61–70 of 176 posts
Multiply this by 7 days a week by everyone who showers in California alone and it seems like an issue that should get some serious attention.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So we need like a capacitor for hot water at the shower head.
Or just active control? Set a desired output water temp, and let a computer constantly fiddle with the valves slightly to keep the output constant. Monitoring the current temp of the input lines would help but not be necessary. I mostly don't like that every few minutes, I have to turn down the cold water a smidge, as fresher colder water from the ground comes up through the pipe. My shower has two valves for hot and…
This is why wax motors are commonly used as valve actuators since the only calibrations are the wax mixture, the mechanical force applicator, and the thermal resistance of various components in contact with each other
On a FIRST robot, we needed something similar. There's "full reverse", "full forward" and "I need fine control", and the original mapping of joystick to wheel motors was linear. It didn't work well for "fine control". We ended up with motor = joystick³ (or some other odd, greater than 1 power; it might have been ⁵). Then you fix, via coefficients, the endpoints of the equation such that the lowest joystick value hits…
It didn't keep the hot water from running out but when you had it, it was great.
One issue the author overlooks is that we have minimal control over the temperature of the cold water, and this temperature fluctuates throughout the year (at least here in NY, not so much where I lived in SF). As a result, the range of the dial I use changes from summer to winter. There are hot parts of the dial I use everyday in the winter that would simply burn me if I used them in the summer.
Temperature can even change during the course of the shower! I notice this mostly in the winter. I speculate this is due to the cold water in my building pipes being used up and then replaced by the truly cold water from underground. I once tried to shower with that icy water when the hot water went out (just before a big trip) and I managed to completely numb my lower body (I did not have the fortitude to try and shower my upper body too).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So we need like a capacitor for hot water at the shower head.
Or just active control? Set a desired output water temp, and let a computer constantly fiddle with the valves slightly to keep the output constant. Monitoring the current temp of the input lines would help but not be necessary. I mostly don't like that every few minutes, I have to turn down the cold water a smidge, as fresher colder water from the ground comes up through the pipe. My shower has two valves for hot and…
I have one of these grohe thermostatic valves. You can set the temperature and then use a push button to turn the shower on. The temperature is always set correctly as the on/off is separate from the temperature control. A majority of the range of the dial is usable. We still use cold water for cleaning the shower, or when you want a cold shower. During the shower, I have it set to hot, then slowly turn up the heat.…
We also have a pair of Gröhe sinks. We had to replace all four expensive, proprietary faucet hoses one-by-one as they ruptured. And then a couple more. It turns out they're short enough that it's hard to install them without kinking, and that eventually causes them to rupture.
I'm not a Gröhe fan.
(It also takes several minutes for the water to come to temperature in that particular shower, though it's only about 10 feet away from the water heater. I think the sink fixtures are affected too which suggests it's not all the shower valve's fault. It might be that we have pipes that are indirect and/or way too high-capacity, such that the total volume of water to drain between the water heater and the bathroom is excessive, and this is particularly obvious when using a low-flow shower-head.)
On a FIRST robot, we needed something similar. There's "full reverse", "full forward" and "I need fine control", and the original mapping of joystick to wheel motors was linear. It didn't work well for "fine control". We ended up with motor = joystick³ (or some other odd, greater than 1 power; it might have been ⁵). Then you fix, via coefficients, the endpoints of the equation such that the lowest joystick value hits…
When we changed from instant hot water to water tank + heat pump, the guy said the tempering valve was a safety thing (IIRC ours was set to 60 degrees Celsius by default, but could go up or down about 10 degree either way). That is, if you accidentally step in the shower with only hot water on you'll still hurt yourself but the damage will be limited to "strong profanity and aloe vera" instead of "you've won a stay in the burn ward".
Although saying this, I did a quick bit of research and found that 60 may still be too high [1]. I have an IR thermometer so I think I'll measure the temperature of my shower (after any loss from pipes etc.) and see if the tempering valve needs adjusting down.
[1] mild nsfw - image of scalded foot https://whywait.com.au/a-serious-hot-water-burn-occurs-in-on...
> † The author acknowledges the recent trend of "cold showers" and considers them (a) a trend, (b) undignified, (c) a waste of some life-sustaining solidary time. Hear, hear!
This is all very different than a shower with no hot water mixed in whatsoever. Deepening on the climate and season, water that cold can cause physical harm. In other words, I'm betting most of these "cold showerers" are actually use cool water, not anything as dramatically cold as they might want us to infer.