New shower valve, no hot water?

[Chris112]

Hello everyone,

I had a new tub installed and new Kohler shower valve by a licensed plumber. I tiled the tub surround, floor, etc.. myself. Now when I go to take a shower, I only have about 5 seconds of hot water, even turned up the full way. I totally removed the red safety check from the valve, made sure the hot/cold shut offs on the valve are fully open, and its still not working correctly. I have hot water in the rest of my house with no problem and the previous valve in the shower worked great. I just replaced the valve now since I had the wall open (best practice). I obviously plan to call the plumber back, but is there something I can do that might be missing? I know he didn't bleed the system after the install, but are new valves self bleeding? If he didn't bleed it would it affect just the shower or the entire water system?

Any direction would be great! I have not looked at the cartridge yet in the valve, but since its new I assumed it should be ok.

Thanks,

Chris

 

[SlowDrip]

Take a look at the cartridge for sure. It is rare, but it could be faulty from the factory. Also, it might have debris from the line blocking water flow.

Depending on the model it may have a separate pressure balancing spool. Remove and check that as it may be stuck.

 

[Chris112]

Thanks!

I forgot to add that I have only tested this through the tub spout, not actually the shower spout.

I called the plumber who installed the valve and he explained it to me like this (which makes sense to me):

Plumber: You don't have a water tank and only heat water through the furnace. You have a coil which can only heat 3.5 gallons of water per min. Your tub spout on average can use up to 8 gallons of water per min. which is why you are running out of hot water so quickly. Yes you won't have enough hot water with your current setup to fill your tub, but you should have plenty of hot water for your showers and faucets. The shower uses roughly 2.5 gallons of water per min. and since the coil can heat up to 3.5 that leaves roughly an extra gallon for other use in the house during the shower.

So he recommends me testing it with the shower on instead of just the tub spout. I haven't tested it with the shower yet because we are still finishing up the bathroom and I haven't gotten a curtain up yet. Now his explaination makes sense to me, a plumbing dummy, but what about you guys? He says he hates coils for installs and says he never recomends the solution for this reason. When he does work for builders he says he never supports the setup I currently have.

Any thoughts on what he said?

Thanks again,

Chris

 

[SlowDrip]

Hrm, I have never seen a coil system, it just isn't done up here. Not really sure what to tell you.