Can someone help me out with a hot water cylinder issue 🥲?

[Smashingdoozy]

We had a dishwasher installed (with landlords permission) got a friend of a friend to do the install for mates rates (certified plumber)... That works great! However, suddenly after that our hot water pressure has dropped significantly... Now it wasn't great to begin with but now... Basically it would be faster to have all my friends to spit on my head to get the shampoo out... The dishwasher is hooked up to cold water so it seems like it's just a coincidence that the water pressure dropped at the same time... I basically just want confirmation that that's the case before contacting the landlord incase we fucked up somewhere...

Updates

+1 y

Guy who installed the dishwasher is coming to have a look in a couple hrs to see if he can see what the issue is ✌️

Updates

+1 y

Plumber came and had a look and basically our system is super old and putting the dishwasher on it was the cause of the low pressure even though it is on cold water line. Our shower also had a pressure limiter on it when it didn't need one so that's been removed, so the shower is sliiiiightly better... Landlords been contacted and they will be updating the system to a mains water pressure 😌.

[RavVid]

Is it just when the dishwasher is working? That would seem like a mains pressure problem.

if it is a storage electrical HWS it heats at night and when you use hot water, cold water flows in at the bottom to push the hot water out the top. The water goes cold when you use all the hot water. Often the HWS is in the roof space and there is just the head from the tank - the hot water pressure is always low in this case

It can be instantaneous electric where the water is heated as it flows. Gas HWS is a combo of storage and instantaneous and might just be instantaneous.

Check first if it is low flow while the dishwasher is running. If so then live with it. You would get the same effect with running the cold tap.

If it isn't when the dish washer is working it would seem the dish washer has lowered the water pressure. Is the flow lower on cold water taps than it used to be? I guess it could just be possible a lot of cold water is flowing through the DW into whatever waste pipe you have. You would probably hear that. Unlikely but check it.

I'd be inclined to pull the dishwasher out and check there are no water leaks. If there is a tap on the water supply to the DW you could turn it off and see if that restores hot water flow. If it does there is a problem with the dishwasher.

Try those diagnostics. You could call your plumber mate and check with him too. Things will be plumbed differently where you are to where I am. I don't even know the type of HWS you have. :)

[exitseven]

I hooked up a dishwasher once and i connected it to the hot water feed. However a dishwasher has an internal heating element that will heat the water to a hotter temperature. Thst being said usually low water pressure is caused by a partially closed shutoff valve. When the guy installed the dishwasher he had to shut the water off while he worked on it. Maybe he did not turn it all the way back on.

If that is not the problem maybe there is a pipe that is corroded or clogged up especially if you live in an older building.

It it is the whole house that has low water pressure it means the problem is mabe the water main or a main feeder pipe.

[exitseven]

Thanks for the MHO😎

[Orangekiss]

The dishwasher has nothing to do with the hot water lines or pressure. When they did the installation did they turn the shut off valves all the way back on? Sometimes old valves that are failing have calcium clogging the valves up so they don't fully close or open. When they were working on all that stuff they should have put new valves in. I'm thinking the Landlord had just enough stuff done to get by because he is cheap.

[Red_Arrow]

I am surprised a real plumber hooked it up to the cold water. Ir is supposed to be connected to hot water. The washer will have a heating element to raise the temperature more, but it should come in hot. The following is from Maytag (big name in dishwashers and other appliances.

"Dishwashers are connected to your home's hot water connection. Your dishwasher likely also has a heating element that is usually located at the base of the tub. The heating element can heat the water to an even hotter temperature than the water from your faucet."

"The water should be about 120℉ when it enters the dishwasher. Your dishwasher’s heating element can then heat the water over 155℉. Due to the high temperatures of the water, certain items should not be placed in the dishwasher."

[Smashingdoozy]

No it's supposed to be connected to cold water. Manual says so

[Red_Arrow]

My dishwasher manual said hot water. I showed you the Maytag directions. The GE instructions are:
"Always make sure the dishwasher is connected to the hot water line, not the cold water line. A dishwasher cannot be connected to a cold water supply line because the dishwasher is not able to heat cold water to the required 120 degrees Fahrenheit temperature."

[Smashingdoozy]

Different places have different rules

[exitseven]

@Smashingdoozy @Red_Arrow I hooked one up a few years back and I hooked it up to the hot water side. However, if doozies manul say cold, who am I to argue.

[love_conquers_lust]

What do you mean by "cylinder"? A water heater? Why is the dishwasher plumbed up to cold water?

If your plumbing is so constricted that a downstream loss in cold water pressure causes you to lose upstream water pressure feeding your water heater, your landlord needs to do some pipe upsizing, or they need to clean out the water heater if it's old, or clean the point of entry filter.

The plumber might have left also left an upstream supply valve pinched back. He shouldn't have done anything to the existing plumbing system as those hookups come with isolation valves unless the valves also needed to be replaced.

[Smashingdoozy]

Dishwasher is supposed to be plumbed to cold water 😌

[love_conquers_lust]

You might want to look closer at that manual. I bet it’s not “supposed”, I bet it’s “can”. If you hooked it up to hot water, then the heating element in the dishwasher wouldn’t work as hard to heat the water.

[Smashingdoozy]

"the dishwasher may not be connected to open warm water devices or flow through water heaters. The dishwasher should be connected to cold water inlet"

[love_conquers_lust]

Model and make please.

[love_conquers_lust]

I’m wondering if this operates under 100 degrees F

[Smashingdoozy]

The dishwasher isn't the issue here 😂 it literally doesn't matter it's hooked up how it's supposed to be

[love_conquers_lust]

Fine. I don’t agree with the manual unless it gives an explicit reason why. Like needing cold water as part of its rinse cycle, but that might not be a good idea as it might thermally shock hot glassware.

I made suggestions. I don’t know your supply pressure. I don’t know if you’re in a multistory, multi-unit residence that needs booster pumps to keep the pressure up on upper levels.

I also don’t know how old your water heater is. Your pressure shouldn’t be weak to begin with as you mentioned before changing the dishwasher. It’s possible the sacrificial anode in your water heater hasn’t been replaced and it’s scaled like crazy with lime/calcium. I can’t see your tank, can’t see your building, can’t see the dishwasher, and can’t see the plumber either. This wouldn’t be the first or last technician that didn’t know what the fuck they were doing or didn’t give a fuck.

[love_conquers_lust]

If in fact he/she didn’t know what they were doing, but that remains to be seen. Good luck.

[Smashingdoozy]

Will see when the plumber comes back later 😌

[Friendlybro79]

@Smashingdoozy I'm so curious to hear what the plumber says. I really wonder what's going on

[Friendlybro79]

just saw your update. Glad you got an answer

[zeitgeist057]

@Smashingdoozy another solution (not to the dishwasher, but to the shower) is to put a low-pressure water-saving head on it. Sometimes your local water company will even give them away for free. They maximize low pressure to give you what feels like a high pressure shower, and also reduce the amount of water you use.

Cheap and easy way to get a better shower.

[Smashingdoozy]

@zeitgeist057 the plumber changed our shower head over to one that doesn't have a flow restrictor, so it works much better now;

[normalice]

Sounds like you got it worked out but fyi the hot and cold water are not separate lines. Hot water is split off the cold water and runs through the water heater and >usually< the split is off a wider pipe to two smaller ones to prevent exactly your sort of problem. It sounds like maybe all your pipes are the same width.

[Smashingdoozy]

Yep that's exactly the problem. For some reason all the pipes are the same size and there's not enough valves

[lightbulb27]

I've found that these new faucets and shower heads and often lines... have filters. When you open up the system, grit moves around and cloggs those screens. This is why a new faucet may have nothing but a trickle.

It is possible there is junk in the lines somewhere clogging up a filter screen... either in the hoses or elsewhere. It's a beast because so easy to screw up and flood the place and then guess whose gonna pay? There's a reason god made plumbers...

good luck.

[Likes2drive]

Wow that’s strange even though it’s supposed to be hooked up to the hot water line under the sink not the cold water it shouldn’t take away from the water pressure of a shower while on, maybe there’s another problem somewhere in the apartments plumbing? Is the plumber really a plumber? Maybe he did something to the pipes

[Smashingdoozy]

This one is supposed to be hooked up to cold water 🙃 yes he is really a plumber

[Likes2drive]

Also here in the United States and other places it’s always hooked up to the hot water line unless this is some new type of dishwasher that uses cold water because they all have their own heating element too but then it would use more electric to heat cold water even though it’s keeping you from using the hot water from the water heater which makes it energy efficient in another way. I think the plumber did something to the plumbing when installing it

[Likes2drive]

Maybe when he shut the water off to work on it he didn’t completely open the valve when he was done, hopefully he figures out the problem and you gives us an update, I’ve been doing my own plumbing for about 30 years and my brother was a plumber

[Smashingdoozy]

It's definitely meant to be connected to cold water. Most dishwashers are here

[Likes2drive]

I guess in the United Kingdom they do it like that so not to take away hot water from the water heater since the dishwasher can heat it up too but that uses more electricity and increases your electric bill instead of increasing the heating bill. Here in the states it’s always hooked up to the hot water because electricity is very expensive here so I guess they do differently in the country you live in so I learned something new about your country now 😊

[love_conquers_lust]

@Likes2drive I think the issue is turnover of the water in the pipes. We run our hot water in the sink to turn over the water feeding the dishwasher. These water high efficiency dishwashers may not pull enough water to turn over the supply from the water heater. So the element in dishwashers here may not be sized sized large enough to handle the heat load.

I almost guarantee she has an electric heating element. And if you have a heat pump on your water heater, it’s more efficient to use the heated water from that water heater than the dishwasher.

I don’t trust that manual. I almost guarantee it wouldn’t make a shit lick of difference if they hooked it up to the hot water line, it would run just fine.

[Smashingdoozy]

@love_conquers_lust the water heater is electric so doesn't make a difference in electricity other than you are now running a dishwasher rather than filling the sink multiple times to do dishes

[Likes2drive]

@love_conquers_lust Yeah there’s probably some other problem going on there and I also just realized in Europe that just about everything there uses 240 volts instead of 120 volts like here in the states so it’s actually more efficient than here doing that and uses less amps since it makes it up in voltage, at least that’s what I learned as an electrician back when I was doing that 30 years ago for 10 years before my current job

[Likes2drive]

I guess you can give us an update since I’m curious what happened there

[love_conquers_lust]

@Likes2drive. Supply voltage doesn’t make an appreciable difference in performance beyond the amp draw on the element. The only reason I can think why they’d say hook it up to the cold water line is it’s some cheap dishwasher that had feedforward control and no feedback control causing the water to overheat and melt the internals of the dishwasher if it was fed hot water.

I think the design is actually smart. It saves water because you wouldn’t have to run a sink to turn over the line and your dishes get clean in a high efficiency dishwasher that has effectively an on demand heating element in it. But that’s only if you have an electric water heater electricity cost wise.

But it’s also why I think hooking it up to the cold or hot line wouldn’t make a difference. Both lines are cold until the water is turned over in the hot line, so what does it matter? There’s nothing done to water in a water heater besides heating it.

[love_conquers_lust]

@Likes2drive @Smashingdoozy

“I guess you can give us an update since I’m curious what happened there”

I second that. @Smashingdoozy it nothing against you. These kinds of problems excite me and that’s how we’d address them in my profession, in a competitive manner.

[Likes2drive]

@love_conquers_lust Yeah I agree, it’s definitely different than how it’s done here and probably doesn’t matter which line it was hooked to so there must be some other reason for the pressure loss in the shower

[Smashingdoozy]

@love_conquers_lust @Likes2drive update is up

[Likes2drive]

Oh ok, didn’t know you never had a dishwasher there before, old plumbing probably was restricted with rust in the lines if the building was old and used iron pipes like I had in a house I was in from 1929

[Smashingdoozy]

Nah not rust, the plumber said the pipes on the heater are the wrong type. Said we could put extra valves on it and replace the main pipe but it's not going to make that much of a difference

[Likes2drive]

Sounds like an expensive job to fix

[love_conquers_lust]

@Smashingdoozy What does he mean by wrong type? What kind of pipes are installed and does the complex have hard or soft water? They better not not be using copper pipes with hard well water.

Shower heads don’t usually need pressure regulators, they’re built into the head.

Installing a dishwasher should not cause a loss in supply pressure to the shower/water heater unless your pressure sucks so bad that it reduces to a trickle when you’re using the dishwasher at the same time.

Extra valve’s will actually add more back pressure, making it worse. Replacing existing valves that might be blocked off would help.

Replacing the main pipe and inspecting the water heater sounds like the play. That’s in your landlord’s court.

You also may want to check the mechanical strainer at your shower head just to be sure.

If you have trouble with faucet flow, it would be worth checking aerators at any sink. This won’t help with the shower issue, but it’s something else to consider given your pressure problem.

[Smashingdoozy]

@love_conquers_lust the pipes are all the same size, at least one of them is supposed to be much larger. Its definitely not well water. The shower head had a pressure regulator in it which it didn't need, so we have removed that and it's better than it ever was. It did cause the issue. It's not a coincidence that it happened exactly the same time. It's just such a small tank for a 3 bedroom two bathroom place that adding one more thing onto the line made it worse.

[love_conquers_lust]

Pipe sizes are usually like 1” upstream and taper to 3/4” or 1/2” at points of use.

Well that’s stupid. They shouldn’t have a small tank for a 3 bedroom. They should have those tanks that are taller than you.

It’s still probably worth inspecting the water heater if the unit is old. REALLY inspecting it. As in draining and taking it apart. But that’s on the landlord. Hope you have enough hot water.

[Smashingdoozy]

@love_conquers_lust landlord said it's about 15-20 years old anyway so may as well just replace it and that solves any future issues

[love_conquers_lust]

@Smashingdoozy They could opt for an on demand water heater but that would require beefed up electrical supply. 208/240V or whatever the UK runs. I think I recall they supply 50Hz.

But good luck getting a landlord to loosen their pockets for bratty tenants 🤪.

[Smashingdoozy]

@love_conquers_lust our landlord is lovely and will fix anything that isn't working right as soon as possible. Not all land Lords are pieces of shits, I should know I am one.

[love_conquers_lust]

@Smashingdoozy You’re a landlord who takes the train dressed as a hot brat and rents in an another apartment of another landlord? I’m guessing you don’t own anything in the UK.

Yeah, just like not all tenants aren’t pieces of shit either. Some of us actually leave their units in better shape than they found it for the next tenant. It’s too bad I wasn’t paired with one of them, or at least ones that thought the same of me. Then again, there’s probably a direct correlation between rent price and assholishness of both tenants and landlords.

[Smashingdoozy]

@love_conquers_lust no I own in the US and don't live in an apartment... I also don't know what me taking the train or dressing the way I do has to do with anything?

[love_conquers_lust]

@Smashingdoozy I wouldn't take you for a landlord, that's why.

[Smashingdoozy]

@love_conquers_lust wasn't the plan. Bought a house then it didn't work out with the person I was going to share it with so I impulsively moved countries...

[love_conquers_lust]

@Smashingdoozy On second thought, if you get off on telling your tenant “no” or to fix their own problems, it could be a hood fit.

I assume there’s a story with that you may not wish to share. Pretty brave to head across the pond on a whim.

[Friendlybro79]

I'm pretty sure a dishwasher should be hooked up to the hot water but cold. I'm not sure why water pressure would drop unless you're taking a shower and running the dishwasher at the same time and even that shouldn't be a big deal because they don't use much water nowadays.

[Smashingdoozy]

It's supposed to be hooked up to cold water 😌

[Friendlybro79]

Well look at this I never knew that. I just looked it up and some do connect to cold. Mine is hot. Interesting

[AMS700CX4u2]

Try hooking it up to the HOT water line with a service tap. You hot water heater may need flushing. Small peebles will clog the screen in the inlet and reduce pressure. Stones form in the tank and will clog up anything downstream.

[Smashingdoozy]

Problem has been figured out re update

[nawtee_me]

Cold water is what comes into your apartment to begin with. Then the cold water is hooked to a water heater to produce hot water. So anything you hook to the cold water will reduce the pressure when it is working. But when it is off it should make no difference in pressure. Unless you have something leaking….

[RealMarek]

The dishwasher should be hooked up to hot water. It should not cause a noticeable difference in pressure, especially when it is not running, unless there is a pretty serious leak.

[Smashingdoozy]

It's supposed to be hooked up to cold water 🙃

[RealMarek]

The dishwashers must be different in the UK than in the US. I just installed two dishwashers that required hot water supply.

[glennos89]

Maybe it's time to fill your boiled with some water. Every boiler needs to be refilled every once in a while. If there isn't enough water in the boiler it also loses the water pressure

[ChicoFromThe305]

Dishwasher? You mean the storage door in the kitchen?

[Smashingdoozy]

😂😂

[NYCQuestions1976]

I'm an electrician by trade, so I punt on this particular issue. If you can only use one kitchen appliance at a time to avoid the breaker from tripping, let me know. That's my wheelhouse.

[mohannad5]

تركيب ضاغط مياه يجيب على المدخل الرئيسي لأنابيب المياه. وهذا سيجعل ضغط المياه قويا في جميع أنحاء المنزل. إنه أوتوماتيكي ويعمل فقط عند استخدام الماء.

[Staximus]

Just don't run the dishwasher and shower at the same time

[Smashingdoozy]

That wasn't the issue

[ThrillSeeker01]

At least your dishwasher didn't flood your kitchen like mine did lol

[Smashingdoozy]

Oof fuck that

[Smashingdoozy]

When I installed my own at my old place I ended up getting dirty drain water spilled all over me. I could have thrown up on the spot 🥴

[ThrillSeeker01]

Yuck, that reminds me of one time when my toilet overflowed 🤮

[Dargil]

San Francisco-level POS.

[HouseMoat]

He's changing it for ONE person?

[Smashingdoozy]

For me and the 2 people that live with me yes?

[HouseMoat]

Yikes

[Smashingdoozy]

What do you mean yikes?

[HouseMoat]

I just mean, "yikes"

[Smashingdoozy]

Yeah why is that yikes?

[HouseMoat]

Because it is

[Smashingdoozy]

A landlord replacing a bad water heating system is yikes?

[jimmy2]

Look on YouTube