Hot/Cold shower

[thankdog]

Hi everyone - hoping you can offer some insight to this ongoing issue(s) -

we have a 2012 Fleetwood Discovery 40X

Two things maybe unrelated -

Most importantly when we take showers (if not hooked up to city water) the water fluctuates from hot to cold to hot and back again - we replaced the pump as was suggested and no real improvement.

Second issue the ice maker doesnt work. There is nothing wrong with the ice maker that anyone can find. We replaced the filter but that made no difference. Oddly - from time to time with no rhyme or reason it will make a tray of ice. I know, not a super important problem to have in the big picture but still we would love to be using the ice maker instead of simply using it to hold store bought ice.

Thanks! Preparing for a X country trip and wanting to get everything done.

Lynn

[Bill_Satellite]

An accumulator "should not" be the answer. Water pressure to all lines should be the same even when the pressure fluctuates. Something changed. Maybe you have a blockage in one of the lines (hard water creating calcium deposits) or maybe you have a line that is expanding or collapsing. I can't tell from your description but I don't see anyway that an accumulator would have any effect. Accumulators only take out the surge but the surge would be on both the hot and cold.

[thankdog]

I always turn on hot all the way and inch the cold until it feels good but it fluctuates nonetheless - I will order the accumulator and see if that helps. Nothing has been changed and I have been thru the entire system looking for anything out of order. Nothing looks out of sorts to me.

[DrewE]

Possibly there's some mixing of the hot and cold going on in the plumbing somewhere. The usual places where this can happen are the water heater bypass (not being fully shut off) or the outside shower if you have one (the hot and cold knobs being on, but the flow shut off at the showerhead). The inside shower can also mix the hot and cold exactly like the outside one, of course, but not so much when you're showering there.

[doxiemom11]

I agree that this is not common or usual. I get a good hot shower no matter if I'm using city connection or tank and pump. I have found that if you turn the hot water on all the way, let it get hot before you start mixing cold in, it works better. Ours at least did this. When I turned the water on with both some hot and cold and planned on adjusting temp like I did with the shower in our house, seems like I had hot/cold especially if I shut the showerhead off then turned it back on. Starting the shower as indicated above with all hot until hot, then add cold took care of that problem.

[Bill_Satellite]

No, this is not a common issue. You should get the exact same water delivery to the hot side and the cold side of your plumbing system. Has anything been changed since things were working 1.5 years ago? A strange part of this question is that you do not seem to have this problem when hooked up to city water but you do when you are using water in your holding tanks and water pumps only. That should also not be the case. If you can think of anything else, let us know.

[ScottG]

Can you tell us what model water heater you have?
Some have a mixing valve that can cause these issues.

[thankdog]

I looked it up and watched a couple install videos on You Tube - I could do that no problem. Now just to see which one I need. Thanks for the tip!

[thankdog]

We Cant Wait wrote:
As to the hot/cold thing, about the only thing that will lessen this issue when on the pump is the addition of an accumulator tank to even out the water pressure surge.

So this is a common issue? This began about 1.5 years after owning this rig - it wasnt always a problem. I was hoping it could be a simple fix.

What is an accumulator tank and I am assuming this would be an after market 'fix' I could do myself?

TIA

Lynn

[We_Cant_Wait]

As to the hot/cold thing, about the only thing that will lessen this issue when on the pump is the addition of an accumulator tank to even out the water pressure surge.

[thankdog]

Tank style - 10 gallon

[dan-nickie]

Is the water heater tank style or tankless?