You just bought a new head of lettuce and are looking forward to making a great salad for dinner. You rush home and unpack the lettuce and put it in the sink and turn on the cold water to wash it and you watch as it shrivels before your eyes! What the heck, the water is hot!!
Welcome to Arizona in the summer!!
It is a well-known fact in Arizona that as the temperature rises outside so does the temperature of the water that flows through you home. I still get a slight chuckle when a new resident asks the question “why is there no cold water?”
It has to do with the fact that builders here typically place water pipes about 6 feet into the ground and apparently that isn’t deep enough to ensure that the pipes don’t heat up. When they are that close to the surface, the result is hot water from the cold-water pipes!
There are other reasons you will hear. The one that is most creditable is that builders run water lines through your attic and the walls and then the water runs from the ground, getting heated by outside temperatures, through the attic and walls and it’s hot water that comes out. When we have temperatures over 100 degrees, the water will be hot!
This phenomenon will last until the first weeks of October when the temps start to decline especially in the evening allowing the pipes to regain their cold-water function.
We have discovered that if you get up around 5 to 6 AM and you’d like to wash your fruits and veggies, you will see cool water but once that sun rises it’s hot water all day long!
A lot of people I know turn off their hot water heaters and rely on the cold-water supply because it’s hot anyway! Also, because when taking a shower if you use your usual mix of hot and cold water, you’re probably going to get a hot shock!
So why don’t builders just dig deeper to install pipes you ask? Well, if you visit my friend Google, you will see that there are a multitude of reasons offered along with possible solutions for this problem. You’ll see:
- pipes might be too close together
- heat trap installed improperly
- water pressure too high
- no radiant barrier
- plastic water lines
You will also find suggested solutions requiring you engage contractors and services for a cost.
While it is a little startling and annoying to the new resident, it’s nothing you can’t deal with! After all, October comes around every year and with its return, there will be cold water!
#Transplanted