Fun with plumbing

[Draper Mel]

Not really.

So I moved into the garden apartment in a building owned by my nephew and his mom. They inherited it from her dad after he died.

That was December 8. Since then, I've had next to no hot water. What happens is I turn it on, it warms up, stays that way for maybe a minute and then gets cool again. This is happening in both sinks, kitchen and bathroom, and the shower.

At first we thought maybe it was because somebody did laundry. But it happens at any time of day. We tried making sure the water heater was turned up; they were both up as far as they would go.

There are actually two water heaters. One is for my unit (garden apartment) and the unit on the first floor (Grandpa's apartment, nobody lives there) and the laundry room, the other is for the second floor.

As far as we can determine, the water heater for my apartment is the one that is only 6 years old. The other day my nephew and his heating guy Tim come over to see if they can figure things out. They turn the water on in the utility sink in the laundry room.

The water is, as Tim put it "smoking hot." Like, water heater turned all the way up hot, don't touch it or you'll scald the skin off your hand hot. Which means the water heater is fine.

So, Tim turned the water heaters down to where they should be and suggested that my nephew come back and spend a couple hours combing the place looking for a valve that may be causing cross flow. Somehow there's cold water getting into the hot water and we're not sure how.

But he suspects he'll have to come back with his sawz-all and start cutting holes to look for the cause of this.

Thankfully, I've been able to shower at work. But doing the dishes in cold water sucks.

[houdini]

Tip for the dishes: boil the kettle to medium hot and tip that into a bowl/jug. Dunk whatever you use to clean dishes in it (scotch pads for us), and drizzle the washing up liquid on the plate (if a large item) or the cloth (if cutlery etc). Scrub item, using the suds to get most of the dirt off. Re-dip and re-drizzle as often as you need to. Then rinse the plates etc under cold water.

We had no hot water for two weeks...ended up showering in our local gym!

[csquared]

There should be a shutoff valve on the hot water near the tank. Turn it off. Then turn on the hot water in your apartment. If you still get water, there is definitely a cross over.

If it was a sink with a bad valve, the volume of water would not drop the temp that much. It is probably a big valve (tub or shower). Can you shutoff the water to the empty apartment? That will help narrow the search.