PlumbingNewbie34
Member
Hi everyone! I live in a condo (I own my own unit on the 6th floor). The building is maybe 25-30 years old, and hot water is included with the maintenance fee—I don't have a hot water meter or anything, just in case that's relevant.
Since I moved in last summer, the bathroom has had unreliable hot water, where sometimes it gets warm, sometimes hot, sometimes just room temperature. The shower has always been worse than the bathroom sink. My kitchen sink has never had this issue, as it's on a different pipe/riser/whatever. Sorry, total plumbing amateur here. I reported the issue to the building's management, and they had a lot of units above and below me replace their shower cartridges (and mine) to try and solve the problem. Since then, the bathroom sink now has hot water whenever I need it, but the shower only gets warm and not hot. The temperature doesn't fluctuate like it used to, though.
Under my bathroom sink, there is a hot water valve and a cold water valve that controls the bathroom sink and shower's water supply. As an experiment, I completely shut the cold water off and then tested the hot water pressure—when I turn the bathroom sink on (on the hot side), a strong and steady supply of hot water pours out. But when I turn on the shower to hot, a very small amount of hot water comes out. This clearly has something to do with why the shower doesn't get hot water in general. I have added a link to the video I took below. Do any of you have any guesses as to what the problem could be? My apartment management is really taking their sweet time with figuring out the issue, and I'm pretty frustrated and curious. Could the problem be solved by me or something?
VIDEO:
Since I moved in last summer, the bathroom has had unreliable hot water, where sometimes it gets warm, sometimes hot, sometimes just room temperature. The shower has always been worse than the bathroom sink. My kitchen sink has never had this issue, as it's on a different pipe/riser/whatever. Sorry, total plumbing amateur here. I reported the issue to the building's management, and they had a lot of units above and below me replace their shower cartridges (and mine) to try and solve the problem. Since then, the bathroom sink now has hot water whenever I need it, but the shower only gets warm and not hot. The temperature doesn't fluctuate like it used to, though.
Under my bathroom sink, there is a hot water valve and a cold water valve that controls the bathroom sink and shower's water supply. As an experiment, I completely shut the cold water off and then tested the hot water pressure—when I turn the bathroom sink on (on the hot side), a strong and steady supply of hot water pours out. But when I turn on the shower to hot, a very small amount of hot water comes out. This clearly has something to do with why the shower doesn't get hot water in general. I have added a link to the video I took below. Do any of you have any guesses as to what the problem could be? My apartment management is really taking their sweet time with figuring out the issue, and I'm pretty frustrated and curious. Could the problem be solved by me or something?
VIDEO: