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I just moved into an apartment and unfortunately after taking my first and only shower there now for three weeks I instantly realized there was something wrong. Within three minutes of showering my hot water turned ice cold. I firstly, notified my landlord, who has since replaced the hot water tank. The problem was still occuring. Continually as you turn the faucet on in the shower you of course at first get cold water coming out then as you turn it slightly more left the three minute lasting hot water comes on as you conintue turning the knob, the catch is that another inch to the left as you turn the water further as you would normally turn it completely to the max hot, the water will completely shut off in mid stream and then as you further turn the knob it will come back on but on to cold. So, therefore the faucet must turn completely left 180 degrees to go to the max hot temperature. After my landlord was notified again that the issue was reoccuring he thought that the heating element in the brand new hot water tank was bad because he claims that he didnt fill the tank up all the way. He has had an electrician look at everything because the tank is electric. My boyfriend seems to think it could be the blender behind the faucet, but my landlord keeps saying it is the hot water tank. I disagree because i do have hot water in my kitchen sink as well as my bathroom sink. Because i have the issues with the faucet in my shower i suspected that the remaining problem was somewhere within the valves or the faucet/blender itself. To make things even more difficult my landlord has yet to call a plumber and has been fixing all of this himself each time. Of course when i test it each time my hot water runs unnoticeably long in both sinks but the shower still only lasts three mins then straight to cold water. Also if i wasnt clear, the hot water only comes on in the shower in one specific spot as you repeatedly turn the knob left to reach max hot temp. Because the shower faucet shuts off as you have it in the middle while it should be running normally this leads me to believe that the underlying problem is somewhere in this area. I am so frustrated at this point because i of course am paying for this and still havenot been able to shower here for three weeks. If by my explanation can you possibly tell me what seems to be the problem

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  • This is really hard to read, and follow along. Please consider editing it, using punctuation and paragraphs.
    – Tester101
    Jan 6, 2015 at 15:57

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If the other fixtures are giving out hot water when the shower is giving out cold water (it's not clear from your description if your tests were concurrent), then the hot water tank is fine and the problem is likely in the mixing valve for the shower. It's possible there's a bad anti-scald setting on the valve, but more than likely you'll just want to have it replaced.

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