Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lorn vocal Bomb here with a classic episode from our
Speaker 1: erstwhile host, Christian Sager. This one is one of those
Speaker 1: everyday science questions that's easy to answer, but also easy
Speaker 1: to prevent from happening in the first place. Why does
Speaker 1: the shower get hot when someone in the house flushes
Speaker 1: the toilet? Hey brain Stuff, Christian Sagar here, Have you
Speaker 1: ever been taking a shower, you know, gently scrubbing your body,
Speaker 1: maybe singing Boston's more than a feeling, when all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the water becomes scalding hot, potentially burning your
Speaker 1: special downstairs area. I'm here to tell you that it's
Speaker 1: not just you. But before I teach you how to
Speaker 1: fix your plumbing so your shower no longer scorches your flesh,
Speaker 1: please allow me to first explain how the modern commode works.
Speaker 1: A common configuration of pipes in homes is what is
Speaker 1: called a trunk and brand inch system. It's like a
Speaker 1: tree with one large pipe, you know, the trunk that
Speaker 1: has several smaller pipes branching off to things like your sink,
Speaker 1: your laundry machine, your shower, or your toilet. If one
Speaker 1: of these pipe trees, branches needs water. Like for instance,
Speaker 1: when you flush your toilet, there's less water available for
Speaker 1: the other branches on the tree. There are around three
Speaker 1: gallons of water in that tank on the back of
Speaker 1: your toilet, so when you pull the handle, it flushes
Speaker 1: all that water to send whatever you've disposed of down
Speaker 1: the sewer pipe. The tanks subsequently refills, taking water away
Speaker 1: from the other branches. And here's the important part. Your
Speaker 1: toilet only uses cold water. So the reason your shower
Speaker 1: gets hot is because the flush toilet takes away the
Speaker 1: cold water that was available in the system to mix
Speaker 1: together with the hot water coming out of your shower head.
Speaker 1: And if you're like Goldilocks, you probably like your shower
Speaker 1: not too hot and cold. But without cold water in
Speaker 1: the mix, all that is left is nuclear hot lava
Speaker 1: that will melt your epidermis off. And it's not just
Speaker 1: your toilet that can contribute to this problem. Any appliance
Speaker 1: using cold water can steal it from the shower washing machines, sprinklers,
Speaker 1: even be days. There are several ways to fix this
Speaker 1: water temperature problem, and I'm going to present you with
Speaker 1: a few. The simplest method is to adjust the valve
Speaker 1: under the toilet's tank. Most of the time these can
Speaker 1: be tightened, so the toilet takes longer to fill. Unless
Speaker 1: you're the kind of person who is constantly discharging bodily
Speaker 1: waste and you know that's probably something you need to
Speaker 1: have looked at, you probably don't need the tank to
Speaker 1: be primed immediately. This will take less cold water away
Speaker 1: from the shower. A similar simple solution is to place
Speaker 1: an object like a brick or I don't know, a
Speaker 1: human skull inside the tank so it doesn't use three
Speaker 1: gallons every time you flush. There are more complex plumbing
Speaker 1: fixes available as well, increasing your trunk's pipe diameter, installing
Speaker 1: a new mixing valve, or renovating the whole system, but
Speaker 1: all of those are going to cost you cash money,
Speaker 1: and let's face it, if you wanted to spend that,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be listening to a podcast for home repair answers.
Speaker 1: So bing bang boom, there's how your toilet works, why
Speaker 1: flushing it makes the shower hot, and hey, a few
Speaker 1: ways you can fix it. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Christian and produced by Tyler Plain For more on this
Speaker 1: and lots of other topics. Because it, how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio for
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.