# Hot water only working for a few seconds



## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

What are you turning on and off? Faucet, shower?
Is this a single family home?
Tried any other fixtures?


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## daigo1 (Jan 16, 2014)

All the faucets in my apartment including kitchen sink, bathroom sink, and shower. I haven't tried messing with anything except the thermostat on the water heater in the basement of the apartment building.


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## jmon (Nov 5, 2012)

Could be a couple different things. What's the make and model of hwh? How old is it? Any maintenance ever been done on it? Could you post a couple pics of it? Thanks.

Sometimes the dip tube deterioates causing the incoming water to hwh to stay on top and not go to the bottom to get heated properly. Just a guess at this point.

Stay tuned, let's see what others suggest.


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## Alan (Apr 12, 2006)

jmon said:


> Could be a couple different things. What's the make and model of hwh? How old is it? Any maintenance ever been done on it? Could you post a couple pics of it? Thanks.
> 
> Sometimes the dip tube deterioates causing the incoming water to hwh to stay on top and not go to the bottom to get heated properly.
> 
> Stay tuned, let's see what others suggest.


That's what I was going to say. Dip tube busted off, or cracked..

Either that or someone flipped the heater to the opposite side of the wall at one point and now the hot and cold lines are reversed. (seen that a few times)

It sounds like it's heating properly if you only have to wait a minute or so for it to get hot again, you're just dumping cold into the top of the tank (same place the hot is pulling from) so you get an initial draw of hot water until the cold starts flowing directly from the cold inlet to the hot outlet.


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

Is there even a water heater in each apartment or is it coming from a central heater.
Reason I ask is it may be the tempering valve (mixing valve) is defective if it's a central system.
It's suppose to keep the hot water from getting to hot to each unit.
http://inspectapedia.com/heat/MixingValves.htm


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## Alan (Apr 12, 2006)

The other thing that could be causing this is that if the hot water heater has a recirculating system, and you're trying to draw water from a fixture near the end of the loop, and the check valve on the recirc line has failed, you're pulling cold water backwards through that recirc line.


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