We just moved in about 2 months ago. Almost nothing in the apartment works properly even though this is a new luxury building! The apartment is on the first floor, and we suspect that it was originally suppose to be a community room but the landlord decided to make it an apartment instead. There's nothing below us except the basement. The building has 7 floors with 2 apartments on each floor, (except for the penthouse). The water temperature in the kitchen sink, bathroom sink and bathtub can't be adjusted. If it's too hot, and you try to make it just a little cooler, it becomes ice cold!

Sometimes it does other things. It may stay warm or even hot for a while... and then get too cool to shower with, or just stay luke-warm.

There are 2 tankless water heaters in the apartment. One for the kitchen, (kitchen sink and the dishwasher), and one for the bathroom, (bathroom sink, bathtub, shower, washer and dryer). And actually, I'm not sure if the dishwasher heats its own water, and I'm donno if the washing machine heats its own water as well.

I don't think the person who's supposed to be the plumber is really a plumber. These workers never seem to know what they're doing. They replaced the water heaters but there was no change in the stability of the water temperature. About a week after we moved in, the original shower head, ("American Standard, Rain,"), was switched out for a dual arrangement so I'd have a hand-held shower head. (I'm physically disabled, and need to sit down in the shower and use the hand-held. I can't use the wall-mounted shower head.) Both my wife and I could not use the shower at all at first. But when the super put the original head back, at least my wife could use the shower! It "sort of" worked! But nothing else did! So they came back and replaced, (or maybe just fiddled with), the bathroom water-heater, so maybe I would be able to use a hand-held, but now, EVEN THE ORIGINAL SHOWER HEAD DOESN'T WORK! :) What are these NON-PLUMBERS missing??

I didn't hear any one of the workers call each other Larry, Moe or Curly, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's who they really were. :(

I'm not a plumber. And I suspect neither are any of those guys. The problem seems to be the kind of thing that only a real plumber, (and a really GOOD one), could ever solve! Does anyone on this site have any idea what could be going on with the water in our apartment? All the other apartments in the building are having similar problems. Apparently, Moe, Larry, and Curly built this place too.

Please help! I haven't taken a shower for I donno how long! My skin is breaking down and becoming infected! In a LUXURY building!! The courts here in New York are corrupt. We can't go there. If someone here could give us an idea as to what's wrong with the water here, maybe all this could go away?

Thanks in advance for any help.

While I empathize with your plight... as inconvenient as it might be... sponge baths are better than nothing at all for the short term.

Are these single handle faucets?

I'm guessing they are...and guessing the anti-scald feature needs adjusted as its probably set for the coldest position now. Tankless heaters need a certain minimum flow rate to come on and I suspect that it only meets that when turned to full hot or nearly full hot....causing an all or nothing situation.

I also suspect its possible the tankless heaters (the only two I've had experience with were natural gas type and did have numerous settings) might need some adjustments also.

Also if this is your first place with tankless water heaters....they do take some getting used to. A lot of it as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure if this is any help but see if you can call another plumber. It sound like you have more of a problem with the knobs and how much water they let into the shower head, than with the water heater. I'm not sure but it's a possibility.

Everything in the apartment is single-handle. The water heaters are electric. After the last time they worked on things, it seemed that the wall-mounted shower head produced reasonably hot water constantly like it did before they came to work on things about 2 days ago. But today, the shower water is cold, even if we turn the handle all the way toward hot. And it stays cold... for ever!

I read in a few places that there's something inside of faucets and shower heads that mixes the water so you can choose the exact temperature you want... and that's why the original wall-mounted shower-head worked before, when nothing else did. Could this be true?


Even though I told them to turn the water heaters all the way up, I don't think they did that. Because the heaters WERE turned up hi before, and when they were up hi, they made a strange "motor" sound when the water was on. Now there's no more sound.

Everything in the apartment is single-handle. The water heaters are electric. After the last time they worked on things, it seemed that the wall-mounted shower head produced reasonably hot water constantly like it did before they came to work on things about 2 days ago. But today, the shower water is cold, even if we turn the handle all the way toward hot. And it stays cold... for ever!

I read in a few places that there's something inside of faucets and shower heads that mixes the water so you can choose the exact temperature you want... and that's why the original wall-mounted shower-head worked before, when nothing else did. Could this be true?


Even though I told them to turn the water heaters all the way up, I don't think they did that. Because the heaters WERE turned up hi before, and when they were up hi, they made a strange "motor" sound when the water was on. Now there's no more sound.

That's the anti scald feature I mentioned... and yes they do always need set as they are set almost full cold when they are built. Different flow rates between hot and cold as well as different temperatures between the two mean they will always have to be set based on the conditions where they are installed.

They have been around so long and are so common I would have expected any plumber that's been on the job more than a few days would have come across at least one. I'm not a plumber but my father taught me how to do plumbing work at 16 and have never paid a plumber on the 39 years since.

Its also possible since it's a new construction... some debris might have caused full or partial clogging of the cartridges in the other ones as well as that would explain what you are seeing at the sinks... where I would doubt there would be anti-scald features.


It could also explain a lot of what you were seeing.

I think you did a fairly good job describing the problem... and I concur they should have understood you assuming they aren't hampered by a language barrier.

I've also personally seen far too many people working in fields they are far from being knowledgeable in, much less experts in. And I've also fixed far too many problems for neighbors and friends that were only half fixed by plumbers they paid sometimes several times to fix the same problem. That's not to disparage all of them....there are many very knowledgeable guys out there, and its the ones that aren't that draw all the attention. Its true in every job sector.

It could be any of the following your description...

Faulty circulator (if present)
Missing check valve
Flow rate is too low

With this being a new building, no matter what it is, the local plumbing inspector passed your unit as OK, and he needs to know about this problem because he signed off on it and interestingly that really makes this his problem! Here, he is supposed to use a thermometer and confirm that each tub/shower has a water temperature that does not exceed 115F and all other fixtures to the home run at a temperature not to exceed 125F.

Call the local plumbing inspector and talk to him... that should get the ball rolling a bit!

Mark

You are a renter/leaser, therefore bound by whatever your lease agreement is. All complaints should be in writing with YOU retaining a copy. If the building manager cannot give you satisfaction within a reasonable time, then you go to whomever he answers to. Your location and applicable local laws are what matters. Document everything including the results of any maintenance visit. Tedious and frustrating but that's the process governed by your lease agreement.

Google tenants rights, and your zip code, and get an outline of how you go about navigating this process. It's really up to the building manager to get the right people to solve your complaints, NOT YOU. That's why he gets paid the big bucks!

Good luck.

Shower Head is only a water dispenser. It has nothing to do with fluctuation of hot and cold water.

Do you have the same hot / cold water problem in the sink, in that same bathroom ?

There maybe cold-to-hot water crossover somewhere, malfunctioning check valve or bad temperature balancing device inside the shower faucet. It should be relatively easy to find the problem by somebody who knows what to do

Milo