Getting hot water up stairs

[oldjonesy]

I have built a 2nd storey on our house and purchased a seperate hot water cylinder just to service the 2nd floor because it has a new kitchen and bathroom.

The problem I am having is that the hot water to the shower takes 3 to 4 minutes to heat up after turning it on, and even then it just gets slightly warm. The water to the kitchen is fine, nice and hot and comes on in about 10 seconds. The kitchen is about 10 metres from the hot water cylinder, the shower about 20 metres.

Could the plumber have stuffed something up? Considering I'm getting some heating of the water means that the hot water pipe is installed, right?

[journeyman Mick]

It sounds like the tempering valve mightn't be properly adjusted. He would've fitted one as it's required by law for areas other than kitchens (IIRC) to have water tempered (mixed with cold) so that you can't burn yourself. Get a thermometer and test the temperature, one of the plumbers will be able to tell you the max. permissable temperature or you could do search on tempering valves which will probably tell you this.

Mick

[wonderplumb]

Sounds like a nice long dead leg to the bathroom, a circulating pump with a return line would fix that, what mick said sounds right but it would only be the case if the plumber did install the valve properly and ran a seperate hot line to the kitchen. They are only adjustable to a couple of degrees and 50 is the max they go up to.