Because it is hard to make a cheap valve that has a wide mixing 'sweet spot'.
Rich people showers don't have this problem
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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The cartridge is likely bad. They get clogged up with lime scale over time and start to perform worse and worse. Either replace the cartridge or the whole faucet itself.
You should just move to a more tropical area. Where I live, I only ever use the "Cold" tap and sometimes, even that is too warm.
That's how it is for me in the summer, and Jersey ain't exactly tropical. But it's kinda nice being able to just turn on the shower and get in. The cold water is likecold in the summers, and it's usually humid, so a shower with no hot water ends up very refreshing.
Probably American build.
Yep, if China had products at this quality and price point muricans would never shut up.
I could've sworn there was a Seinfeld bit about the shower temperatures being sensitive when you adjust the tap but I can't find it now
...yes, that used to be a thing before thermostatic valves were commonplace...
Yeah I really thought the bit would come up easily. I can hear his voice saying something like "a million degrees" or "hotter than the surface of the sun". It probably also started with the classic "what's the deal with..." that he used.
Okay I'm gonna be real. I didn't understand the meme at first and thought you were showing a melted door handle and the guy in the meme was trying to melt another door handle with his mind
I was fully prepared to read a bunch of comments about how are door handles so sensitive to heat due to their metallic composition and how you absolutely cannot melt things with your mind that the actual comments tripped me
Warm 👏 thoughts 👏 can't 👏 melt 👏 steel 👏 knobs 👏
You need at least the heat of your hand to melt metals. Or at least at least the heat of a cold but not cold wave winter day.
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They're so sensitive because the person who installed them didn't care enough to adjust the regulator. If this bothers you, you can take the handle off yourself with an allen wrench and adjust the valve so that when you turn it on, it's the perfect temperature for you every time.
This is a great idea if you are the only one using your shower. If you have 4 family members, each of whom likes a different shower temperature, it is less ideal. I think controls that allow separate on/off and hot/cold dimensions are best for most scenarios.
From my understanding when I fixed mine, when you adjust it it just makes for a more gradual heat change
Yes, but this wastes water, so if you're trying to be green, you should be able to open up the valve to full hot.
Not only does it waste water, your shower will take longer to heat up.
Also, depending on where you live the perfect temperature changes a lot because of outside temperatures. If you use all the room temperature water in your cold lines then start pulling cold water from the outside. You're going to have to adjust it. Bigger the house, the more the problem.
But if you have to dump out your entire hot and cold lines to even begin to step in the shower, that's a ton of wasted water.
Answer is a thermostatic valve. It will just use hot water until it needs to mix in cold. If your cold water temperature changes, it will adjust it automatically. You really do pick a temperature to set the valve at, and then the handle just controls the flow rate.
The regular for a standard mixing valve is there only so you can't turn the valve to burn you. When people keep their water tanks at 160°F, a full turn to the left would be devastating if you're standing in it.
That's 70ºC, 49ºC (120ºF) is usually plenty hot enough and the recommended temperature. It can actually cause burns with long enough direct exposure at 50, 70 is madness.
In the US the standard safety temperature for the water heater is 120° F
You don't need it higher than that unless you have a small tank and use a lot of it. Tankless is 120°F.
I don't know where you got 70°C from.
You said:
When people keep their water tanks at 160°F
That's 70ºC and I'm agreeing that it is a ridiculously high temperature to keep a water tank at. That's instant second degree burn temperatures, completely unsafe.
Ohh I see now.
Yeah 160° is too hot. But people do it. Small tank multiple showers needed. You can stretch it.
I was saying for people that have their water too hot. The regulator inside the US mixing valve has a stopper so you can't go to max hot. That's all the piece inside does, stops you from turning the valve more. Doesn't help reglate the temperature. Someone in comments said their regulator is bad and I thought it was OP.
I keep mine at 145, because I fear legionella.
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Observe while I shower comfortably with:
When I first moved to Japan over twenty years ago they were already about a hundred years ahead of typical US toilet/bath technology. For me, using one of these faucets where you can just set the temperature by number was like Liko getting beamed from her hut directly onto the damn Enterprise.
Growing up in rural France, we had these at home for as far as I can remember. They may not have been the norm 30 years ago, but at least common.
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Yes, but that is not a fair comparison, these are European.
This technology is only possible with degree Celsius. It is impossible to adapt to degree Fahrenheit.
Except British homes which have two separate showerheads, one fully hot and the other fully cold.
The trick is to spin.
British when straight into inventing the radar and completely skipped over the invention of warm water.
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In seriousness, it’s often about water pressure and how your hot water is fed. If you have very high water pressure normally but a solar hot water system where gravity and input pressure play a role, you’ll naturally have an imbalance on hot and cold. When you turn the handle on the shower you’re lining up two holes in the shower cartridge (in the handle) with the two hot and cold water pipes, the resulting mix comes out a third hole which feeds the shower head. As you turn the handle, one hole opening gets smaller and the other bigger- thereby changing the ratio of hot : cold. When you already have a huge pressure of cold water pumping in, the degree of rotation needed to go from warm/almost just right to PURE HOT WATER is minuscule. Usually the cold will stay pretty cold for about half of the handle range of motion too.
If water input pressure being high is a problem you can put a reducing valve on your system overall or you can buy Venturi style pumps which add pressure into your hot water system.
You’ll normally find when it’s pressure imbalance that it’s easier to balance the temp when the tap isn’t open full bore. But who wants a weak-ass shower stream!!
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Weird.
I saw "melts tungsten" and my brain decided this was in German.
Fun fact: the german word for tungsten is Wolfram
Wolfram alpha suddenly makes even less sense
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Set your water heater lower. Like: make sure it's above 120 at all times (130+ preferably) to prevent legionnaire's, but 140 is PLENTY for most home uses. And it means you get a bigger range to move your mixer taps to.
That's Fahrenheit right? Or are you suggesting 100+ Celsius?
Your water heaters don't have a "Steam Blast" setting? How do your bidets even work? Do they just dribble cool water on your anus? How weird.
It's Kelvin
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