How can there be hot water when the hot water valve is closed?Early this morning, I found that the angle valve under my water heater was a little leaky, and I quickly called the water heater after-sales service (the angle valve was replaced when the water heater was installed last month). To change the angle valve, you need to turn off the valve.Why didn't you say this kind of shower in your home earlier?
Since the hot water angle valve is leaking, there is no need to close the main valve, just close the inlet valve of the water heater. But even though it's turned off, I turn on the hot water tap and still get a lot of water (even though the water temperature can't go up).
What's going on? It really made the after-sales workers anxious. After a long inspection at my house, I finally found the root of the problem: I have a piano key shower in my bathroom.
A piano key shower is a thermostatic shower
The worker said to me: you probably won't use this shower at all.The worker explained that the piano shower was divided into two parts:Button switches and knobs to adjust the temperature。The problem in my family is the temperature knob
The knob on a thermostatic shower is the same as on a regular shower. It is responsible for both adjusting the water temperature and switching on and off. You can understand that the thermostatic shower has two sets of switches, the keys are switches, knobsAlsoIt's a switch.
When the knob is turned, the switch is turned on. At the same time, hot and cold water pipes are connected, and the hot and cold water are mixed together in a certain proportion (the proportion of hot and cold water varies depending on the angle of rotation).
As soon as the knob is turned, the hot and cold water pipes will be connected. The advantage of this is that when the shower button is turned on, the temperature of the water released will not change, so it is called "thermostatic shower".
But there are also disadvantages: the hot and cold water pipes are always connected, and the water released from any water point at any time is mixed with hot and cold water. When using water for the first time, you need to put the cold water away first, and if the shower knob is not turned off, the waiting time for the water to be released will be extended.
And sometimes I used to put hot water from the sink faucet to soak my feet, and after changing the shower, I always felt that the foot soaking water was not hot enough. This is also because there is a thermostatic shower, which lowers the temperature of the hot water in advance.In addition, there is a small problem, which is not bothering much, but it has always been strange before:Why do other rooms use hot water and the sound of whirring water in the shower? Now the case has finally been "solved", because when hot water is used, there will be cold water entering the hot water pipe through the shower.
There is also noise without a shower.
It was because the hot and cold water pipes were connected to the shower, so even if the valve of the water heater was closed and the hot water was cut off, the water could still be released from the faucet - the water released was cold water from the shower.
Later, turn off the knob of the shower, and this problem is gone.
After-sales workers reminded me:In the future, after taking a shower, in addition to turning off the key switch, don't forget to turn the knob flat.
Other problems with piano key showers
In hindsight, I thought that the piano key shower looks quite tall, but there are a lot of small problems with it. In addition to the aforementioned "hot and cold water pipes are connected", there are two other problems:
The most common color of ordinary showers and faucets is silver and shiny. That's actually the color of the chrome plating, but all the piano key showers, are colored.
This is because there are too many gaps in the piano key shower, and if you plating chrome alone, it will be very uneven and the surface will be uneven. So had to apply a coat of paint to the surface, butThe paint finish is not as smooth as the chrome surface, causing the piano key surface to be prone to limescale.
As shown in the picture above, I was still mindful at the time, and deliberately did not choose the black one. But gray is not good, a little limescale is still obvious. MoreoverThe top plane of the piano key shower is large, it is easier to store water, and when the water dries up, it is limescale.
It's not enough to just look at it, I'll show you an angle you've never seen before
There are more gaps at the bottom of the buttons, and the scale is even more miserable. And because there are too many gaps, I can't wipe it. The limescale will hide in the crevices, so you can see but just can't touch it.
Today, I learned that the piano key shower is also called a thermostatic shower, but this is not the same as the thermostatic shower I imagined. I've also looked into thermostatic showers before:
There is a heat-sensitive metal sheet inside the knob used to adjust the temperature, and when the temperature is set, the metal sheet will automatically bend to ensure that the temperature is always the same. However, I later heard that the thermal metal sheet has a short life and slow temperature adjustment speed, so it is no longer produced.
Today this thermostatic shower actuallyNot reallyAutomatic constant temperature, still need to be manually adjusted. And it doesn't matter if you adjust the temperature once, because every time you put cold water, you need to adjust the water temperature to the hottest, and then adjust the temperature according to the demand after the hot water comes out.
Therefore, it is still necessary to adjust the temperature once every time you take a bath, which is not essentially different from ordinary showers.