Ask Me Help Desk - Lukewarm water in condo

I am a condo unit owner. There are about 95 units in the building. I am on the first floor in the corner. The garage is below me and I am near the exterior walls on the side of my unit. I did not have any problems with hot water until about a month ago. The whole building had no hot water. They claimed it was fixed but the maintenance person said that one of four boilers is not working. I get cold water but my hot water is only lukewarm. The maintenance person checked my entire unit and all 4 faucets do the same thing. He turned up the temperature for the building from 125 to 130. It improved for a while but now is lukewarm again. He claims no one else is complaining and that it is a plumbing problem within my unit that is my responsibility to fix. This does not sound right to me considering I the water heater is not specific to my unit.

I would have the Condo Board force the maintenance person to come back and pinpoint the problem. Do you have hot water entering your unit? Any plumbing work done recently? Regards, tom

Quote:

Originally Posted by jensimms72

I am a condo unit owner. There are about 95 units in the building. I am on the first floor in the corner. The garage is below me and I am near the exterior walls on the side of my unit. I did not have any problems with hot water until about a month ago. The whole building had no hot water. They claimed it was fixed but the maintenance person said that one of four boilers is not working. I get cold water but my hot water is only lukewarm. The maintenance person checked my entire unit and all 4 faucets do the same thing. He turned up the temperature for the building from 125 to 130. It improved for a while but now is lukewarm again. He claims no one else is complaining and that it is a plumbing problem within my unit that is my responsibility to fix. This does not sound right to me considering I the water heater is not specific to my unit.

The maintenance person is a condo owner. He is not a plumber. I only seem to get lukewarm water coming into my unit. When he turned up the temperature of the water heaters, I got hot water for a while but now it is lukewarm again. I know some plumbing work was done but not the nature of it. The work was done right after everyone in the building could not get any hot water. Thanks.

The best advice I can give you would be to call in a plumber that knows what he's doing. The fact that you only have lukewarm water coming into your unit puts the problem outside your unit and into a common area. This should NOT be done at your expense. For the last 40 years I've been bossing the plumbing in high and mid-raise condos here in the Tampa Bay Area and know a little about condo law. If you had hot water entering your unit and then couldn't get anything but lukewarm water the expense would be on you. But this isn't the case. If the maintenance guy,( who isn't a plumber) attempts to place the expense on you he should take up a hobby and leave the maintenance to people that know what they're doing. Your guy's lost! Regards and let me know how you make out. Tom