Good afternoon -

I woke up this morning to discover that the 3 showers in my townhouse have only cold water (2 on the 3rd floor one in the basement/1st floor). The sinks in all of these bathrooms, the kitchen, etc still have very hot water but when I turn on the hot water faucet in the showers only cold water comes out.

What would cause this? I saw other posts regarding clogs but there is cold water coming through the shower with just the hot control on. I checked the area where the hot water tank is and do not see any leaks in pipes or oddities that stood out. My confusion is that it is all 3 showers but the sinks in those same locations are fine.. would there be separate piping for the showers vs. sinks? The townhouse is in Maryland and was built in the 70's.

I have been in the house for almost 2 years and this just suddenly happened so I thought before calling a plumber to come out I would see if it was something I could takle.

Thanks for your help or thoughts!

HI Keskugi...

There certainly could be separate piping for the showers. In my state, for example, they don't require separate piping but they do require shower valves that have temperature limiting devices so we can control maximum temperature to 115F max. at a shower. The rest of the home is limited to 125F.

Your state may require that a TEMPERING VALVE be installed at the water heater and then the tempered water goes only to showers and regular hot goes out to the rest of the house... certainly could be. Here, if you have a tempering valve the internal ELEMENT could be defective and will need to be replaced.

Look around the water heater and see if you can find a tempering valve... usually looks similar to the image below, although there are many other models, OK?

Although unlikely, another thought was that the showers might be on a recirculating hot water line and maybe the circulator is down. Any small circulators located on the hot water piping anywhere?

Let me know more here...

Mark

Mark -

Thank you so much for the quick and HELPFUL response!

You were absolutely on point with my problem! I replaced the whole thing tonight and now have hot water again, Yahoo!

Thanks again!
Gina

P.s. being able to call dad back in PA and tell him I fixed it all by myself after getting your lead... priceless :)

Hey hey! Glad if I was helpful... :) Thank you for taking the time to update us!

Mark