"Smarty" wrote in message
...
I have a Kohler single lever temperature balancing shower valve which
prevents scalding since it supposedly senses and compensates for water
demand changes elsewhere in the house. The problem is that the valve is
extremely sluggish in responding to the user's manual adjustment, and
therefore, trying to get the water temperature to the right mix of hot and
cold is very time consuming.

If I make a first guess at where to set it and wait for 30 or 45 seconds,
the temperature will stabilize, but is often too cold or too warm. If I
then
adjust the valve to a hotter or colder setting, it eventually reaches a
new
setting, again taking maybe 30 or 45 seconds to do so.

Most of the time I can hit the right setting on the 2nd guess. Sometimes a
third and final adjustment is required, again taking another 30-45
seconds.

Throughout the entire adjustment period, I am typically standing in very
cold or very hot water, waiting for an adjustment to stabilize.

I assume this is ***NOT*** the way the valve is supposed to behave. I've
taken the value apart hoping to find springs or other thermal compensators
which could be adjusted or replaced. There appears to be no user
adjustable
parts, with the exception of a high temp limit stop which restricts the
valve rotation beyond a comfortable upper temperature range.

Whatever mechanism Kohler uses to sense and react to manual valve changes
seems to be outrageously slow. I can't believe this is the way the valve
is
supposed to work. It is also an expensive (over $100) part for just the
valve itself (with no trim kit) so I expected it to be a deluxe item.

I welcome any thoughts of how this should be serviced? Many thanks in
advance.

I suspect that you are just dealing with a problem of low volume
shower heads. Because it is low volume, it takes awhile to get new
water from the valve to the head. If you take off the showerhead,
does the water get there fast?