My cold water,well, it isn't cold?

Question

I live in bradenton,florida. I own a home,and for some reason my cold water throughout the whole damn house is warm! It hasn't exactly been comfortable weather here(steaming!) I want to take a nice cold shower after work and allas!....Warm!
What the hell is going on?!

Answer 1

The pipes in your home are not insulated. If you can see the pipes, measure the size, and purchase and install insulation on all your pipes. Good luck!

Answer 2

"Cold water well," doesn't necessarily mean REFRIGERATED water. It just means the water is not hot due to some thermal process. Cold water wells supply drinking water -hot water well are used to heat buildings.

While many people think your well operates by sucking water out of some underground river on demand, this is not usually the case. The well actually fills up with water -to a certain point- and acts as its own storage tank. Thus, when you draw off water, you're taking it from the storage, not right out of the sand or rock. So, that water sits there until used, and starts to -you guessed it- warm up. Water also lies in the pipe running from the well to your house. Down in Tampa, folks don't worry about freezing too much, so the line isn't too far underground. The ground gets hot, the pipe gets hot -and so does the water.

If you want some idea of the actual temperature of the well water, here are two ways to tell:

1. Go to the well head, remove the cover, and drop a thermometer down in there, tied to a wire or string. Use the the glass tube kind -not the dial kind- and make sure its heavy enough to sink. Leave it there for 10 minutes then pull it up and see what you get. Now let your thermometer warm back up to the air temp. Run your shower for a minute or so, and hold the thermometer under the running water, or just rest it on the shower floor under the flow. Whaddya get? If the house water is a lot warmer, then your only option is to chill it somehow before it hits the shower. And that would mean you'd need a way to store it in the house so it could be chilled. That tank where the water line comes in won't work -there's air in the tank for pressure, not water. Insulating the pipes really won't do much good either, because if you're running the AC at 75, your water will never be colder than that. The exception is any cold water lines that are near the hot water lines -and also near the water heater, where the hot water line really is hot. You can insulate BOTH lines in that area, but it won't do any good at locations further away.

2. If you can't get to the well head, then attach a hose near the pressure tank -there should be a main cut-off in that area and a hose bib. Run the house to the laundry sink or outside and turn on the water. Let it run for about 10 minutes to clear water from the pipes and start the intake of "fresh" water from the well. Use your thermometer as above, and sample the water every 3 minutes or so. (After the initial ten minutes, you can back off the flow of water because the system is now charged with new well water.)

All of this assumes you have your OWN well -if not, you're attached to a "community well," and getting to the well head for that may not be possible. But at the same time, you also have your answer. Community well water IS stored in big tanks and follows pipes from house to house -there's where the warming occurs.

The solution is therefore a chilling unit, usually attached near where the water comes in to the house.

Good luck.

Answer 3

From the well the water should be cold or cooler, so test it as close to the source as possible. As heat is entering the system somewhere, trace the line to the shower...is there a pressure or holding tank in the hot garage? do the pipes go thru the hot attic or crawl space? Run the cold water for 30 minutes and see if that changes things. When you find where it is picking up heat, your options maybe limited aside from running the water out of the system every time. and even then the water may still pickup residual heat for a time.

Answer 4

Temperature of underground running water is 57 degrees.

You may have single lever faucets that are mixing the hot and cold side together somewhat. If you have a yard faucet rising out of the ground, check it's temp.

If you have lines in the attic, like I do, you're kinda outa luck.

I jump in and the water is warm as you say.
Then the water from the yard line hits, and I have to adjust to temp.
Then the hotter water from the water heater hits and I have to readjust the temp again. You see, the warm at first is because of the attic temperature. Then the cold yard line water hits the shower, then the hotter water heater water.
For us, it's just procedure during our hot months.

Our lines are insulated well. Doesn't make a difference in this particular problem.

Hope this helps.
Again, water running underground in piping is 57 degrees. So, your problem is in the house.

Answer 5

I spent the summer in Oklahoma one time & I had a hard time telling what was the hot & what was the cold.

The ground is so warm that the water mains get real warm.

If enough people run the water it may get as cold as it's source but even that may not be too cool.

Answer 6

Your water mains are not buried too deep down there and the heat is warming up the ground. The further away from the water source (wherever your water comes from) the warmer it will be. I have the same thing here in Arkansas.

Answer 7

Wow man, i thought i was the only 1 that enjoyed cold showers, but.... ive never heard of your problem... maybe the fixtures are malfunctioning and the shower wont turn to the cold side.... try running the water from ur sink. if its COLD, then replace the shower fixtures so they work properly

Answer 8

Run the garden hose. Is the water there cold or warm? It maybe that is as cold as the system water is.

Answer 9

either a check valve or lack of one,or pipe is buried shallow