upstairs shpwer won't get hot unless basement tub hot water is turned on

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travis cory

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please forgive me if i am not explaining this properly. i am definitely not a plumber!

our upstairs shower in our bathroom does not get hot water unless we turn on the hot water faucet on the tub in our basement. we thought the basement shower was the culprit and was mixing hot/cold water and had both the hot and cold water capped. is their an easy fix to this now that the problem seems to be with the tubs fixtures? Thank you in advance!
 
I am not sure I understand your question. You say that the hot and cold are capped, but then you say you have to turn on the hot faucet in the tub.

Are you talking about an actual faucet (handles to turn it on and off would be inside the tub), or are you referring to a valve on the pipes that lead to that tub?

If you are referring to a valve, perhaps that pipe serves both the upstairs and downstairs, and shutting off that valve prevents hot water from going upstairs.

One more question, in case that is not your problem... does ANY water come out of the upstairs shower when you ONLY turn on the hot in that shower?
 
thank you for responding!
the basement shower hot and cold pipes are capped
the actual (stand alone) hot water faucet on the tub is turned on. i just turn it on enough for a low stream to flow out
the bedroom shower has a pullout hot/cold handle. it has a new cartridge so it is definitely not the problem.
question is why does the water get hot in the upstairs shower and sinks only when the hot water is turned on on the tub in the basement?
 
Hi Travis,
You are really not a skilled story teller or explainer of details. Just saying.

jeffmattero76 asked you a few specific questions, but your answers are kind of vague and rambling.

Meanwhile, this seems too obvious to be correct, but maybe the upstairs bathroom water finally gets hot because you are letting the basement tub hot side valve run first, to drain the cooler water between the water heater and the upstairs bath.

There can be a lot of water contained in the house piping, between a basement water heater and an upper floor bathroom. All that water will cool down, and it all has to dump out, before you get fully heated water.

Unless you have a recirculation system. If you do, maybe that is set up wrong, or the pump is turned off or dead.
 
Your shower head likely only puts out 2 or 2.5 gallons a minute. Maybe less.

So you have to wait a good while for the cooler water in your pipes to get up and out, from the basement.

Meanwhile, your basement tub valve is meant to be much higher flow, to quickly fill up a tub. So even at what seems like a small stream, it is probably putting out more water than you realize.
 
What type water heater do you have? Is it a tankless heater?
Your shower head likely only puts out 2 or 2.5 gallons a minute. Maybe less.

So you have to wait a good while for the cooler water in your pipes to get up and out, from the basement.

Meanwhile, your basement tub valve is meant to be much higher flow, to quickly fill up a tub. So even at what seems like a small stream, it is probably putting out more water than you realize.
 
What type water heater do you have? Is it a tankless heater?
What type water heater do you have? Is it a tankless heater?
What type water heater do you have? Is it a tankless heater?
What type water heater do you have? Is it a tankless heater?
What type water heater do you have? Is it a tankless heater?
Are you Stuttering or are you keyboard keys sticking or something? Or are you expecting an immediate response?
 
Are you Stuttering or are you keyboard keys sticking or something? Or are you expecting an immediate response?
Probably a funny thing in his connection. Doesn't give him the feedback that his post has been received, so he tried again. Who knows.

I also suspect that the water line to the tub below is the first part of the journey up to the shower above. If the shower above were turned on for 20 minutes and still no hot water, THAT would be weird, especially if it would subsequently work below in normal short order.

Also, Travis, not sure what you mean by: "the basement shower hot and cold pipes are capped." What procedure did you go through to do this?
 
IMG_7272.JPG IMG_7273.JPG IMG_7274.JPG to Jeff Handy and anyone else, again, my apologies for not being clear in my explanation of what's going on. i will go into a bit more detail and history of what's going on. so please bear with me:)
we have a 3 level home. the water in our master bdrm shower would only stay hot for about 3 minutes so we thought the hot water heater was going out. that was not the case according to the 2 different plumbers we had come in. they stated that we had a problem with the hot and cold water mixing at one of the other faucets in the house. after trial and error-turning on and off water supplies, hot and cold faucets etc, we finally discovered that the culprit seemed to be the shower in the basement. it was one of those scandinavian designed multi port showers with a single hot/cold control handle. when that shower was turned on to hot, the upstairs shower water was now hot. It was determined that the mixing valve (sorry if my terminology is wrong) in the basement shower hot/cold handle had gone bad. we had that shower panel removed and capped the hot and cold pipes. Thought the problem was solved, but it turned out that it was not. Now we need to turn on the hot water faucet in the basement tub to have the hot water in the upstairs shower function normally. We had the basement finished off in 2004, so everything has been functioning normally for 15 years until this situation in the last month or so. I am attaching pictures of the capped shower, bathtub faucets and the removed shower assembly. If anyone wants to chat on the phone about this, I'll be happy to message you my phone number. I'm much better verbally than in writing:)
 
The Feds are pbly onto you, intercepting all your communications.

That Piggly Wiggly delivery van outside is crammed with Men In Black types.

Or, maybe not, haha!
 

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