Hot Water Plumbing Problems

**danielhudson** · 07-01-2009, 04:41 AM

Hey there.
So we have an old home (1902) that is 3 stories.
We currently have a tenant in our ground floor apartment. She just informed me that she is unable to get the hot water to come out of the bathroom sink tap.
She could let it run and run and it will not get hot at the sink tap.
Her kitchen sink tap works fine.
Our kitchen sink tap works fine.
Our 3rd floor bathroom sink gets hot pretty quickly but
our 2nd floor bathroom sink tap has the same problem that out tenant does...
Our 2nd floor bathroom sink hot water has NEVER gotten hot (unless I take a shower in there beforehand) and we've just learned to live with it, since our primary bathroom is on the 3rd floor...
Anyway, this is a new problem ( we think) for our ground floor bathroom sink as our previous two tenants never mentioned it.

We have a tank (blech) water heater 80 gal on the ground level of the house, so her bathroom is actually the closest to the source of hot water.

We can't figure this out.

Any ideas oh plumbing gifted folks out there? Thanks!

**2ndGenGranola** · 07-01-2009, 07:44 AM

Sounds simple but you would be surprised -- Check the controls under the sink and make sure the hot one is turned on. If she has kids or has had visitors, you never know where the controls could be. (My MIL loves to go reset all my settings. I have to do a tour of the house after she or SIL leaves)

**mombottoo** · 07-01-2009, 03:41 PM

If you still have old plumbing (copper) then it is possible that the pipe is pinched or plugged. But, if either of those two were the problem then she most likely wouldn't be getting any water at all.

Try tracing the flow of the water pipes...perhaps if work has been done someone forgot to hook the hot water pipe up & hooked an additional cold water pipe up instead.