# Is it me, or does shower water go from "too hot" to "too cold" in a very small range? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 20, 2012, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383 "2012-04-20T05:56:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/21 "2012-04-22T01:12:06Z")
My bathroom sinks are like this. The sweet spot is nearly impossible to find for washing hands. Poorly designed faucet. My shower faucets (same vintage) do not have this problem. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/22 "2012-04-22T01:30:49Z")
I get the same thing, there is maybe a cm of distance in the knob between ‘comfortable’ and too hot or too cold. I’m not a plumber so I don’t know how to install them, but a digital temperature controller for the shower plus a tankless water heater would be awesome. All the water you want and at the right temp. ---
**Author:** ![Enlightening\_Meditation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecc23a/32.png) [@Enlightening\_Meditation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enlightening_Meditation)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/23 "2012-04-22T03:03:13Z")
I have used a large variety of showers among the houses, apartments, hotels where I have lived or visited. Some plumbing setups have hot/cold water knobs that are extremely touch sensitive with a wide swing in temperature with very minimal adjustment in the happy warm comfy water zone. Some valves are worn or intrinsically crappy. Sometimes a furnace keeps the hot water way to hot. In my experience, this is most often an issue in older buildings with dated plumbing. Most showers I’ve encountered have no problems with gradual temperature adjustment. The worst for me was a bathroom sink in a rented apartment in a converted Victorian era house. It had two faucets, one for hot water and one for cold water. The hot water felt comfortably warm for 10 seconds after 30 seconds of cold and followed by scorching hot. The shower was not ideal but okay…the hot water had to be not quite completely shut off while the cold water ran full stream. ---
**Author:** ![Dwcrisp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b38774/32.png) [@Dwcrisp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dwcrisp)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/24 "2015-02-12T02:36:04Z")
I have a issue that I can turn on the hot water side fully and just barely turn the cold knob on and the water goes completely cold. Have you ever heard of that? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/25 "2015-02-12T05:23:52Z")
My solution was to adjust the temperature at the hot water heater–so avoid getting accidentally scalded. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/26 "2015-02-12T06:52:46Z")
I have a digital fawcett in my bathroom, so I can adjust the temperature with some accuracy. In my experience it’s about 10 to 15 degres celcius between too hot (around 45 C) to too cold (around 35 C). That’s a significant difference, so not a small range. ---
**Author:** ![jharvey963](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/54ee81/32.png) [@jharvey963](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jharvey963)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/27 "2015-02-12T17:10:47Z")
I think it all has to do with the “valve” on which the faucet sits. We just remodeled our bathrooms. We didn’t scrimp on the shower faucet / valve - paid a little over $1k for it. (Not sure I’m using the right terminology. What I mean: the “faucet” is the visible part of the shower faucet. The “valve” is the plumbing device inside the wall which the shower faucet attaches to and controls.) Our model has a knob that turns the water on and off, and a large handle that adjusts the temperature. I’ve always found this set up to have a nice, smooth transition between temperatures. There has never been a boundary which goes from “way too hot” to “way too cold”. When most places are built, the builders go for the cheapest faucet / valve combination because – what do they care? Almost no one checks the shower faucet before buying the place. IMHO, anyway. J. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/28 "2015-02-12T17:28:17Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > My vote is for A. > > My logic is that I’ve noticed the same thing with my coffee. For quite a while, it is so hot that all I can do is sip it - and that’s what I like the best. Then for a short while, it is very hot, but no so much, and I’d better drink it fast, because very soon it is barely warm. > > I do realize that the longer I’m drinking it, the more air mixes in to cool it. But it is still a relatively static system compared to adjusting the faucet. That’s why I think that our comfort ranges are truly much narrower than we realize. > [@jtgain](#): > > I agree with this. Unless your shower only has two settings: 1) burn off 4 layers of skin, and 2) flash freeze to a cryogenic state (which many do) then it is the fact that we all have a very small sweet-spot that we like our shower temperature to be. If it were just a small comfort range, you’d think that there wouldn’t be as many people complaining about it being different with different faucets. But it’s easy enough to test with a thermometer. In my case, comfortable starts at about 95 degrees, and ends at about 120 (Fahrenheit). That’s a pretty good sized range. One of my wife’s nursing books warns not to set water temps above 120 for the elderly, and 130 for anybody, and my water heater has a warning sticker at about the 140 range for “serious burns even with short contact times.” ETA: and with that 25 degree range in mind, the smallest perceptible twist of my shower faucet is enough to move it into or out of that range, so in my case, at least, it is the faucet. The temperature changes vary over the faucets range, but in the middle part, the smallest twist I could manage changed the water temperature by 18 degrees. (And the bottom third of the range didn’t change it at all – it was about 43 over that entire range.) ---
**Author:** ![SpeedwayRyan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/29 "2015-02-12T19:53:27Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > I have a digital fawcett in my bathroom. You should let your FarrahBot 3000 enjoy the rest of the house. How realistic is her feathered hair, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/30 "2015-02-12T21:15:22Z")
What about a digital shower gauge where you input the temperature you want, do those work? ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/31 "2015-02-13T00:48:18Z")
> [@SpeedwayRyan](#): > > You should let your FarrahBot 3000 enjoy the rest of the house. How realistic is her feathered hair, anyway? 🙂 I can’t spell for shit. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/32 "2015-02-13T07:32:28Z")
My shower does this bizarre thing where sometimes if I want the water a bit warmer I will turn \*down \*the cold handle which causes the water to immediately become _freezing_! After 10 seconds or so it goes back to a normal temperature. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![MrLee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f8ce5/32.png) [@MrLee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrLee)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/33 "2015-02-13T10:42:19Z")
I too am astonished at how bad water taps are at allowing reliable and predictable changes in water temperature. I mean, how _hard can it be?_ If I can set the temperature of the oven, iron, and central heating; then why can’t I do it on a shower? Why can’t I just say “Make it degrees”, and then it does it? Whoever invents a shower like that will be a _trillionaire_… ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/34 "2015-02-13T15:17:46Z")
they are. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/35 "2015-02-13T21:59:44Z")
> [@MrLee](#): > > I too am astonished at how bad water taps are at allowing reliable and predictable changes in water temperature. I mean, how _hard can it be?_ > > If I can set the temperature of the oven, iron, and central heating; then why can’t I do it on a shower? Why can’t I just say “Make it degrees”, and then it does it? > > Whoever invents a shower like that will be a _trillionaire_… [http://www.kohler.com/dtvprompt/](http://www.kohler.com/dtvprompt/) Are they any good though? What is other people’s experience? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383/36 "2015-02-13T22:13:52Z")
> [@MrLee](#): > > If I can set the temperature of the oven, iron, and central heating; then why can’t I do it on a shower? Why can’t I just say “Make it degrees”, and then it does it? The shower is rather more complicated than the oven, iron or central heating. The way those things work is to have a 50 cent temperature sensor, and when the temp goes below X, it BRINGS ON THE HOT. Then when the temp goes above Y, it TURNS OFF THE HOT. A shower like that would be flip flopping between icy cold and scalding hot every 10 seconds. A shower control has to finely tune the hot and cold inputs to maintain a steady pressure at the nozzle and temperature, even if some f-ing idiot flushes the toilet, or starts the washing machine when you’re showering. It can be done, but it’s pricey. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-me-or-does-shower-water-go-from-too-hot-to-too-cold-in-a-very-small-range/619383.md?page=1)