Hot water in winter issue

Belloni

Belloni

Belloni

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17 Feb 2009
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In the summer, our hot water in the shower is wonderful! However, I've noticed when the winter approaches and the radiators turn on more, our shower is luke warm at best. I've had the diverter valve cleaned recently but this was in the hotter weather. I have a potterton 28i combi boiler, all the radiators have been bled and they are all very nice and warm. Any ideas?
 
A boiler will only lift the temprature of the incoming water by a certain amount depending on its rating. This time of year the water in is way colder.

Summer water in 15c, water out 60c
Winter water in 5c, water out 50c

For example.

Assuming your boiler is in good working order the only way to deal with it is run the water slower to give it more time to heat while passing through.
 
I had the same thing recently and fixed it by reducing the pressure of the cold water feed. We have an isolation value on the cold water feed for the shower and so I've turned this to reduce the flow.

As you know the hot water is still very hot, coming from the combi. The cold water is however a lot colder, and will mix with the hot to give you overall luke warm water.

If you were using your sink tap and mixed say 50/50 hot and cold, you'd probably find this was too hot in summer but too cold in winter. In winter you'd want this to be more like 80/20 hot/cold, but of course with a mixer shower you can't control the ratio only the max temperature.

Hope that makes sense.
 
LiE said:
I had the same thing recently and fixed it by reducing the pressure of the cold water feed. We have an isolation value on the cold water feed for the shower and so I've turned this to reduce the flow.

As you know the hot water is still very hot, coming from the combi. The cold water is however a lot colder, and will mix with the hot to give you overall luke warm water.

If you were using your sink tap and mixed say 50/50 hot and cold, you'd probably find this was too hot in summer but too cold in winter. In winter you'd want this to be more like 80/20 hot/cold, but of course with a mixer shower you can't control the ratio only the max temperature.

Hope that makes sense.
Click to expand...

Thanks all for the advice so far. How would I go about reducing the pressure of cold? Is that on the boiler itself? One of the pipes I assume.
 
For me it was a case of turning the isolation value for the cold water pipe into the shower.

You'll need to see it you have one, most do.
 
LiE said:
If you were using your sink tap and mixed say 50/50 hot and cold, you'd probably find this was too hot in summer but too cold in winter. In winter you'd want this to be more like 80/20 hot/cold, but of course with a mixer shower you can't control the ratio only the max temperature.
Click to expand...

Thermostatic shower ftw - as Goldilocks said, it's always "just right".
 
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