[rrathk1]

Background: I recently bought a house, originally built in the 50's, later added on to (not sure when the addition was done.) Previous owners just bought for investment purposes, never lived in it. Noticed after moving in that the hot water is luke warm at best, at all faucets in the house. Reading online, I thought it was a faulty dip tube in the gas water heater so I called out the home warranty people. The plumber said it most likely isn't a faulty dip tube. He then closed the valve for the cold water entering the heater as well as the hot water valve, and proceeded to turn on the hot water at the kitchen sink and cold water came out. His thoughts were that cold and hot water were mixing somewhere. Both showers have 3 separate handles(hot/cold/turn on shower) as opposed to the single handle. All 3 bathroom lavratories have separate hot/cold handles, I do not have a washer/dryer hooked up. Additionally, all 3 toilets have a copper line running from their respective lavaratory water supplies as opposed to having their own dedicated water supply. The inspector said this was most likely done because the original house had galvanized pipes which were corroded and restricting water supply. Any ideas? Sorry for the joe schmow terminology. Thanks in advance!

[Fr_Chuck]

Gas or electric hot water heater,

Has anyone checked to see if there was actually hot water at the heater?

[rrathk1]

Gas
The pipe which carries hot water from the heater to the rest of the house is warm, not hot but warm.
If we close both valves at the water heater, shouldn't that cut off all water to all of the hot taps in the house? As it is now, even though both valves are closed at the heater, we still get cold water from the hot taps.