NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/misc/consumer/house/17346

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-23 | 2.0 KB

Xref: sparky misc.consumers.house:17346 misc.kids:33355
Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!pburch
From: [e-mail] (Paula Burch)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house,misc.kids
Subject: Re: Hot water too hot
Date: 25 Jan 1993 18:12:41 GMT
Organization: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
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[e-mail] (Renee Linda Roberts) writes:
> Tell the landlord (or property cooperative leaders) to turn it down! It
> wastes energy, especially if it is over 140 degrees. Turning it down to
> 120 will make it so it will take more than 5 minutes to sustain a burn,
> thereby also saving them from potential liability claims (If the energy
> idea doesn't work, the legal usually does).

But then a whole lot of dishwashers won't work--the detergent doesn't
dissolve well under a certain temperature. This would probably annoy
a lot of residents.

Some dishwasher repairman claimed that this was the cause of the problem,
anyway, in one case, and using the hotter water did seem to work.

It would be cheaper to buy temperature-sensitive valves (that shut off
at the faucet if the water exceeds a certain temperature) for one apartment
than to buy new dishwashers for everybody, if the dishwashers lack their
own built-in water heaters. Even in a single-family home, buying the valve
is probably cheaper than replacing the dishwasher.

I saw these valves in either the Perfectly Safe catalog or the Safety Zone
catalog, maybe both. (They are not here right now, or I'd post the
telephone numbers--I think that they're both 800 numbers, though, so try
1-800-555-1212 if you're interested.)

Now you can argue about which is worse for the environment, wasting energy
to heat your water too hot, or throwing away a perfectly good dishwasher....

Paula Burch
[e-mail]