[rrathk1]

background: I recently bought a house, originally built in the 50's, later added on to (not sure when the addition was done.) Previous owners just bought for investment purposes, never lived in it, they say they didn't touch plumbing. Noticed after moving in that the hot water is luke warm at best, at all faucets in the house. Reading online, I thought it was a faulty dip tube in the gas water heater so I called out the home warranty people. The plumber said it most likely isn't a faulty dip tube. He then closed the valve for the cold water entering the heater as well as the hot water valve, and proceeded to turn on the hot water at the kitchen sink and cold water came out. His thoughts were that cold and hot water were mixing somewhere. Both showers have 3 separate handles(hot/cold/turn on shower) as opposed to the single handle. All 3 bathroom lavratories have separate hot/cold handles, I do not have a washer/dryer hooked up. Additionally, all 3 toilets have a copper line running from their respective lavaratory water supplies as opposed to having their own dedicated water supply. The inspector said this was most likely done b/c the original house had galvanized pipes which were corroded and restricting water supply. any ideas? thanks in advance!

 

[teddosan]

I had this problem in a house I lived in that was also built in the 50s. There was a faucet in the basement that had corroded through so that the hot and cold water were mixing. In my house, the faucets' cold water would come out warm for a few seconds then cool down. Their hot water took a long time to get hot.

It may be worth it to have all the old galvanized torn out and replaced with copper or pex...

 

[joecaption]

Pretty common problum.
The trick is figuring out which faucet or tub deverter is leaking through.
Just shut off the hot and cold water valves one at a time under the sinks and check it.
Still not it then it's the tub.

 

[rrathk1]

(joecaption)

Ive shut off all faucets one at a time and checked for hot water, no luck. Both tubs have 3 separate handles with a hand held shower thing. Neither hand held shower has a shut off valve on it (i've read that these can allow hot/cold to mix). What part of a standard 3-handle shower set up can allow hot water to cross over to the cold or vice versa?

 

[AllanJ]

Faucet sets with separate hot and cold handles do not have crossover problems when the handles are turned off and the spout is not blocked.

Also check the washing machine. It is not unheard of to have crossover occur inside the machine.