Hot Water Crossing Over

NickTex

Here's one that I diagnosed and had repaired, but I'm not real sure that I understand the mechanics behind it. Thought I'd bring it to the brain trust.

Asked to look at an apartment complex owned by a friend that is being renovated. No problem, he offered me the job at the beginning but I didn't want it, so I'll take a look, it'll only cost you lunch. Each of the the 8 buildings are served by a single boiler, and during renovations, several tenants in one building began to complain about little or no hot water. Naturally, I wanted to see the units that had already had plumbing work done on them since the problem didn't exist prior to the rehab. They are using Premier brand pressure balance tub/shower faucets that as best as I can tell are a delta knockoff. It only took me a few minutes to find a faucet that had hot plumbed to cold and cold to hot. I told them to open up the wall and reverse it and that this should fix the problem. It did, but I honestly don't really know why. The faucet wasn't leaking so why would cold water still mix with hot and make it lukewarm in several units?

It feels like a dumb question and you'd think a master plumber would know, I guess I've been sitting behind a desk looking at numbers too long. I appreciate your insight.

thom

If the valve was on, and if the spout stub was plugged/capped you can get crossover. It doesn't matter if the h/c are reversed or not.

jcalvin

Can't be much worse than the time I plumbed my bathroom addition. In the crawlspace were I could barely fit tring to run all the supply lines and of course I know the four rules of plumbing, hot on left cold on right sheet flows downhill and never bite your fingernails. I finished the job and turned the water on to try out my new bathroom.

Everything seemed ok no leaks water came out were it was supposed to so I took a seat at the library to catch up on the morning paper. To spare you the detailed description of what I had for supper, a couple of flushes later, my butt seemed to be getting warmer. I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me so I finished and left it at that.

Next evening, same thing happened. This time I checked it out. Wiggled back into the crawlspace and discovered that I haf plumbed hot water to the throne.

After about 30 minutes worth of explitives, I cut the lines and fixed the problem with only about 90 more minutes of explitives tring to sweat a wet pipe.

After it was all said and done. I liked it the other way better anyhow. Kinda like my own after work spa treatment.

__________________
Cal


You hired WHO

Double-A

I suspect the problem was created by the recirculating pump, back-to-back installations of the shower valves, and someone forgetting to rotate the cartridges on the odd faucets.

Even so, I can't figure out why this would have had an effect on it. There shouldn't be cold to hot communication through those faucets unless they are on.

Premier are some rather low quality faucets, so I guess that may have had something to do with it, but I'm at a total loss as to how.

__________________
"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

NickTex

The valve wasn't on nor the spout capped while the other units were getting the lukewarm water.

Double A: I'm thinking that it has to be this particular brand of faucet also, it just doesn't really make sense otherwise.

JC: I fixed one for a customer one time that was in a similar situation, explaining to her that hot water to the toilet wasn't a good idea. I don't think she ever forgave me for it, everytime I saw her after that she'd bring up how uncomfortably cold her toilet was now.

Thanks for ya'lls input.

KillerToiletSpider

We have had problems with Price Pfister pressure balance valves that would leak hot into the cold and not leak out the spout at all, perhaps you are having a similar situation.

__________________
A flush is better than a full house.