Because it is hard to make a cheap valve that has a wide mixing 'sweet spot'.
Rich people showers don't have this problem
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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i saw a comment on a meme like this that said some water mixing thing was broken
There are several possible causes to this problem, but that one is the most common.
Turn down the temperature of your water heater.
But that reduces the maximum length of your shower.
And saves both energy and water.
Boo, but I'm aiming to bring about global desertification any %
Observe while I shower comfortably with:
I really don't understand how this is still not the standard everywhere.. The cheapest ones aren't even that expensive and already way better than the alternative.. Don't think I've not showered with one of these in the last 25 years, except for in some kind of social housing projects homes.
When I first moved to Japan over twenty years ago they were already about a hundred years ahead of typical US toilet/bath technology. For me, using one of these faucets where you can just set the temperature by number was like Liko getting beamed from her hut directly onto the damn Enterprise.
Growing up in rural France, we had these at home for as far as I can remember. They may not have been the norm 30 years ago, but at least common.
Interesting, so it adjusts the flow of hot/cold in the fly to keep a consistent temp? That's amazing, thought I imagine it would have the same issue I have at the end of the shower where it's on 100% hot just to eke out a bit more time
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Yes, but that is not a fair comparison, these are European.
This technology is only possible with degree Celsius. It is impossible to adapt to degree Fahrenheit.
You might have a point there
Except British homes which have two separate showerheads, one fully hot and the other fully cold.
The trick is to spin.
Ah wel… the British have always been a bit particular to be honest.
British when straight into inventing the radar and completely skipped over the invention of warm water.
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The cartridge is likely bad. They get clogged up with lime scale over time and start to perform worse and worse. Either replace the cartridge or the whole faucet itself.
Okay I'm gonna be real. I didn't understand the meme at first and thought you were showing a melted door handle and the guy in the meme was trying to melt another door handle with his mind
I was fully prepared to read a bunch of comments about how are door handles so sensitive to heat due to their metallic composition and how you absolutely cannot melt things with your mind that the actual comments tripped me
Warm 👏 thoughts 👏 can't 👏 melt 👏 steel 👏 knobs 👏
You need at least the heat of your hand to melt metals. Or at least at least the heat of a cold but not cold wave winter day.
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You should just move to a more tropical area. Where I live, I only ever use the "Cold" tap and sometimes, even that is too warm.
That's how it is for me in the summer, and Jersey ain't exactly tropical. But it's kinda nice being able to just turn on the shower and get in. The cold water is likecold in the summers, and it's usually humid, so a shower with no hot water ends up very refreshing.
They're so sensitive because the person who installed them didn't care enough to adjust the regulator. If this bothers you, you can take the handle off yourself with an allen wrench and adjust the valve so that when you turn it on, it's the perfect temperature for you every time.
This is a great idea if you are the only one using your shower. If you have 4 family members, each of whom likes a different shower temperature, it is less ideal. I think controls that allow separate on/off and hot/cold dimensions are best for most scenarios.
From my understanding when I fixed mine, when you adjust it it just makes for a more gradual heat change
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What kind of fucked shower knob turns counterclockwise
Lefty loosey, righty tighty
You know lefthand threading is a thing, right?
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In seriousness, it’s often about water pressure and how your hot water is fed. If you have very high water pressure normally but a solar hot water system where gravity and input pressure play a role, you’ll naturally have an imbalance on hot and cold. When you turn the handle on the shower you’re lining up two holes in the shower cartridge (in the handle) with the two hot and cold water pipes, the resulting mix comes out a third hole which feeds the shower head. As you turn the handle, one hole opening gets smaller and the other bigger- thereby changing the ratio of hot : cold. When you already have a huge pressure of cold water pumping in, the degree of rotation needed to go from warm/almost just right to PURE HOT WATER is minuscule. Usually the cold will stay pretty cold for about half of the handle range of motion too.
If water input pressure being high is a problem you can put a reducing valve on your system overall or you can buy Venturi style pumps which add pressure into your hot water system.
You’ll normally find when it’s pressure imbalance that it’s easier to balance the temp when the tap isn’t open full bore. But who wants a weak-ass shower stream!!
This, exactly. When we redid our bathroom, we went from "immersion tank" hot water with about three metres of pressure behind it, to central heating in a closed system, where both hot and cold have the exact same pressure, about thirty metres head. Went from being basically impossible to have a shower, to being an absolute pleasure where nearly the entire range of the tap gives a useful temperature, and it's got a right blast of pressure behind it too.
Another alternative would be an electric shower - since you're just heating up cold water, the pressure is "always the same". They tend to be a bit pathetic and crap, tho.
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Weird.
I saw "melts tungsten" and my brain decided this was in German.
Fun fact: the german word for tungsten is Wolfram
Wolfram alpha suddenly makes even less sense
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Set your water heater lower. Like: make sure it's above 120 at all times (130+ preferably) to prevent legionnaire's, but 140 is PLENTY for most home uses. And it means you get a bigger range to move your mixer taps to.
That's Fahrenheit right? Or are you suggesting 100+ Celsius?
Your water heaters don't have a "Steam Blast" setting? How do your bidets even work? Do they just dribble cool water on your anus? How weird.
It's Kelvin
This is the only correct answer. I never said "degrees" anywhere, so it's obviously Kelvin!
Celsius of course. Only babies shower in 140 Fahrenheit!
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So there are lots of good answers, but there's one I haven't seen: The type of shower control in the photo is probably low quality, cheap, meaning the internal parts do a poor job of mixing the hot/cold water.
Adjusting the water heater may help, but you might also consider upgrading the shower faucet.
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