: the german word for tungsten is Wolfram
Wolfram alpha suddenly makes even less sense
Same lmfao
I think it’s so late here that I assume Lemmy is sprechening Deutsch by default
Speaking as a Dane, I too had to recalibrate from “heavyrock” to “tungsten the element” 😁
In seriousness, it’s often about water pressure and how your hot water is fed. If you have very high water pressure normally but a solar hot water system where gravity and input pressure play a role, you’ll naturally have an imbalance on hot and cold. When you turn the handle on the shower you’re lining up two holes in the shower cartridge (in the handle) with the two hot and cold water pipes, the resulting mix comes out a third hole which feeds the shower head. As you turn the handle, one hole opening gets smaller and the other bigger- thereby changing the ratio of hot : cold. When you already have a huge pressure of cold water pumping in, the degree of rotation needed to go from warm/almost just right to PURE HOT WATER is minuscule. Usually the cold will stay pretty cold for about half of the handle range of motion too.
If water input pressure being high is a problem you can put a reducing valve on your system overall or you can buy Venturi style pumps which add pressure into your hot water system.
You’ll normally find when it’s pressure imbalance that it’s easier to balance the temp when the tap isn’t open full bore. But who wants a weak-ass shower stream!!
This, exactly. When we redid our bathroom, we went from “immersion tank” hot water with about three metres of pressure behind it, to central heating in a closed system, where both hot and cold have the exact same pressure, about thirty metres head. Went from being basically impossible to have a shower, to being an absolute pleasure where nearly the entire range of the tap gives a useful temperature, and it’s got a right blast of pressure behind it too.
Another alternative would be an electric shower - since you’re just heating up cold water, the pressure is “always the same”. They tend to be a bit pathetic and crap, tho.
You can also just the handle off the shower and adjust the temperature regulator on the valve.
What kind of fucked shower knob turns counterclockwise
USA checking in with one almost exactly like the picture
Yeah I’ve seen plenty like this in the US.
IDK which way threads go on your country, but in the US at least you turn counterclockwise to loosen something.
That’s a German brand of faucet.
Australian, just like their toilets spinning water the other way.
If I remember correctly Mythbusters disproved that. It depends entirely on the way you pull the plug.
So australian toilets have defective plugs, got it!
Well, essentially, it’s that the coriolis effect, while a real thing, is much weaker than most other factors in play. If everything else is neutralised or near to it, the coriolis would indeed be the remaining decider, but that’s very unlikely in practice.
Otherwise people on the equator, their toilet water wouldn’t spin at all? It would just go straight down, no spin.
it spins both ways at the same time
Its on the southern hemisphere.
The ones at my gym.
Lower flow temperature makes it easier to adjust.
I know most chronic internet users don’t adjust their boiler temp settings. But there are easy ways to fix this.
Nah, Brougham.
All the way to the left, then back off 1/16".
Burn me, baby.
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Your water heater is set too hot or you don’t have a mixing valve after your water heater
You don’t need to adjust your water heater or add a mixing valve. You just need to take off the handle and set the temperature regulator on the faucet itself.
i adjusted my heaters max temp to what i like and just turn shower/faucet to the hottest setting in winter or lower in the summer.
My heater only heats while water is flowing through. Otherwise it cools down.
This may have consequences not killing things that like thriving in warm water.
Could be an issue in some cases, but mine only heats while water is flowing through. Otherwise it cools down. Also the input water in my region is clean and drinkable, so it hasn’t enough food for germs.
Legionella won’t make you sick if you drink it, only if you breathe it in. It exists in clean drinkable water all over the world. It’s capable of hibernation and able to survive without nutrients for long periods. So it’s at least a potential risk any time you breathe aerosolized particles from water that is not hot enough to kill it. Any type of water heater that heats to 60 degrees Celsius will kill it.
Inline heating is pretty safe to do that, aye. I’d worry about listeria in a tepid storage tank.
