Confused about Moen fixtures

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Shroomster

fixture inept
Joined
Jul 13, 2010
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Location
Orlando, 32818
OK hello, here are the basics of my situation:

- bought a remodeled house in 2005 (built in 1979 i.i.r.c)
- shower fixtures are MOEN single handle CLOCK DIAGRAM (with off being @ 6:00, cold @ 3:00 & unbearably hot at 12:00 & 9:00)

the past few months the cold water has been working only from about off to 5:30ish with everything past that being warm to hot. I had no problem with that.

then the cold water would begin getting warm after about a 5-10 minute shower.

I talked to MOEN reps on the phone and they said that I have a'posi-temp'
pressure balance cartridge in the showers faucet, and I should replace that.

so I turned off the water to the house (no shut offs indoors), turned the handle to 12:00 because the set screw was corroded and needed to be extracted, removed the old cartridge and placed the new cartridge in with the 'HC tab' facing up. reinstalled the handle @12:00 and turned it back to 6:00/off.

from this point on we get about 2-4 minutes of cold water then it gets luke warm.

the water in all the faucets around the house have cold and hot with no problems like this.

--I have taken the cartridge out at least twice and flipped it so the 'HC tab' was facing up/down opposite the last position I had it in and nothing changed.

--Did I miss something or do something wrong? :confused:
 
HC should be up.
H for hot on the left & C for cold on the right
This is a pressure balancing valve. Inside the cartridge is a cylinder/spool that floats freely. When the fixture is on and let's say a toilet nearby is flushed the cold water pressure drops a little. The spool/ cylinder slides a little inside to equalize the pressure so you don't feel any change in the temp.
some times that spool gets stuck preventing a good mix of hot and cold at the desired temp. Maybe you have a defective cartridge. Usuallt a new one you can shake it and you can hear the spool rattle inside . This is normal.
The Posi temp valves I've installed had integral stops built into the valve so you can turn the water off at the water supply connection to the valve with a screw driver. Make sure they are open if you have them.
 
I see what you're saying, its the same as the moen reps said when i called them. What doesnt make sense is that both showers do the same thing now. Is it that likely that both cartridges (one old and one new) are bad.
I did verify before throwing away the old cartridge that both it and the new one rattled inside, but the two side flaps/grommets at the inlets on the old one were rotted.


...is that really what could be causing the lack of continuous cold water?
 
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Do you have any other moen fixture with a pull on/push off type cartridge.
Sometimes a nearby faucet can have a defective core and can cause problems but may have other factors such as an imbalance in pressure between the H &C systems.

What happens if you turn off the cold supply to the hot water heater and then turn on the tub/shwr valve.
If the supply to heater is off ( valve must work 100%) and you go to lavatory faucet do you get any water flow from the hot side. If water is coming out then you have a cross over problem.
turn that faucet, go to a faucet in another part of the house and open the hot side if you get water, go back to the other closed faucets and listen for any noise. Noise in faucet means water is passing through it even when it is closed.
 
Kilroy, I have got to remember that advice. I deal mostly with two handle faucets, so not such a chance of crossover there, but any single handle faucet has that possibility, and it never crossed my mind outside of tub/shower valves. Thanks!
 
Do you have any other moen fixture with a pull on/push off type cartridge?

----No, both showers are single handle turning not push/pull. the two sinks in the bathrooms are 'tilt back and tilt side to side' from moen

What happens if you turn off the cold supply to the hot water heater and then turn on the tub/shwr valve. If the supply to heater is off ( valve must work 100%) and you go to lavatory faucet do you get any water flow from the hot side. If water is coming out then you have a cross over problem.

----from the original problem shower faucet there is a stream maybe a gallon/hour or so....as well as the same from the other shower faucet in the house

I checked the other faucets/sinks and they do not leak/drip/stream with the supply turned off
 
Kilroy, I have got to remember that advice. I deal mostly with two handle faucets, so not such a chance of crossover there, but any single handle faucet has that possibility, and it never crossed my mind outside of tub/shower valves. Thanks!

More common with the push off/ pull on type moen cores and even more with the brass moen cores with the Diagonal o-ring like this one.

ImageGen.jpg
 
----No, both showers are single handle turning not push/pull. the two sinks in the bathrooms are 'tilt back and tilt side to side' from moen



----from the original problem shower faucet there is a stream maybe a gallon/hour or so....as well as the same from the other shower faucet in the house

I checked the other faucets/sinks and they do not leak/drip/stream with the supply turned off

Tilt handles use the same cartridge as the push/pull. They just have an adapter in the faucet to convert it to a lever action.

This a tough one to try and diagnosis on-line. Hands on by an experienced plumber maybe the only way to resolve it.

Gallon/hour I presume to be an error.

A long shot but check the supply connection at the water heater. Some time the nipples get choked with scale from electrolysis and may be affecting the hot water volume
 
Tilt handles use the same cartridge as the push/pull. They just have an adapter in the faucet to convert it to a lever action.

This a tough one to try and diagnosis on-line. Hands on by an experienced plumber maybe the only way to resolve it.

Gallon/hour I presume to be an error.

A long shot but check the supply connection at the water heater. Some time the nipples get choked with scale from electrolysis and may be affecting the hot water volume

By error you mean amount? It seems feesable to me as. it is a nice little stream.

By nipples you mean the inlet on the top? There is a cold water inlet, an outlet and then a third line. Only the cold water inlet has a shut off valve. Ill check it.

By the way, thanks for the help so far!
 
GREAT........so have a 'plumber' out here from a local company..... swears up & down that our problem is both of our cartridges in our showers.....and nothing else is wrong...

he also said that our 85-95 degree cold water is normal and that it feels fine especially for the time of year.....

yeah ok........so he is going to replace both cartridges (oddly enough he doesn't have them on his truck right now....).....

so when this doesn't solve the issue, what next?
 
If you already replaced the cartridges and that's all the plumber came up with, then Ask for a gaurantee that if he replaces them again and it doesn't correct the problem then No charge for his time. Not all plumbers are have great diagostic skills They are trained salesmen these days.
 
If you already replaced the cartridges and that's all the plumber came up with, then Ask for a gaurantee that if he replaces them again and it doesn't correct the problem then No charge for his time. Not all plumbers are have great diagostic skills They are trained salesmen these days.

Well, this whole clusterF is being contracted out by our home warranty...and I haven't even paid them the mandatory $60 service fee.

But, yes, that is something I will bring up; unfortunately they are sending the same guy out, and they sending him with another plumber too. We will see what happens...
 
A long shot here, but does your house have a hydronic heating system? Anotherwords, does a water line lead from the water heater to the air handler and then back, with the hot water being used to heat the air in winter?

I have seen a bad check valve in one of the units create a situation where the hot water turned lukewarm under high demand, and on first thought it seems possible that it could cause the problem you are having.
 
A long shot here, but does your house have a hydronic heating system? Anotherwords, does a water line lead from the water heater to the air handler and then back, with the hot water being used to heat the air in winter?

I have seen a bad check valve in one of the units create a situation where the hot water turned lukewarm under high demand, and on first thought it seems possible that it could cause the problem you are having.

I have no idea. water wasn't shut off when we had the inside air handler replaced. I'm gonna say no, as air handler is in one corner of the garage and the water heater is in another, and the heater has only three lines on the top of it..no where else.. and only one with a shut off valve.

UPDATE: mgr. or supervisor for the company came out with the original repair-man. Told my wife and I that the water temp is fine. Of course it's fine now, it doesn't do it on command, but whatever.

He had the repairman install a new cartridge into the shower faucet. DID NOT FIX problem with water coming out warm. So now warranty company is going to be sending another company out to get a second opinion, and to possibly open up the wall behind the shower......geez.....
 
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Have them check your hot water tank at the inlet and outlet, some have plastic check valves that can fail causing a restriction in flow. You can remove them by taking some needle nose pliers to them. If its happening on both showers its not the cartridges or the valves, somthing else is happening.
 
Alright update. Sorry about the time interval here, I had a nice roughly 150-250 word message typed and I stupidly pressed a link on the screen and lost it, that was back on the 20th of August roughly.


So, The second opinion company came out and told us the same thing that the first company did; it's weird that the water is coming out warm from the shower faucet. Also he said it's highly unlikely that two new cartridges would be faulty (one I bought and installed and one the first company installed). So what does he do?

He gives me a third cartridge and tells me to install it myself and call the warranty company and tell them if it fixed the problem, as he is only supposed to be issuing a second opinion.
Also he said that the water coming out of the rest of the house was within +/-4*F, and that it might be because of the pipes from the city in relation to their depth in the ground. Same thing the first company told me, if that was the case then it wouldn't be an intermittent problem would it? I haven't installed the cartridge because I've been unusually busy this week/also I'm kind of pissed about the whole situation, plus having to go and purchase another extractor the first one fell apart while using it....


I am actually calling the warranty company tomorrow 9/3, to find out what is going to be done.


@Jasper15, he checked the water heater but he wouldn't look at the lines on the top of the heater, just literally glanced at them and then adjusted the thermostats.... :-/
 

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