ONLY showers not hot

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Danhome

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So I had a plumber redo our main line w copper and replaced the pressure regulator.

Now both showers don't get hot. They get Luke warm. The sinks and the kitchen sink all get hot. Only the showers for both bathrooms don't get hot.

I have a tankless so i thought maybe that was the issue. But since the sinks get hot.

Any ideas???
 

Danhome

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several of them but would have to be there to do my own testing to see which one applies to your situation.
Would you be able to let me know if a few thoughts you might have? The only thing that was changed was the Main line and regulator. Now both showers don't get hot, which leads me to think it's not a shower cartridge or anti-scalding issue.
 

Smooky

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What type of shower valves do you have? The shower valve may have limit adjusters that you can adjust to how hot they get. You may need to re-adjust them to make the shower hotter.
 
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Jadnashua

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Did you recently install the tankless system? If so, what do you have set as the outlet temperature? Many people set it lower than they would with a tank. I agree with Smooky...first thing I'd try is to readjust the high temperature limiter in your shower valves. This is likely a situation where a thermostatically controlled valve might eliminate this issue, since it will automatically adjust the hot/cold mix to get the temperature you want. A typical single-handle shower valve will have a limit stop, and if it was set for a storage tank, will almost certainly need to be readjusted so you can get more hot water into the mix for an acceptable shower. Throw in a really low-limit showerhead, and you may not be getting enough volume to turn the tankless on until you adjust the limit stop. An industry standard max flow head should work fine, but some people opt for really low-flow ones, and one of those might not until you up the hot water volume through the valve.
 

Danhome

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I don't know what type of valves I have. There's a knob to set the temperature. So I've never change that. I just turn it on and off with another tiny lever.

The tankless has been there for several years. The only change was to redo the main line. And replace regulator. The temp is set to 120F.

I don't think it's a flow issue that is not triggering the tankless cause the tub faucet also doesn't get hot. Just warm. And it turns on strong.
 

Plumber01

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I'm going to guess clogged or faulty shower valve cartridges. The main line to the house was replaced? Doesn't take much more than a bit of dirt, sediment or copper shavings to clog up fixtures. Pull the cartridges and look.
 

Danhome

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I'm going to guess clogged or faulty shower valve cartridges. The main line to the house was replaced? Doesn't take much more than a bit of dirt, sediment or copper shavings to clog up fixtures. Pull the cartridges and look.
The only reason I thought it might not be a cartridge issue is because both showers were affected
 

Jadnashua

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Some valves come with an inlet filter, and when changing pipes, that can release a bunch of crud and potentially clog or restrict flow. What you might want to try is to remove the cartridge, and carefully, have someone turn on the hot water at the supply to see what volume you get (it will be messy...don't get scaled with the hot water or spray it everywhere - I did say carefully!). You'll know pretty quickly if the line is clogged. If it isn't, then it's likely that the cartridge is clogged up. It's also possible, but not as likely, that the spool valve (if your design has one at all) may have been jammed to one end and is now stuck. On many designs, that will shut off both the hot and cold, but not all. Modern shower valves do not like it when there's not pressure at both the hot and cold inlets.
 

Danhome

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I can turn the temperature up and down. When all the way down, it's completely cold. Turned all the way up, it goes to luke warm. Never hot. So i can change the temp. Just can't get it hot.

As mentioned before it's a valve type with a temperature knob. I never usually touch this. I wish I could figure out what brand it is. I can't seem to find it anywhere.
 

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Jadnashua

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It looks like that is not a thermostatically controlled valve, but one with a separate temperature control...so, it will still have a limit stop adjustment. But, if there's an obstruction on the hot inlet, that will make things just worse.
 

Danhome

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It looks like that is not a thermostatically controlled valve, but one with a separate temperature control...so, it will still have a limit stop adjustment. But, if there's an obstruction on the hot inlet, that will make things just worse.
That's why I was thinking it wasn't that because the other shower has the same valve and they are behaving the same. I was wondering if it could be a pressure related issue. Possibly with the tankless or how the pipes are crossed. But I'm no expert. And perhaps not a tankless heater issue since the sinks get hot.
 

Reach4

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Check the lav hot water temperature while the not-hot shower is running.
 

Reach4

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Sorry I don't get it. :(
So if the lav water is hot during a not-hot shower, the problem is probably not the on-demand water heater or something before that limiting the availability of hot water. This presumes that the hot flow from the lav faucet is not significantly reduced when you run the hot shower.

Continue to look to the shower controls.

Had the lav run lukewarm during the hot shower attempt, then you could have looked at something preventing the on-demand hot water tank from delivering enough hot water during the shower.
 

Jadnashua

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Read this thread

https://terrylove.com/forums/index....emperature-limit-stop-on-shower-valves.64760/

and watch some of the videos, and it will give you an idea of what to look for on your specific valve. If it were a thermostatically controlled valve, and it wasn't a clogged line restricting flow, it would have some sort of markings on the knob to indicate water temperature, and internally, it would also have a calibration, similar to a pressure balanced valve's limit stop, but not exactly the same.
 

Danhome

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Thank you jad. I watched the the videos. They all seem to have a physical limiter that requires the cap to be removed in order to adjust it. Is it possible that ours could have adjusted on their own? No right?

Also. Some addl info: this morning my wife and I took a shower st the same time. It was slightly warmer than before but still not close to what should be. Then after a few minutes, it cooled down a bit. Then when she turned her shower off, my shower got much warmer, still not to where it should be, but warmer.

I'm still so confused what's happening.
 

Jadnashua

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By changing your piping, you changed the available volume of water available...upsetting the balance. So, while you may not have changed the valve, something has changed the balance between your hot and cold supplies. That could be the repipe released some crud that is now stuck in the valve somewhere limiting maximum flow, or there was enough change that you're now getting much more cold, and you can't add enough hot. Note, since a shower head won't flow the max the lines can, limiting flow on say the hot may not mean it dropped enough to notice a change in pressure, but it may have been enough to change the balance. Just like any valve with separate hot/cold valves...the outlet temp is dependent on two things: the actual temperature of the water on each side, and the ratio of hot:cold. If something's limiting how much hot you can get, you'll not get it as hot as you want (assuming the hot supply is actually hot) or the cold is not especially colder than when it was working properly. Where I live, my incoming cold water temperature can vary nearly 50-degrees between summer and winter. An actual thermostatically controlled valve works well for me...I rarely change it, summer/winter, but would have to if it were a more common one that uses manually controlled volume controls for the temperature. Because those changes occur slowly as the seasons change, you probably don't notice it as the day-to-day differences are so slight.
 
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