Sink and shower faucet problems

[mattsings]

We live in an apartment. Our faucets - more precisely the HOT and COLD water knobs are HOT and COLD to the touch. In the kitchen sink, after doing dishes (time is usually 30 minutes) the hot water knob is HOT to the touch - hot enough that my wife usually uses a towel to turn it off. In the bathroom the shower knobs are warm and cold to the touch - they don't usually get hot, but the bathroom sink knobs both hot and cold get HOT. It's incredibly frustrating and our landlord has sent in a plumber twice now and has no solution.

Naturally, I find this unacceptable, but more frustrating, was the plumbers resignation at not be able to find the source of the issue.

I went to a hardware store and spoke to a person who said that it's a problem with the pipes in building going to my apartment - that they probably cleaned the pipes and left a valve turned all the way in one direction.

My question is:

Does that sound right? Does anyone have any other ideas on what might be causing it?

I do agree with the plumber on one thing which is that a new faucet won't solve the problem.

Please, anyone, if you have any suggestions, let me know.

Thank you!

MATT

[RayV]

30 minutes to wash the dishes? You must have more kids than the Waltons.

The cold water knob in the bathroom sink gets hot? When running just the hot water or when both are on?

I'm not a plumber but it sounds to me like the hot water tank is set too high and your landlord needs a new plumber.

[Doug Kanter]

Are you sure you didn't mistakenly walk into a Radio Shack???

[No]

Like another poster said - The HW heater may be turned up too high. Get a thermometer and check the temp of the water after a few minutes of running just the hot. It should not be hotter than 120 degrees or so. if it is its a potential safety hazard if you have small kids. Your landlord may want it that hot for reasons beyond safety. Do you share a HW heater or have a dedicated one? if you have your own then see if you can turn it down a bit.

[Goedjn]

Well, a more expensive knob&faucet set on the sink, esp. one with longer stems and plastic handles, will probably not conduct as much heat between the handles and the pipes. But while that addresses the symptom you asked about, it doesn't address the real problem.

Almost certainly the hot water supply is too hot. If you run the hot water with no cold water, is the result too hot to touch? You probably don't want any hot water fitting delivering water that's more than 50 Degree Centigrade (120F). Depending on where your hot water comes from, you may not be able to fix that. If not, or possibly even if so, you probably want an anti-scald valve upstream of the kitchen sink. (It sounds like you've already got one in the shower)

The down side to this is, some people want hotter water than that to do the dishes in, assuming that hotter water is better. (It's not, really. If the water's hot enough to kill germs, it's also hot enough to scald you)

[mattsings]

I can answer all questions posed to me - even the ones I assume were jokes.

As far as how long it takes me to do the dishes - we have a small sink

- and it takes a few minutes. (and we don't have kids)

The cold knob, not the water on our bathroom sink gets hot EVEN when no water is running.

As for the hot water heater - I happen to know from the Super that it is set at 130 degrees. And it was adjusted down to that AFTER I called to complain that the shower water would get TOO hot all of a sudden. It was at 160 degrees which I now know was WAY to high. The super said he would not lower any more than 130 (or more accurately, the plumber who was with the super wouldn't lower any more than that)

[mm]

What does that mean? Is this a one handle bath tub faucet, that has some sort of mixing adjustment, aiui. At any rate, you can adjust the water to a good temp, right, so I don't see how it could be the mising adjustment, but I"m guessing.

It would if it had plastic handles. But I think you can get plastic handles for the current faucet, probably.

The plastic handles on my bathtub and my bathroom sink will fit any stem.

I don't know what your underlying problem is -- it sounds wierd -- but you can get plastic handles for 3 or 4 dollars a set, I think.

Is your hot water made by the furnace boiler? I haven't had that since I lived in an apartment. Because the owner thought he was a plumber, he was never able to fix the cold water pressure tank, and because we had flushometers, that use a lot of cold water, when someone in my line flushed the toilet, it made the shower too hot. If I turned the shower temp down, then when they didn't flush it was too cold.

So I started taking baths and still do.