New Kitchen sink faucet, still gets pressure with hot off?

Plumbing Forums

Help Support Plumbing Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

JohnDS

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
76
Reaction score
4
Location
,
I had intsalled my kitchen sink faucet. It is one of those fancy up, over, and down spouts. The spout pulls out into a hose for the sprayer. It has one handle to open the water up. Tilt to the right to open, then tilt toward you for cold, then tilt back for hot. Since we are not exactly living in the house, i usually turn the hot and cold water on from the basement when i am there, just to wash up when I am working there. All works well with getting hot and cold water when I have both hot and cold valves on, but today i had noticed something strange. Usually I will just keep the cold valve on and keep the hot valve closed in the basement. Today i was washing my hands with the faucet handle turned to cold, but when i turned the faucet handle to hot, the pressure still remained consistent, which was weird to me. Since the hot valve is off, shouldnt the faucet had turned off completely when turned to the hot position? Do these faucets work different or something? At the house where i am currently living, my kitchen sink has one of those old school 1 handle faucets that you lift up and swing right for cold, swing left for hot, but when hot is off and you swing left, nothing happens. So why do i still get water coming out on my new faucet when i know for sure hot is off?
 
Forget about what the faucet does at another location. That's not relevant.
How do you know for sure the hot is off? Do you have any 2 handle faucets in this house that you can verify.
Does this new kitchen faucet have good working stop valves under the sink?
turn off both to verify the both work 100%. Then turn on just the cold stop. Check faucet again. any flow when turned to hot only. If so it must be mixing in the faucet. reverse the test. turn both stops off and turn on just the hot. do you get any flow from the cold side now.
 
Yea...same thing with only hot open. I guess its some sort of safety so you cant get burned. Lol, does everything have to be dummy proof nowadays?
 
Thats correct, but i am saying that when only the cold valve is open, when i open the cold side of faucet i get cold (normally), but when i shift the lever to hot(therefore closing off the cold side of faucet), cold still comes out. Not every faucet is like that. If the main hot water valve is off and you turn to hot, you should get nothing on older faucets.
 
Last edited:
I've not seen it on a kitchen faucet, but all tub/shower valves are now required to have a "hot limit stop" or a "anti-scalding" mixer. It's often an adjustable ring which blocks the cold side from completely shutting off.

As you suggest, it is meant to prevent burning.
 
I've not seen it on a kitchen faucet, but all tub/shower valves are now required to have a "hot limit stop" or a "anti-scalding" mixer. It's often an adjustable ring which blocks the cold side from completely shutting off.

As you suggest, it is meant to prevent burning.

Good call. I agree. That did not occur to me before. Makes since.
Sometimes one tries to think to deep into what might be the cause of something. :cool:

If you have a single handle turned all they way to hot,
The limit prevents you from going 100% hot and no cold being mixed in.
With a limiter, you will always have some cold mixing when turned all the way to hot.

Also with the low flow aerator the volume of flow may not be noticeable.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top