Text size:

Taking a cold (or hot!) shower

House Doctor | Gary Dymski

March 3, 2005

We have been having a problem with the water temperature in our shower. Once we have it at a comfortable temperature, it either gets boiling hot or freezing cold. We've made sure that no one is using the water at the same time, but it doesn't matter. We don't have a water heater, and we just installed a larger expansion tank, hoping that that would solve the problem.

-- Janet V., Brookhaven

In hydronic heating systems, water temperature for domestic use - for taking showers and washing dishes - should not be the same as the temperature for heating the house. Ask your oil-service technician to install a mixing valve on the boiler. As the name implies, this valve blends hot water and leaves the coil inside the boiler with cold water. What happens is that the domestic hot water can be delivered at a safe temperature to fixtures in the house. If you have a mixing valve on the boiler - and this appears unlikely - remember it can be adjusted to increase or decrease water temperature.

House Doctor Recent columns

E-mail

Reprint

Taking a cold (or hot!) shower

Related topic galleries: Town of Brookhaven

Great Long Island Tomato Challenge

Popular stories