Rough In Valve - Lessons Learned

ddawg16

Tonight I finished the H&C water plumbing for my 2 story addition. I was so proud of myself....NO LEAKS.

Had a drink...or two....headed into the exsting bathroom to take a shower (been a long day crawling under the house)....and NO hot water.

Hmmmmmmm......lets see....valve on for the hot water heater?....Check....

Hot water heater on? Check.

Hot water heater hot? Check.

Oh, wait.....I have 2 shower rough in valves with the test plug in.....that means cold and hot are tied together.....and since water takes the path of least resitance.....maybe the cold is going back down the hot line?

Seeing how my new construction is more or less parallel with the existing.....but the existing chokes down to 1/2" line while the new is 3/4".....I can see how I'm not getting proper hot water flow.

Is there anything I can put into the rough-in valve to block it the flow from one side to the other? I have the filters in and that is what got me to 'luke warm'.....but I'm not a 'luke warm' kind of guy.

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oh'mike

Install the guts----do you have them? Make sure they are in the off position.

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ddawg16

Nope....no guts.....is there another option?

My guess is that the 'path of least resistance' is lower via the rough-in valves vs through the water heater. I somewhat confirmed it by putting in the filters on the hot side of each valve.

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DidIDoThat

Why no guts ?
Your going to need them sooner or later, might as well install them now.
Or you could cut the hot and cold off and cap it with a temporary shark bite cap, and hook it back up when you have the guts installed.

ddawg16

We have not bought the fixtures yet.....during my initial browsing, it looked like many of them came with the valve guts....

Guess I need to go back and look again....

BTW.....I did find one test plug in with the packaging.....it looks like I can plug up the hot side on one of them....I'm checking to see if HD carries the part.

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DidIDoThat

You have the valve, just buy the cartridge that goes with it, and you can buy the trim later.

oh'mike

A shut off valve in the line will do the job---hot side or cold--it won't matter as long as you stop the cross over---

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ddawg16

I installed the one plug I had in the new downstairs shower.....that improved things.....HD does not carry the Delta plugs.....

All the shower trims I'm looking at also include the cartrige.....

I think I'll take one of the filters that came with the rough in....fill it with RTV...let it dry and shove that in....that should stop the cross over....

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ddawg16

Just a quick update.....

Found a local Delta dist....they had the test plug....they just gave it to me....free...

Stuck it in last night.....talk about a difference.....hot showers to be had....

Side note....I took the filter that came with the rough in....filled it with earthquake putty (stuff sticks to anything). It was still letting water bleed by.

Anyway....no leaks....hot water.....life is good...........so far.

Oh....and one other side note.....on my existing shower...since I had the water off, I decided to pull the valve and make sure there was no crud in there from all the pipe sweating. Learned something...there is a 'ring' that sits inside the stem that limits the travel of the handle....if you pull the ring out, you can controll how far you can swing the handle to the hot side. It seems that it was not allowing full hot....so I adjusted it to full hot....

Now, when I take a shower, I don't have to have the handle all the way on hot....I have plenty of hot water....plenty......oh happy days....

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