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I'm living in a completely new building that was just finished this summer, and have consistently been experiencing water temperature problems. For some reason, the water temperature has never been hot enough since I moved in in August, and it's just been getting worse as the weather gets colder. I set the knob to as high as it will go and it is still not nearly warm enough. I'm not saying that absolutely freezing water is coming out; it's heated water, but it's not hot water. I am not trying to scald my skin off -- I would just like to take a shower and not come out shivering.

I spoke to the accommodation office about it and they said "yeah, we've been hearing that from some people; we'll take a look at the --" (I'm not sure what it was; the hydrostatic valve or something) -- "outside your room and see if that will help". Apparently it was then set to as high as it should go (55˚c/130˚F), but the shower just doesn't get nearly that hot.

I Googled extensively for answers and didn't really find advice for people who didn't have control over their own water heater. A common problem people seem to have is that their water temperature or pressure fluctuates wildly; mine doesn't. The pressure is fine, and the temperature just wavers between wait-this-is-a-bit-hotter-just-a-little-more-would-be-good and just-kidding-I-only-did-that-to-get-your-hopes-up.

Another possibly important thing to note is that my bathroom sink can indeed get scalding, so I'm guessing it isn't a problem with the hot water supply to the flat itself.

I know nothing about showers or plumbing but I want to go to them as informed as possible and suggest things, because it seems a level of incompetence that this cannot be fixed, or that this is a problem in a new building. The office told me that they had gotten "over a dozen" complaints about it, so it's definitely not just me.

What could be causing a shower to not put out hot water when the sink clearly can?

Update: After trying the mixing valve and getting the admin to come try and fix it many times, to no avail, the only thing that would help was running the cold water in the sink at the same time as taking a shower. Which is an unreserved waste of water but there seemed to be no other solution.

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  • What is the flow rate of the hot water from the sink?
    – Walker
    Nov 13, 2014 at 14:16

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If they've already checked everything outside your unit, then the next thing to check is the mixing valve in your shower. Especially since your sink water gets hot enough.

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  • Is this something I can do myself with little trouble? I'm not completely inept but I've never messed with any type of plumbing before. Something like what is detailed in this video? That is the type of shower I have.
    – k-science
    Nov 13, 2014 at 14:18
  • Since it seems that this person is living in an apartment/dorm like situation, he probably is NOT authorized to do anything on the plumbing side or other service things with the building. All he can do is wait for it to be fixed, and if it doesn't get fixed after X amount of days, he/**they** need to complain to way higher ups and demand something is done about it.
    – user24242
    Nov 13, 2014 at 17:40
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Since the plumbing is new, the mixer probably has a shower scald guard in it to prevent the knob from rotating all the way to the left (hot). Adjusting that should in theory allow you to make the shower hotter.

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