[JustKeepOnTruck]

My first post to this forum.


Our new-to-us house has Kohler shower valves, installed around 2004. Do these valves allow for cold(er) water to come out. Sometimes on a very hot day, a cool shower would be great, but I can't figure out how these valves work. They have a little bit of adjustment, while showering, that allows the stream to be hotter, but nothing else. Am I missing something, or is this just the way they are designed? Thanks.

 

[dj3]

All faucets are hooked to the cold water supply in the house: City Water comes in through the main line, which is buried (at various depths in different places), and then distributed through the house. It could be that a cold pipe on the south side of the house is a little warmer than a cold water pipe running on the north side.
Your cold water coming into the house temperature will depend on the temperature of the earth in which the pipe is located - sometimes very low.
I hope this answered your question.

 

[JustKeepOnTruck]

All faucets are hooked to the cold water supply in the house: City Water comes in through the main line, which is buried (at various depths in different places), and then distributed through the house. It could be that a cold pipe on the south side of the house is a little warmer than a cold water pipe running on the north side.
Your cold water coming into the house temperature will depend on the temperature of the earth in which the pipe is located - sometimes very low.
I hope this answered your question.

Thanks, but this does not address the issue. What I would like to be able to do is, simply, as with older valves, make the water colder or warmer, as I see fit, whilst in the shower.

 

[dj3]

Take the plate off your faucet, take a few photos, then upload the clearest ones. That will help.

 

[huesmann]

Unless the faucets are broken somehow, they should have the ability to output water from the cold water supply. That water can only be as cold as your street supply.

 

[JustKeepOnTruck]

Take the plate off your faucet, take a few photos, then upload the clearest ones. That will help.

Turns out it's a Hansgrohe. All the other bath and kitchen hardware is Kohler. Something inside called Thermobalance TB-1. Everything is sort of silicon-ed up, and I'm not ready to tear it all out for a closer look.

 

[Sdiver2489]

I think the reason everyone on here is confused is because you shower valve is a mixing valve. If you barely turn it on...that's letter pretty much ONLY cold water through to the shower head. If you turn it all the way hot its letting out a mixture of hot and cold depending on the stop point you set for safety.

If you barely turn the handle...that should be pure cold water...same temperature that would come out of an outside spigot or a 2 handle faucet. Are you telling us its not?

 

[JustKeepOnTruck]

I think the reason everyone on here is confused is because you shower valve is a mixing valve. If you barely turn it on...that's letter pretty much ONLY cold water through to the shower head. If you turn it all the way hot its letting out a mixture of hot and cold depending on the stop point you set for safety.

If you barely turn the handle...that should be pure cold water...same temperature that would come out of an outside spigot or a 2 handle faucet. Are you telling us its not?

Yes--I can barely turn the valve on and hot water comes out, at full pressure. The valve is a 1/4 turn valve.


The "inner"/smaller lever, which is about 1/4 inch long and shows in a couple of the pictures also turns a quarter turn. When turning the water on and off, the entire lever and "sub-lever" turn together. But, the smaller lever can then turn separately from the main body which turns the water on and off. It is also spring-loaded, in that the entire assembly to which it's attached can be pushed in about a quarter inch and turned--with the main part of the on-off valve remaining stationary.


I assume that this lever should have something to do with adjusting the water temperature, but when actuated, the water gets a little hotter or cooler for an extremely brief period, then levels off at a little hotter or a little colder. I can get the water pretty darned hot, but not cool, and certainly not cold.

The wife's shower valve is also a Hansgrohe and has a little lever that should seems like it should be a temperature adjuster, spring-loaded as well. She tells me that she cannot adjust the temperature on hers either. See pix. The only way to take a cool shower is to use that shower that still has its good old 1970s symmons temptrol set-up.

 

[Sdiver2489]

http://img1.wfrcdn.com/docresources/821/2/28817.pdf

Here is a document describing a trim similar to yours. It appears the center knob should control the water temperature. Given that yours gets cold for a very brief time it makes me wonder if your shower trim is connected incorrectly. I wonder if hot water is hooked to both sides of the trim and so when you change the temperature you get a minor effect of the hot water that has been sitting in the pipe cooling the flowing hot water but the effect does not last as new hot water comes in. Can you access the water pipes to see what's connected to either shower? I assume you didn't install these since you didn't know the brand.

 

[JustKeepOnTruck]

No--we did not install. Permits indicate the bathrooms and kitchen were remodeled in 2004. We bought in 2016, but it was a divorce sale, then an estate sale to us after the unexpected death of the original buyer, before he finished his remodeling and moved in. So it was empty for over a year and nobody knew anything about anything.

I'd be surprised if it was straight hot water. It's an Amtrol Boilerer-Mate h/w tank, and I have it cranked up reasonably high. The kitchen and bathroom sinks are really hot--hotter than they probably should be, so there's no way that the showers are putting out just hot.

Does anyone know if this company's mixing valves are particularly sensitive, or anything else about them? Our water has a high (in my opinion) sediment level for a municipal water system. The house has a water filtration system, but the strainers in the bathroom and kitchen sinks still need cleaning out more often than any other place I've lived.

 

[bruceb3]

Hansgrohe thermostatic mixing valves are very sensitive to sediment. It apears that your valve needs to be calibrated. The splined stem on the end of the cartridge adjusts temperature. With the handle off, turn the end of the stem. Does it get cold then?

 

[JustKeepOnTruck]

http://img1.wfrcdn.com/docresources/821/2/28817.pdf

Here is a document describing a trim similar to yours. It appears the center knob should control the water temperature. Given that yours gets cold for a very brief time it makes me wonder if your shower trim is connected incorrectly. I wonder if hot water is hooked to both sides of the trim and so when you change the temperature you get a minor effect of the hot water that has been sitting in the pipe cooling the flowing hot water but the effect does not last as new hot water comes in. Can you access the water pipes to see what's connected to either shower? I assume you didn't install these since you didn't know the brand.

Thanks for that link. My guess is that the wife's shower has that Thermo-Balance III valve, as there is a fixed shower-head, a shower-head on a hose, and the body-jet business.

 

[JustKeepOnTruck]

Hansgrohe thermostatic mixing valves are very sensitive to sediment. It apears that your valve needs to be calibrated. The splined stem on the end of the cartridge adjusts temperature. With the handle off, turn the end of the stem. Does it get cold then?

Well--the first one is fixed.

I took the valve apart, mistakenly neglecting to count how many turns then vinyl worm-gear turned when I took it out. None of it looked too bad, but I cleaned it all up, put plumbers' grease on all the o-rings and everything else, and guessed where to leave the adjusting gear.


It now works as it should, although it is a little odd. When adjusting the water temperature, it over-corrects for a couple of seconds, then settles down, hotter or colder, as is wanted.



But it does work, although I don't know if it's from cleaning and re-lubing, or from re-adjusting the adjuster gear.


Thanks to all who responded.

 

[bruceb3]

By taking off the handle, adjusting the temp and reinstalling the handle, recalibrated the valve. The grease just makes it so the o-rings dont rip.