Thinking from first principes, what about a shower handle that copies how air conditioners and heating work, something like a screen showing the exact temperature of the water with an Up and Down buttons to control the temperature.
A manifesto on shower temperature control
81–90 of 176 posts
Re: A manifesto on shower temperature control
#82[deleted]
Re: A manifesto on shower temperature control
#83As a friendly heads up to anyone exploring this space — temperature control is a complex dynamic between many components, chiefly the mixing valve, any local thermostatic dampers in the valve (rarer, but definitely a feature of high end mixers), and the source of hot water itself . Mixer taps are not simply mixing hot water at temperature H and cold water at temperature C. The temperature H which your hot water sourc…
You are overcomplicating this whole thing.
Just buy a thermostatic shower valve and have exact temperature control. They use a wax thermostat to precisely control the temperature.
Do not get the more common, and less expensive, temperature-pressure valve.
You can tell the difference because the bad kind has a single dial for both on-off and temperature control. It has no volume control.
The better one has one dial for temperature, and a second dial to turn the water on and control flow.
Mine is marked in degrees, and you just dial in the exact temperature you want, and leave it alone, and it will adjust as hotter water comes in.
Re: A manifesto on shower temperature control
#84I loved the seriousness of this manifesto. A most-pressing issue indeed. The search for the better shower handle will be squabbled just like the quest for a better mousetrap.
My two cents—a cam in the shower handle could follow that curve.
Re: A manifesto on shower temperature control
#85Just bought a Grohe thermostatic shower control and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever bought. Saves water and keeps the temperature comfortable. Highly recommend a thermostatic control.
Re: A manifesto on shower temperature control
#86I've focused on this problem for some time too.
The ultimate solution was to buy a color changing shower head from LIDL. This made it so easy to always be in the right temperature zone when taking a shower.
The shower head has lighting that turns to green when the temperature is between 34-38C°. It's red when the temperature is above 38°, and turns to blue when it's below 34°C.
It also shows the current temperature as a display which you can see while you are under the shower. The sensor setup also seems to be powered by the stream that flows through the shower head and only turns on when water is running.
I hope this helps.
Re: A manifesto on shower temperature control
#87I 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.…
I also have grohe thermostatic valve and enjoy it a lot! Worth every $ spent.
Same, nothing but good from my experience. Just a bit finicky to install like most European hardware and fixtures. Oh and their instructions are pictures only and hilariously obtuse.
Re: A manifesto on shower temperature control
#88I 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.…
I have a Gröhe thermostatic valve which came with the house. It's somehow broken such that you can't get the water as hot as advertised unless the dishwasher is running (?). And it's installed behind tile, so we can't just get a plumber to come in and replace it; we have to also line up someone to re-tile the shower immediately afterward. We also have a pair of Gröhe sinks. We had to replace all four expensive, propr…
Sounds like an issue with your heater. Not sure why your dishwasher changes anything, they normally run off cold water and use their own heaters. Sounds more like you run your kitchen tap while filling the dishwasher, and flushes the cold water out of your pipes, and gives your heater enough time to get to temp.
Have you tried see if you can set the output temperature of your heater higher? Could be the output temp of the heater is very close to “shower” temperature, and a lot of heat is lost heating up pipes etc, something that could be sped up by increasing the heaters output temp, or improving the insulation on your hot water pipes.
Re: A manifesto on shower temperature control
#89On 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…
>(And, apparently, as I learned, there's a mixing valve at the hot water heater: i.e., the hot to the shower is not direct from the water heater, like I had imagined. We raised the temp there, slightly.) 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 eithe…
"Safety" is also what my guy said. The problem is that in isolation the answer doesn't make any sense: why should I be heating water up to then re-mix cold water? Is that not a waste of energy?
The fuller answer, I think, is that the "raw" hot line additionally goes towards uses that can take scalding water, one or more of the dishwasher and the laundry, depending on whether you have either or both of those in your dwelling. (I hadn't thought of those, since my concern was on the shower. I also can't see the piping, in my place, so it was a black box of sorts.) For uses that might interact with a human, then it's a safety thing, then it makes sense to do the mix with cold. (I believe the other line, the shower bound one, is called the "tempered hot" line.)
My guy also refused to raise it too much, or disable it altogether, citing codes and that it couldn't exceed like 140℉ or so. Which was fine, really, since I was asking for it to exceed 95℉…
Re: A manifesto on shower temperature control
#90Thinking from first principes, what about a shower handle that copies how air conditioners and heating work, something like a screen showing the exact temperature of the water with an Up and Down buttons to control the temperature.