Water Heater Mixing Valve | Thermostatic Mixing Valve Installation Guide

Are you looking for in-depth knowledge about the water heater mixing valve or thermostatic mixing valve? If so, then this article is the best one where you will learn everything about the water heater mixing valves. For those, who are new to this era, must first know that these types of valves are basically used to control, enhance, or maintain the temperature of water, particularly of hot water.

A thermostatic mixing valve which is also known as water mixing valve, is used to mix hot water with cold one. This is used to blend hot and cold water with each other in order to ensure constant temperature of water. This helps in the prevention of scalding. Many of you may be unaware of the word ‘scalding’. The word scalding means very hot that is harmful for human body.

When the water is too hot, it may cause the burns on your skin that would create further issues. In order to prevent this situation, an anti-scalding valve is used. The main purpose of anti-scalding valve is to act as a tempering valve to reduce the higher temperature of water. In this way, these water mixer valves aids in ensuring safety and prevents any risk hazards either in residential or in commercial uses.

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What is tempering or tempering valve?

Have you ever heard about the term tempering or have any idea about what is tempering? If not, then here you will learn about the tempering in detail. Basically, the term ‘tempering’ means the process of heat treating which is used in different fields for different purposes. In the era of sanitary, there are different types of tempering valves that are easily available in the market at varying sizes and different prices.

If you are planning to buy a hot water tempering valve. You must check whether this hot water tempering valve is compatible with the sink parts in your home. Not only in home, but you can fit it at any place wherever you need it but make sure to check its adjustability first.

What is the main function of these water mixer valves?

The main function of these water mixing valves is to maintain the temperature of water at a certain level to prevent disasters. Not only this, but they also balance the water pressure in the sanitary pipes, e.g. the pressure of cold/hot water in pipe line. Due to these temperature mixing valves, you can now enjoy the desired level of hot water in your taps and shower without any issues.

For example, suppose that you are going to take shower but have no shower mixing valve inserted into your washroom. What would you do if the hot water stops to come out of the shower in a cold day? In order to stay safe from such events, it is advisable to fit the best, effective, and right sized shower mixing valve in your bathroom shower.

This would ensure the availability of hot water at any time as long as you take the shower. In this way, you wouldn’t have to worry about anything and it will make the warm water available for you.

How to install a water heater mixing valve?

In order to install the water heater mixing valves or hot water mixing valve at faucets in your home, you must follow a proper procedure. If you are doing it for the first time or have a little plumbing experience, you can get a proper manual. The manual for installing these valves at faucets is easily available at various plumbing stores, and also online on internet.

If you want to install a thermostatic valve at copper water pipes, it is recommended to hire a professional service. This is because copper water pipes are difficult to deal with and only professionals could do it more effectively. However, if you want to install it on the galvanized pipes, you can easily do it at home by yourself. In order to do so, make sure to follow these important steps one by one.

Step to Follow

Step1 : Check the water heater thermostat control first. If it is on, turn it either off or at the pilot position.

Step 2 :Similarly, also close the cold water inlet valve to stop the flow of cold water during the procedure.

Step 3: Even though the supply of water is stopped from their inlet points, the water is still available in the water/sanitary pipes. Turn on the taps of faucets in your home so that all of the standing water in the pipes could be drained. In this way, the pipes would be set free of water and the supply of hot/cold water would also be stopped.

Step 4:The water that is present in the heater would be very hot. Give it some time i.e. one to two hours to cool down to a lesser temperature.

Step 5 :Detach the vent pipe from heater top by lifting up the flange that is located at the bottom side of vent pipe. Put both of these (flange and vent pipe bottom) towards the heater backside in a slow direction and smooth movement.

Step 6 :Loose and detach the top fitting of cold water flex line with the help of a right sized wrench. After that, simply detach this fitting from its connected shutoff valve.

For cold water connections:

step 1:Take the vinyl plumber tape and wrap it completely around the underside threads of shutoff valve. Hold the galvanized couple and screw its female end onto threads. Then take a wrench and rotate the coupler clockwise to tighten it firmly.

step 2:You will see the blue colored plastic cap at the cold water inlet threads. Carefully pull them off from the upper end of these threads and cover them through wrapping a vinyl tape around them.

step 3:Now, pick up the valve with hand and at the same time, and screw the coupler’s male end inlet carefully. Now, properly tighten the fitting by using both of your hands, and an adjustable wrench.

For hot water connections:

step 1:From hot water pipe, loosen the fitting at the top of hot-water flex line and simply detach aside it in one direction.

step 2:Just like we did in cold water pipes, wrap a vinyl tape at threads of hot water pipes. Then pull of the red plastic caps at hot water pipe inlets but make sure to perform this step at the lower end of hot water pipes.

step 3:Take a wrench and open the shutoff valve at the side of cold water connection.

step 4:Now, connect back the vent pipe. Now, turn on the water heater and allow the water to come in. set the temperature and let the heater heat the water for about one hour.

step 5:After that, when you open up the tap, the new adjustments in the pipes and mixing valves would make the water temperature constant for you. In this way, you can easily get the water of required temperature at any time in your home.

An important thing to consider!

While sealing the pipes or threads, make sure to use only the vinyl plastic tape instead of sealants. If you use the sealing compounds on threads/pipes during the process, there are higher chances that the sealant traces would mix in water. They will get inside the hot water pipes and contaminate your water. Furthermore, it wouldn’t be as durable as vinyl plastic tape when it comes to sealing the hot water pipes.

Never ignore the steam valve inspection

During the process of setting the water mixing valve or temperature mixing valves, make sure you never ignore the steam valve inspection. It is important to pay a special consideration as it ensures that the process has been completed effectively and steam valve is working appropriately. If the steam valve fails to work as required, make sure to ask for a professional for steam valve inspection.

Why it is important to hire a professional service?

Sometimes, it becomes important to hire a professional service because there are some tasks that only the professionals can do in a perfect way. For example, if you have no plumbing experience and something gets wrong with your temperature mixing valves¸ you would fail to resolve the issue. This is because when you have no experience and knowledge, you would not even understand the manual or helping guide.

In this way, you will only waste your time and energy while the main issue would stay unresolved. In such cases, it is always a best idea to ask for a professional help. This is because they will resolve your issue in a much shorter time period. Not only this, but as they are experienced, they would make the corrections in a more effective and accurate way. Furthermore, it would save your energy and time that you can invest at somewhere else.

What is the cost of installing or replacing a thermostatic valve?

When you decide to install or replace a thermostatic valve by yourself at home. The cost varies based on various factors. For example, which type or size of valve you will use, which brand you will choose to buy the valve, etc. It will also depend on whether you have all the required tools to install. For replace the water heater mixing valves. An estimated average cost to do so may range from $100-$200 if you already have all the other helping materials.

How much does a plumber charge to install a water heater valve or to inspect a steam valve?

The cost of hiring a professional plumber depends on which types or services you want to take from him. If you are hiring a professional only to check water heater valve or steam valve inspection, the cost would be around $80 to $150 only. In contrast, if you hire a professional service to install a new hot water mixing valve or to replace an existing one, the cost may go up to $350 to $500.

However, it must also be kept in mind that these costs also depend on which company. You choose to take these services and in which area. For example, if you choose a professional service from a country’s top ranked and high end plumbing company. The charges would be higher. If you choose a normal or low end company, the service charges would be relatively less.

What are the top selling and highly recommended mixing valves?

Although you will find a great variety of the mixing valves available in the market, but not all of them are up to the rank. Many of them would be of low quality and will show less performance. Some of them would not be durable and you would need to replace them after a short interval of time.

Some of them may not fit according to the size of your faucets and may break during installation. In short, there are numerous issues that you can face with mixing valves. Therefore, always choose a good brand for buying the water mixing valves.

Important Information

Currently, the widely selling and top recommended mixing valves include the watts mixing valve, and watts thermostatic mixing valve. These mixing valves are particularly designed for residential use, industrial use, and commercial use.

A watts mixing valve or a watts thermostatic mixing valve works very effectively in mixing the hot water with cold one to give you a constant temperature water. Furthermore, these valves are more durable and would go in long run.

They would be more effective in their performance and you will not face any issue with them. Not only this, but these mixing valves are also rightly priced. In this way, you can easily buy them at any nearby plumbing store as they are easily available at various points.

Another best thing is that they are available in different types and different sizes. You can choose any one according to your need. If you are planning to buy a water heating mixing valve, make sure to buy the one from watts for greater benefits.

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