Got a shower upstairs that works fine for about 5 minutes, then the
water gets really hot, then colder and so on. This is happening
without anyone in the house using anything. House was built in the
late 70's early 80's I guess with a newer water heater and copper
piping. Any ideas?

wrote:
Got a shower upstairs that works fine for about 5 minutes, then the
water gets really hot, then colder and so on. This is happening
without anyone in the house using anything. House was built in the
late 70's early 80's I guess with a newer water heater and copper
piping. Any ideas?


Gas? Electric? Heater

Run water and feel the outlet pipe at the heater.
Does the temp vary (a lot)?

Does the shower control have scald-gard or similar temp control?

Jim

On Aug 29, 8:32 am, Speedy Jim wrote:
wrote:
Got a shower upstairs that works fine for about 5 minutes, then the
water gets really hot, then colder and so on. This is happening
without anyone in the house using anything. House was built in the
late 70's early 80's I guess with a newer water heater and copper
piping. Any ideas?

Gas? Electric? Heater

Run water and feel the outlet pipe at the heater.
Does the temp vary (a lot)?

Does the shower control have scald-gard or similar temp control?

Jim

Gas heater. No, no scald guard.

wrote:
On Aug 29, 8:32 am, Speedy Jim wrote:

wrote:

Got a shower upstairs that works fine for about 5 minutes, then the
water gets really hot, then colder and so on. This is happening
without anyone in the house using anything. House was built in the
late 70's early 80's I guess with a newer water heater and copper
piping. Any ideas?

Gas? Electric? Heater

Run water and feel the outlet pipe at the heater.
Does the temp vary (a lot)?

Does the shower control have scald-gard or similar temp control?

Jim


Gas heater. No, no scald guard.


Then do the "feel-the-pipe" test.
Jim

On Aug 29, 1:31 pm, Speedy Jim wrote:
wrote:
On Aug 29, 8:32 am, Speedy Jim wrote:

wrote:

Got a shower upstairs that works fine for about 5 minutes, then the
water gets really hot, then colder and so on. This is happening
without anyone in the house using anything. House was built in the
late 70's early 80's I guess with a newer water heater and copper
piping. Any ideas?

Gas? Electric? Heater

Run water and feel the outlet pipe at the heater.
Does the temp vary (a lot)?

Does the shower control have scald-gard or similar temp control?

Jim

Gas heater. No, no scald guard.

Then do the "feel-the-pipe" test.
Jim

Ok, I will let you know.

On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:22:17 -0700, wrote
Re Shower upstairs hot-cold-hot-cold..:

On Aug 29, 8:32 am, Speedy Jim wrote:
wrote:
Got a shower upstairs that works fine for about 5 minutes, then the
water gets really hot, then colder and so on. This is happening
without anyone in the house using anything. House was built in the
late 70's early 80's I guess with a newer water heater and copper
piping. Any ideas?

Gas? Electric? Heater

Run water and feel the outlet pipe at the heater.
Does the temp vary (a lot)?

Does the shower control have scald-gard or similar temp control?

Jim

Gas heater. No, no scald guard.

Dip tube fell off?
--
To email me directly, remove CLUTTER.

On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:27:19 -0700, sonofabitchsky wrote:

Got a shower upstairs that works fine for about 5 minutes, then the
water gets really hot, then colder and so on. This is happening
without anyone in the house using anything. House was built in the
late 70's early 80's I guess with a newer water heater and copper
piping. Any ideas?


I would first look at pipe to see if it is plumbed correctly with proper
size. Quite likely someone may have cut corners when house was built.
This would not be the first time.

On Aug 29, 11:27 am, wrote:
Got a shower upstairs that works fine for about 5 minutes, then the
water gets really hot, then colder and so on. This is happening
without anyone in the house using anything. House was built in the
late 70's early 80's I guess with a newer water heater and copper
piping. Any ideas?

your faucet valves are shot. most likely just the washers on them.

hot water heats the cold valve, causes expansion of washer and
associated parts, more cold water. everything cools off, back to more
hot water, cycle repeats.

couple of bucks to replace the parts. maybe an hour of labor.