Hi,

Great site... I have a Symmons Temptrol shower faucet in 2 bathrooms. One of them works great, we have a hot water tankless furnace and you can take a shower forever in that one without the water cooling off. All of the faucets/appliances and the other shower keep hot water for as long as I've tested them. This one faucet in one shower however, turns on hot, then gradually gets cooler and cooler over just a few minutes, even with the handle turned all the way to hot. I have replaced the entire spindle assembly (T-9 and T-10) brand new, but it didn't change at all. The only thing left in the housing is the hot/cold seats, but I wouldn' think that would effect the water gradually becoming cold, since the "mixing" is done in the spindle assembly.

I should mention, that the house is 4 years old, I purchased 1 year ago and installed a water softner as a result of hard water problems. I believed this could have resulted in a blockage in the spindle assembly, but like I said, have replaced.

I have searched other similar question, but all answers seem to be the spindle assemble (or cartridge). Any ideas as to what else it could be, or if I'm off my rocker and the hot/cold seats really could be causing this problem. Thanks a bunch!

Hi Twood...

I'm more than familiar with this valve and if replacing the cartridge didn't work then we need to look at your other single handle faucets/valves, OK?

Is the faucet in the bathroom a single lever faucet? If so, turn the cold water supply to the faucet off at the shutoff under the sink and then test the shower valve to see how long hot water lasts. If there is a significant improvement then the mixing cartridge in the faucet needs to be replaced... ;)

If there is no change I still want you to test other single handle faucets in the house this way and check to see if things improved at the shower valve. Once you find the faucet causing the issue you will know which cartridge to replace.

It could even be the other shower, but that is a last resort to test because, most of the time, shut offs aren't installed on these so the only real way to test the cartridge is to swap it out. Hold off on this until all other possibilities are exhausted, OK?

Pop back and let me know how you are making out with this, OK?

Mark

PS: I'll be out to work today but will check back on this tonight!

Hi Mark, thanks for getting back so quick. The sink faucet in the bathroom is dual lever. We have 5 sinks in the house and they're all dual lever. The only single lever faucets in the house are the 2 showers, both single lever Symmons Temptrol faucets. And the other shower actually works great, can take a hot shower all day long.

Do you think it could be the hot/cold seats in the shower faucet that doesn't work? Also, I can pull the brand new cartidge I just installed, out of the problem faucet, replace with the original and install the new cartridge in the working shower faucet to eliminate that as a supsect?

Again, thanks Mark!

--Trevor

I just can't see how seats would have anything to do with this, but you never know, I guess?

My first thought is to ask you to double check cross connections in the house? Maybe you have a single lever washing machine valve, or maybe you have a hot and cold water pipe going to an outside faucet or outside shower or something else? Maybe not...

My next thought is to have you swap the cartridges... pretty quick and easy to do, as you know... ;)

Otherwise, my final thought is for you to call Symmons industries technical department and see what they think on this...

Keep me posted, OK?

Replace the seat might be clogged up

Hi Mhelman...

I fail to see how a clogged seat could cause the issues mentioned here. Sure, a clogged seat/valve would cause flow issues, but it wouldn't cause issues with temperature fluctuations as above... that is what the temperature balancing spool is for.

As I suggested, replace the spindle assembly. It is also a good idea to change out the seats at this time, but only because the valve is disassembled at this time and it will guarantee a lasting repair... ;)

Mark