LESLIE: Lloyd in California listens to The Money Pit on Discovery Channel Radio. And you’ve got a water problem. What’s going on?
LLOYD: Hi. Yeah, I’m getting ready to do a bathroom remodel and the problem I’ve had in the past is that if someone turns on the sink or flushes the toilet, then the water changes temperatures in the shower. And I was wondering what I can do to fix that?
LESLIE: And you’ve already gotten tired of all the pranks on every family member.
LLODY: (chuckling) Exactly
TOM: Lloyd, that’s actually a very common problem. And what you need is a pressure-balanced valve. What a pressure-balanced valve does is … what happens when you turn hot or cold water on, you steal from one side of the equation. But what a pressure balancing system does it makes sure that the mix that you’ve set, the same amount of cold and hot stay the same no matter what happens to the flow in the house. So while the flow will go down at the shower head, the mix of the temperature of the water will stay the same. Do you follow me?
LLOYD: Yes. Is that an extra valve that goes in or is that part of the …?
TOM: It’s a type of shower valve. So you basically would have to replace the current shower diverter valve with a pressure-balance valve. Most of the new ones today are pressure-balanced. But you can definitely have one installed in an older shower.
LLOYD: OK, so I just need to look for that on the … on the fixture itself.
TOM: Yeah, if you hire a plumber, you tell him you need a pressure balance valve; they’ll know exactly what you’re talking about. It maintains that balance between hot and cold regardless of how much water pressure you have in the pipes.
LLOYD: Oh, that’d be great.
TOM: OK, Lloyd?
LESLIE: Then, to play a prank, you’ll just have to throw a bucket of cold water over that shower edge. (laughing)
LLOYD: Oh that … that’ll be the new way to do it.
TOM: (laughing) There you go. Lloyd, thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT and for listening to The Money Pit on Discovery Channel Radio.
Leave a Reply