Plumbing question (regarding hot water fed to toilet)

[bearhawk]

I believe they actually make a valve for this purpose.

It's a one way mixing valve or something.

Made to combat a condensing toilet.

Cheers

 

[dbdartman]

The only way you'll be able to tie the hot & cold together is to use check valve, otherwise you'll likely thero-siphon as RonMar says.

If I was trying to fix this, I'd just open the wall where the feed is, cut & cap the hot feed & do what I had to do to get the cold to feed the existing line. There are flex lines available to make things a little easier.

Another option is to run a new cold feed to the toilet & just cap the hot line as high as possible in the vertical run, creating an air-cushion/shock absorber. Eventually it'll fill with water (probably a few years down the line), but if you dump the system you'll get the air cushion back.

Final option would be to run a new cold feed & install a tempering valve (mixes hot & cold to stop tank sweat).

 

[curly]

So, is it a big waste of money having the hot going there

 

[MikePA]

I'm all for keeping the Mrs happy and all but it seems your options are limited and the best solution is to do nothing.

Ditto.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I believe they actually make a valve for this purpose.

It's a one way mixing valve or something.

Made to combat a condensing toilet.

I have three of them in my house, installed by the previous owner for just that purpose. The problem I have is that all three of them had leaky valves, which led to hot water from the cold faucet and cold water in the shower, at unpredictable times. I guess the lesson is they need to be accessible for service.

Back to the original question, I have never regretted doing something the right way. Cut into the ceiling, cut out the T on the hot water and replace it with a slip coupling, then put a T in the cold and connect it to the toilet. Generally ceilings give you lots of room to work because joists are so big compared to studs, so you shouldn't have to make too big a hole. If you make your hole even a few inches from the wall you shouldn't disturb the crown molding. You're going to have to plaster and paint one surface in that room anyway, it might as well be the right one.

In terms of the cost of the hot water, a standard toilet is 1.6 gallons. Heating that much water takes about 650 BTU's, or about 0.2 kwh of electricity. We have really expensive electricity and that would cost about three cents.

However, a leaking toilet can be expensive!

 

[turnkey4099]

So, is it a big waste of money having the hot going there

Well, every time you flush, it is at least 1.6 gal of hot water gone. You paid good money to heat it. Count the number of flushes a day then compute the cost to heat that much water.

Harry K

 

[curly]

Well, every time you flush, it is at least 1.6 gal of hot water gone. You paid good money to heat it. Count the number of flushes a day then compute the cost to heat that much water.

Harry K

That's what I thought. I've never done any plumbing, but ours comes straight in from under the house, shouldn't be that hard to change out I wouldn't think...right?

 

[Richard]

As an update:

For those counting the number of daily flushes... this is the basement toilet (same room as washer/dryer) and though will evidently get used (as I can now attest ) over the weekends, it will probalby get used the least of the 3 toilets we have... or at minimum, tied for 2nd place.

I might also add that while giving it a trial run, I did a "courtesy flush" and I must concur with the wife that it is kind of a strange feeling having steamed buns...

I mean to tell you, steamed buns are OK fine if you are going to slap a Skyline Chili dog in them with some cheese... but when you are steaming a different set of buns.... well... it's kind of strange feeling...

So, she says she can fix the wall above the commode. Second... given where I know the connection is above the crown molding, fixing it THERE is STILL not going to fix it so I'd just rip up the crown for nothing (so that's not going to happen)

If I fix it, I'll rip the wall out behind the toilet, bring cold from the faucet over to the toilet and probably splice the current hot from the toilet into the faucets hot. That way I won't have any dead ends. I can deal with the shutoff situation by cutting the whole house off if need be.

That would only be a problem if the lavatory started to leak and if THAT happened, I could cut the house off, stop the leak, then cut a hole into the wall and cap it near the faucet. I'd need to go in there anyway if I had a leak so I'm not so sure that's going to matter?