I Don't Have Any Hot Water Coming Into My Sink In My Bathroom.....

[global1]

I get a slow trickle of water that hardly amounts to any. The cold water works like it should but not the hot water. I get hot water in my bathtub; in my other bathroom; in the kitchen sink and shower stalls.

The only place I don't get hot water is in my bathroom sink.

Any ideas as to how I can correct this situation myself or do I have to call a plumber?

Note that under the sink - I have two shutoff valves. One for the hot water and one for the cold water. And yes they are both in the on position - as I already checked that.

Any help would be appreciated.

[LuvLoogie]

1. Try removing and cleaning the hot water faucet valve at the faucet handle.

See if there are any lime deposits which you can clean with CLR. and or a nylon brush. you might need to replace a rubber washer or two as well.

Can you hear if your flow through the lower shut-off valve seems okay?

[DonaldsRump]

2. Had a similar problem, but with our kitchen sink

We have one of those lift faucets, and we were not getting any hot water there (and cold water was not too much either).

A plumber dismantled the faucet (and got it fixed). Problem was similar to what post 1 described.

If you have a simple faucet, give it a try. I hate plumbing (you can't cover your mess up, as there will always be a leak!), so I turned it over to a plumber. Our kitchen faucet was complex: I could have taken it apart, but I would have never been able to put it back together so that it worked and didn't leak.

[LiberalArkie]

3. Turn your hot water off under the sink first.

They take apart the valve on the sink. some of the rubber may have broken up and clogged the valve.. You can find the rubber parts at Walmart or any where.

Note you will probably want to sit a heave glass over the top valve and turn the valve under the sink just a little bit to flush out the line.

[Sherman A1]

4. I believe the advice given is fairly good

two tips I would add. YouTube and the local Ace or True Value Hardware Stores. The folks at them can likely guide you through anything.

[FBaggins]

5. A couple things to check

There’s either a hose or small copper pipe running from the shutoff to the faucet. Disconnect it (after turning off the supply) and then open that valve a little with a hand towel. If you get soaked then The problem is either that hose or your faucet.

If there’s still no flow, then turn it off again and look for another shutoff valve further up-stream. Some homes have one in the basement for each plumbed room above... though I would think it’s rare to have one for each fixture in a bathroom.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. Personally I would call a plumber.

I realize this is the DIY & Home Improvement group, but I am a big believer in getting a professional for such things. Of course people posting here are in the habit of DIY and are mostly going to know a decent amount about such things.

But I certainly sympathize with the not hot water coming into your sink, even if it's showing up everywhere else. On Sunday morning, just two days ago, I woke up to no hot water at all. Sigh. My hot water heater would have been installed in 1994 when this place was built, and was long overdue for replacement.

I was able to get a new one put in yesterday, and finally got to take a shower.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

8. This is basic homeowner 101 stuff.

No need to get a plumber involved, spend $150 dollars and take half a day off work if the fix is simple.

Plumbers love these calls because they are in and out. An electrician I know loves the “GFCI resets” for the same reason.

They may need a new faucet or have the angle stop replaced (homeowner 201) but they should investigate the easy stuff first.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. What is a GFCI reset?

I realize that a lot of this should be basic homeowner 101 stuff, but I simply don't know any of that stuff.

I can, I suppose, cast blame on my father who was completely helpless at doing anything, and so I didn't learn anything from him. My husband was equally bad. His father repaired everything with duct tape, which at least my husband understood was not a very good strategy.

I'm not sure if I can also fall back on the "I'm a GIRL!" excuse. Well, no.

Not entirely relevant to this thread, I am currently a homeowner, and in the past six months have replaced: washer, drier, dishwasher, furnace, hot water heater (yesterday), garbage disposal, and had a/c installed. They were all 25 or so years old and very much in need of replacement, and the addition of a/c should make my summer much more pleasant. I have not replaced stove or fridge, and hope to avoid doing those. Especially the refrigerator as I've heard some real horror stories about how they are designed to last very few years any more.

If I ever move I will rent or buy a condo where much maintenance is done through the association.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

10. The ground fault receptacle in your bath or kitchen

Ground fault circuit interrupter. It has a button that trips on its own sometimes. It’s there to keep you from being electrocuted.

When they trip it cuts power to the outlet and other outlets down stream (if they are daisy chained). Sometimes the gfci in one bathroom controls (protects) another bathroom or even a hallway

All those things you mentioned can happen in condos as well. The good news is nothing else can break. For now...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. Please forgive my profound ignorance,

but I have never even heard of that. Are they somewhat new? Maybe I've never lived in a place with such a thing. This home is the most recently built of all the ones I've lived in, and it was built in 1994.

And yes, I know that things can happen in a condo or apartment as well. It is somewhat astonishing to have replaced almost everything in the past few months. I've also done landscaping in the front and back, including building a pergola in the front. It's possible I will live here another 20 years, and I want it to be a comfortable home that entire time.

And if I pass on tomorrow and my son gets to sell it, well it will sell quickly because of all the improvements. I've already told him that if that kind of thing happens he'll want to put it on the market for about five percent less than the going price of this place would be. He doesn't have to care about what it originally cost. I've been here ten years, there's a decent amount of equity, and what he'd realize when it's sold and the loan paid off is simply money in his pocket.

Heck, if I decide next month or next year to sell this place and move elsewhere, I'd realize a decent profit.,

[Hassin Bin Sober]

12. It looks like this

The two little buttons are Test and Reset buttons. You are supposed to test the feature once a month to ensure it works (nobody does).

The way it works is it senses an imbalance in the circuit that may indicate a person is being shocked. The safety immediately kills the power in literally less than a heart beat so as to prevent electrocution.

They are required in kitchens, bathrooms, basements and outdoors - basically anywhere a person might come in contact with the very bad combination of electricity and water.


Water and electricity can be a particularly lethal combination because you are more “grounded” when you are standing in water (or touching a metal sink faucet). You are also more grounded when standing in bare feet on a basement floor or outside near a pool in bare feet.

Being grounded can turn a simple shock, that we’ve all probably experienced at one time in our lives, in to a deadly electrocution. The body becomes part of the circuit and the electricity stops the heart. The GFCI feature senses the imbalance and kills the power in less than a heart beat before the heart gets thrown in to a deadly rhythm.

My electrician was telling me he gets shocked from time to time working with electricity. The difference is he is standing in rubber souled shoes and in a position to “fall away” or drop what he is holding. He was saying the cases he’s seen were people have been killed are guys laying in their backs (grounded) on a crawl space floor holding a steel cased power tool that shorted out. Or cases of people doing laundry in bare feet in a basement (grounded) and inadvertently sticking their fingers on a plug while plugging in an appliance.


I would be surprised a home built in 1994 wouldn’t have them as they have been required by code since way before then.

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There is a possibility that you may have the feature built in to your circuit breaker in your circuit breaker panel. If the circuit breaker has a test/reset button on the actual breaker then it is probably a “ground fault” circuit breaker.







https://home.howstuffworks.com/question117.htm

The GFCI type of outlet constantly monitors electricity flowing in a circuit, to sense any loss of current.

Every year, hundreds of Americans die due to electrical accidents called electrocution – death caused by electric shock. Sometimes electrocution happens in utility and construction incidents, but these tragic accidents happen in homes, too. Before the widespread adoption of GFCI (ground-fault circuit interrupter) outlets, around 800 people died annually in the United States. Now, thanks largely to the proliferation of GFCI technologies, particularly in areas near water, such as bathroom sinks or in places exposed to rain or standing water, that number has dropped to around 200 deaths per year [sources: Nickel Electric, Fish, at al.].

In short, GFCI outlets exist to protect people from electrical shock — it is completely different from a house fuse. The idea behind a fuse is to protect a structure from an electrical fire. If the hot wire were to accidentally touch the neutral wire for some reason (say, because a mouse chews through the insulation, or someone drives a nail through the wire while hanging a picture, or the vacuum cleaner sucks up an outlet cord and cuts it), an incredible amount of current will flow through the circuit and start heating it up like one of the coils in a toaster. The fuse heats up faster than the wire and burns out before the wire can start a fire. Catastrophe averted.

Unlike a home's fuse, the GFCI is integrated in the outlet itself. When you plug in an appliance, such as a hair dryer, the GFCI outlet monitors the amount of power going to the device. If you accidentally drop the appliance into sink full of water, the GFCI detects the interruption in current and cuts the power ... and possibly saves your life.

So how do you know if you're looking at an outlet equipped with GFCI capabilities? You'll see a Test and a Reset button (and perhaps an indicator light) built right into the outlet.

More at the link

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. Thank you for both the explanation and the pictures!

Turns out I do have one set of plugs with the GFCI in the kitchen, and another in one of the two bathrooms. And I realized, looking at the first picture that I'd seen them in other places I'd lived in.

Are those two likely to be sufficient? My place is very small, about 900 square feet, but should both bathrooms have that? At some point should I have an electrician in to retro-fit the one bathroom?

I really appreciate all the helpful comments here.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. There is a good chance one bathroom outlet protects the other bathroom outlet.

Especially if the rooms are back to back. One GFCI can protect other outlets “downstream” in say a garage or group of outlets on a kitchen backsplash or back to back bathrooms. The outlets are expensive at $12-15 dollars (versus $2 dollars) so builders daisy chain them.

One way to tell is plug a radio in to the other bathroom outlet and trip the GFCI. It should turn off the radio.

Those little buttons can be hard to reset as they are small and give a little resistance. If you have finger nails they are easier. I use something plastic like the end of a bic pen to reset the button. The buttons trip rather easily as they are set on a hair trigger. Resetting requires a bit of push til it clicks on.

You should test the buttons periodically anyway as they can get gunk in them that prevents the safety mechanism from tripping.

The outlet that is protected by another GFCI outlet is supposed to have a little sticker applied that says something like “this outlet GFCI protected” but no one ever uses those stickers that come with the outlet. The stickers get tossed in the trash.

The stickers come in handy when you sell so some home inspector doesn’t ding you for an unprotected outlet. Or if the outlet mysteriously stops working - you check the circuit breaker and can’t figure out why your hair dryer outlet doesn’t work. So you pay an electrician $150 dollars to reset the GFCI in the other bathroom you never use.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. Thank you again!

I just used a hair drier to test them, and they work. The one in one bathroom is apparently chained to the other bathroom. They do share a common wall.

This is something I haven't done in the 10 years I lived in this place. I suppose the inspector tested them during inspection. Maybe we should have periodic mandatory home inspections the way some states require car inspections. Of course, and enormous problem would be the cost.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

16. You are welcome!

Now figure out where your water shut off to the unit is. Also the gas shut off! You will be smarter than the average home owner! You might even save your neighbors some money and grief.

Two things you don’t want to be looking for when you need them in a hurry

A couple years ago my neighbor called me in a panic because her nanny locked herself out of her condo with water boiling on the stove. She was about to call the fire department. I told her I would shut the gass off in the basement til she got home. “Oh you can do that?”





I feel sorry for this poor bastard. Apparently the shut off was in the street and not accessible and the city wanted $200 dollars to shut off. I tell my guys never to start work before you know where the shut offs are located.

My buddy had a plumber do something like this.

Plumber: where is the shut off!?!?

My buddy: I have no fucking idea aren’t you the plumber!?!?

Turns out the shut off is in the sidewalk under a metal cover you have to pry up and reach down with a stick to move the lever.


This is so painful to watch. It goes on for like 15 minutes. It’s like an old submarine movie where a pipe breaks - only in the movies someone usually gets a wrench on the pipe in a hurry

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. I don't suppose you live in my city and can come over to show me these things?

Actually, people like you who are handy should advertize small classes in this sort of thing.

On a similar note, I have a friend who lives in a rather large complex. Like me he's retired. I suggested he put a notice up in the main office offering his services to wait around for repair or delivery person.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

18. I'm in Chicago.

That’s actually a great idea for a retired person. “House sitting for repair appointments”

I bet something like that would go over here in Chicago.

A retired attorney friend of mine does dog sitting in his place. His dog died so he figured he would take care of other people’s dogs for cash.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. Sigh.

I'm in New Mexico.

Oh, well. Yeah dog sitting or house sitting for repair appointments could be a pretty good thing to do.

[CaptainTruth]

7. Professional contractor, I've been doing plumbing for decades, one easy troubleshooting trick is...

Turn off both shutoff valves.

Swap the supply lines. (Disconnect both lines & connect each one to the OTHER shutoff valve.)

Turn on shutoff valves, & check flow by turning on the faucet valves.

If Hot (faucet valve) still has low flow, the Hot faucet valve is clogged.

If Cold (faucet valve) now has low flow, the Hot shutoff valve is clogged.

Remember, supply line connections have big rubber washers, so do NOT tighten them like you would a pipe fitting. Be gentle. You can always tighten a bit more if you turn on the shutoff & see a drip.

One of my customers had this exact problem not long ago. Turned out the hot shutoff valve was clogged, just in one bathroom. Hot water heaters have plastic "dip tubes" in them & the dip tubes had started disintegrating. Little pieces of plastic made it through the hot water pipes & piled up inside the hot shutoff valve, clogging it up. I told them to keep an eye on their hot water heater because if the dip tubes were disintegrating it was close to the end of its life. Sure enough, about 2 months later I was back installing a new water heater because it had started dripping on their garage floor.

[Marthe48]

20. We had a similar problem

We hired a contractor to build a bathroom in the basement. He replaced some of the other pipes while we had him here. One evening, I went to take a shower in the old bathroom and had no cold water. I forget who solved the problem, but when the contractor was replacing pipes, he loosened an old piece of cloth. After it clogged the pipe for a little while, it came out by itself and we told him about it. He said plumbers used to stop the water with rags while they made connections and it must have been left in the pipes somewhere. It was an easy fix. Hope yours is.