HELP! I roughed in my basement waterlines and the house water is lukewarm now

[mypuppysirius]

Problem solved in first commet.

Hi everyone.

I am new here and am really in need of some help. Thank you very much in advance. This is my first time running waterlines and i have a problem.

I have a new home that i just started to finish the basement. I hooked up all new pex lines in the basement to the preexisting pex lines in the house, and now the water in the majority of the home doesn't get any warmer than lukewarm. At first thought I believed that i crossed a cold line into the warm line, but i've double checked the lines 400 times. I also turned up the water heaters and that did not help.

Basic info:

Two story home
Built in 2014
All Pex lines
Two water heaters
Main Pex lines are 5/8th and those split off into 1/2" lines

New hook ups into the basement:

2 bathrooms. One has a shower, single sink, and toilet.
Second has a bathtub/ shower, single sink, and a toilet

One sink for a future wet bar.


Diagnosing info:

The copper lines coming off of the the two water heaters (one feeds into the second) are extremely hot to the touch so they are working properly.

There is a half bathroom on the main level that is right above the water heaters and the water is normal and gets extremely hot. (makes sense since it's the first line off of the 5/8ths Pex main line.

All other hot water lines in the whole house only get lukewarm.

I tapped into the main lines (hot and cold) in 3 places. The first rough in bathroom in the basement which is very close to where the water heaters gets very hot water when i test it out of the future sink hot line. The second bathroom which is the second furthest tap in gets warm water out of the future sink rough in line. Lastly, the rough ins for the sink which will eventually be a wet bar takes about 3 minutes to get lukewarm and never gets warmer than that.

My only thought is that maybe cold water is mixing into the hot line in the shower valve? I did try to close the valve as if i was turning off the future shower, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Thank you so much for your help.

-Andrew

 

[SHR]

Simple and common mistake. The hot and cold are mixing at your roughed in shower and/or tub/shower. Install the faucet cartridges in both to solve problem.

 

[mypuppysirius]

Simple and common mistake. The hot and cold are mixing at your roughed in shower and/or tub/shower. Install the faucet cartridges in both to solve problem.

You are a genius. Problems solved. Thank you very much.

 

[frodo]

You are a genius. Problems solved. Thank you very much.

not so fast...are your 2 water heaters piped like A or B ?

A it is nothing more than a storage tank.


B is piped correctly for 2 water heaters, if yo do not want to run out of h water

 

[mypuppysirius]

not so fast...are your 2 water heaters piped like A or B ?

A it is nothing more than a storage tank.


B is piped correctly for 2 water heaters, if yo do not want to run out of h water

The builder piped it like A. Is that bad? We've never run out of hot water, but we only have a newborn so we don't use too much water.

Thanks for helping.

 

[frodo]

How to connect multiple water heaters in parallel to increase total hot water quantity

hot water heaters installed in parallelWhere hot water volume requirements are high, in addition to installing a single larger-capacity water heater, one can install a several water heaters connected in parallel. You can see this design in our sketch at left, provided courtesy of Carson Dunlop Associates.

Parallel water heaters means that all of them are "on" and heating water at the same time, providing a very large quantity of hot water to the building.

We see this installation most often when building occupants find that they do not have enough hot water but their present water heater is in good condition.

Rather than scrapping a perfectly good water heater to install a single larger unit, a second water heater is simply added, installed in parallel to the first one.

How to increase hot water quantity using multiple water heaters in series for lower hot water cost

Some buildings use water heaters installed in series to handle variations in hot water demand more economically. Unlike the illustration of parallel water heaters shown above, water heaters connected in series means that incoming cold water flows first into heater #1, then out of heater #1 into heater #2, then out of heater #2 into the building hot water supply piping (or into additional water heaters if more than two are used.)

A synonym for water heaters connected in series is a cascaded water heater design. Cascaded or in-series water heaters is an economical way to handle large variations in hot water demand in a building.

When the anticipated hot water demand is low, only water heater #2 may be running.

When the anticipated hot water demand is high, water heater #1 is turned on as well, doubling the volume of hot water available (if the heaters are of the same capacity in gallons or liters).

Water heater controls can be adjusted so that the "upstream" water heater, (water heater #1 in our example), is left turned off or perhaps set to a very low temperature. In either of these cases, the upstream water heater or tank functions as a "booster water warmer" reducing the energy use by water heater #2 by pre-warming water entering the active heater#2.


I do not agree nor like water heaters in series, I have re-piped in series to parallel numerous times because of customer complaints.
BUT the big bucks engineer say it works.
my experience says it does not.

maybe others will chime in with their thoughts


why do you have 2 next to each other? is there a circulation line hooked to one or more ?