Somehow in my house cold water is getting into my hot water lines. Shows up partly in water at taps not hot as should be. Shows up in that shower can turn cold temporarily and then return to hot. How can this be?

Hopefully there is a resident plumber on this forum, but I can share this.

Your water heater has 2 tanks. A small quick recovery tank then a larger tank. Sounds like one of your elements in one of the tanks is out. My husband recently had to replace our larger tanks element.

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Originally Posted by dnlgllghr

Somehow in my house cold water is getting into my hot water lines. Shows up partly in water at taps not hot as should be. shows up in that shower can turn cold temporarily and then return to hot. How can this be??

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Thanks but we just replaced our water heater.

It may be that you have a prv [pressure reducing valve] on the cold side and the hot side and you may need to check pressure. You also may have a crossover on a single handle faucet. Turn them to the cold side but not on. One by one to use the process of elimination to discover which one, or more. You also may have more than one water heater and it is piped where they individually feed the hot line. You also may have a flutter in the actual faucet that causes the hot or cold water to stutter.