# Pressure balancing



## whitey (Mar 17, 2011)

I have a long time customer who is a large property management company that mainly buys very old homes that are or can be converted into a lot of units for college students in the new haven/yale area. Every now and then they get a pain in the ass tenant that keeps complaining that they are getting scalded in the shower due to them being 2/3 handle diverters and a way undersized common cold line going through out the house with an individual water heater for each unit. So the pressure already sucks as it is, now get a few people using water at the same time (AM) and you get no pressure and you get burned..... 

Basically, I get a call, I go there knowing whats happening, see that its not a pressure balanced valve, tell them theres nothing I can do and send them a bill for a service call. Other than installing a one handle diverter, what can I do? Of course they never want to install the one handle valves because of the cost but for whatever reason.....they have me keep going probably to satisfy the tenant which is fine with me, but it doesnt fix anything. While I do enjoy the "free" service calls, I'd rather be able to fix it.

Now the tub in question today was a bear claw tub with that generic 2 handle diverter in it. Usually its those POS free standing 32" showers that a good fart could take down. Does anyone know of any possible product that will help with the pressure balancing problem? I've never heard of anything like this but they are pressing me hard on this one and I know they arent going to go for putting a 1 handle valve in. The only idea I had other than pulling the tub (which they definitely wont want to do because of the type of tub it is) and installing something else with a one handle shower valve would be to build some kind of bull**** wall and put a one handle valve in for the shower only and leave the OG valve for the tub. I think it would an absolute hack job and look like trash but thats about the best I can come up with as I have yet to see something that can fix this. 

Any ideas or prior experience with this?


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## rocksteady (Oct 8, 2008)

http://www.google.com/products/cata...a=X&ei=O0mCTaCfK4uosAOZ67TxAQ&ved=0CF0Q8wIwAA#





















Paul


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

It's irrelevant whether or not the patient wants to hear bad news; the doctor tells them anyway.


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## Widdershins (Feb 5, 2011)

A tempering valve at the HW storage tank will take care of the scalding issues (you can bump up the temp of the stored water in the vessel to 180 to 200 degrees which will aid in recovery and set the tempering valve to 120 degrees) but there will always be a serious drop in pressure/volume during peak hours.

Edit: This path will shorten the life of the vessel.


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## plbgbiz (Aug 27, 2010)

The problem of water changing temperature while showering will never change without installing a pressure balanced shower faucet. Tempering the water down to 120 is not a bad idea (especially for rental property) but it will not address the real problem.


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## plumb nutz (Jan 28, 2011)

[PDF] Precision Plumbing Products
tempera valves. Thermostatic Mixing Valve ASSE 1016 www.pppinc.net*… 
www.pppinc.net/common_files/ima... -


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

Danze makes several 2 and 3 handle pressure balanced mixers that will fit right into those old 2 and 3 handle replacements...

Gotta love New Haven...:laughing:



















Good luck getting the landlord to buy that especially in New Haven...
Just don't tell him the brand or he'll have Hector the Handyman doing them...:yes:


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## smoldrn (Oct 4, 2010)

They used to make an anti scald part that went on the shower arm before the head. I installed a few before they came out with valves.


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## Walt (Mar 12, 2011)

is this customer actually getting "scalded" i am guessing no....that would be a major liability issue you could sell the owner with. have you measured the hot water temp. this is always a good place to start. if too high, that definately should be addressed. i consider it my responsability to make sure the hot water is at a safe operating temp. if the owner turns it up, its now his bag..


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## Walt (Mar 12, 2011)

if you know there is a problem, and the customer wont let you do what you need to remedy it. tell him and dont go back till he lets you fix it right.. he will probably appreciate that and tell you to fix it. you do no one any justice by going back to not remedy the problem, even if you get paid,especially if they are long time customer with re ocurring problem


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## whitey (Mar 17, 2011)

No the tenants arent actually getting scalded, all the HWH's are set at the base setting when we install them, but I know as well as any of you how ****ty it is to take a shower in a non pressure balanced shower with 5 other apartments (I've never lived in a building with that many units but all it takes is 1 toilet flush and 1/4 of your shower is probably screwed) so I can understand why they complain. And its not just one unit or house, I've probably been to 10 different units or more this management company handles where people complain, I cant tell you how many I've been in that have 2/3 handle non pressure balanced valves and the tenants understand whats going on so they dont bother complaining. 

The reason I keep going back and getting paid for it when they know whats going is, because now they can say they had a plumber go there, and theres nothing they can do without spending thousands once I draw up a proposal with a couple options, option 1 being the cheapest because I know they arent going for #'s 2 or 3, they give me the "too much money" look and I'm not going to warranty a garbage job. But now they can show the tenants how much its going to cost and thats just not viable, unless you want the rent to go up of course I'm imagining. Thats where "hector the handyman" comes in, no offense to hector but he doesnt need to carry insurance or pay workmans comp, so I gotta get a little more for my jobs than he does. 

But thank you for the posts, I'm going to have to look into some of those things, I've never heard of any of them. The one thats currently a problem though is on a bear claw so I think that post from rocksteady is going to be more along the lines of what I need, something cheap and effective is needed for this one. 

Thanks. I'll post back when I hear something or get a go ahead...


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## Mags (Mar 11, 2011)

Honeywell AM-1 Pressure balanced/ Thermostatc mixing valve. We are require to use these types of valves here in MA if the soaking tub has a spray attachment. The spray attachment now makes the soaking tub control a shower by code. Its basically a 3 way mixing valve. The cold water would feed the cold water side of your 3 handle tub/ shower valve. You would put a tee on the cold feed line and plumb it to the cold inlet on the mixing valve. Hot water would plumb to the Hot inlet of the mixing valve and the Mix port on the valve would go to the hot connection on the shower valve. You can mount this behind the tub, in the basement if your tub/shower is on the first floor. This will make your old tub valve pressure balanced.


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