Hot water supply to toilet (oops)

[Richard]

Well, it seems when some OAF (that would be ME, by the way ) did the plumbing downstairs he crossed a pipe with another.

End result, new toilet in the bathroom being finished in basement (now behind drywall) is being fed with HOT water instead of cold water.

We made a joke that we now have a self sanatizing toilet.

Other than using the water from my water heater tank, are there any issues that we should be thinking about here?

I've got access to some of the pipes in the adjacent room and I don't THINK I can swap this out without causing other issues in other places.

My wife was on the phone with her father and I DID tell her to tell him that I did NOT want to catch him sneaking over this winter to sit on our toilet so he could keep his buns warm!! It's all I need to have all the local neighbors lining up to sit on my automatic bun toaster.

 

[wrenchturner]

Look at the positive side. Now you do not have to worry about the wife saying the toilet is leaking only because of moisture condensation from the outside of the tank.

 

[Paddy]

Just remove a strip of drywall and do it right. There is an old saying. "The main diff between an amature and a pro is the pro fixes his mistakes."

Don't feel bad, I've done that too!!

 

[RonMar]

Actually I have known several people who have done that on purpose, including my Father in Law, for the reason mentioned, Condensation.

You get up in the morning, use the toilet and then jump in the shower. 60 degree or less cold water supply fills the tank. Bathroom temp 75+ degrees and high humidity from the shower makes the toilet tank an instant moisture magnet. Depending on how far it is from your hot water tank(volume of water in pipe versus tank/flush volume), it can raise the temp in the tank to at least room temp or more making it far less likley to condense water on the surface. Also depending on how the plumbing is run, it may draw the warm water to the shower area so you don't have to run so much water to get the shower up to temp.

 

[randy41]

how much energy does a hot water heater use to heat a gallon of water?

 

[browns40]

Change it to cold... bad stuff grows in toilets with cold water supply... worse stuff (for a person) would grow at temperatures closer to our body temperature... the old saying: "a cold house is a healthy house" has a fundamental basis in microbiology: organisms growing at temperatures closer to the human body are organisms that would grow more readily in & on the human body.

Add moisture to the equation & its a potential hazard, not to mention you would be throwing money down the drain!

It should be a snap to run cold water to your existing feed & switch them/cap the hot water line.

 

[pat32rf]

Don't feel bad. Back about 1969 Ryerson Institude in Toronto put up the first of a group of new towers, about 13floors. Down in the basement somewhere they also got the hot and cold pipes crossed, only these were in the neighbourhood of 8" galvanized. Yes, they fixed them but the resulting "X" between where they came out of the floor slab and entered the ceiling slab sure looked funny.....It was easier than changing every washroom on each floor though.

 

[Willl]

Lifes to short, leave it and move on.

 

[kenmac]

Richard , you asked for help on the toiled not the water lines

 

[Richard]

Well, I've had more comments than I really expected

I yanked out all my 1/2" stuff and replaced it with some 3/4" to feed my torrential shower.

During all that I somehow ended up with a 1/2" stub that I "knew" was cold feed. I left that stubbed and when the toilet line went in I just uncapped that line and brought it down. That eliminated a 3' or so dead end line that I can NOT get to in the other room because of all my HVAC ductwork.

Even if I removed some drywall to fix this I would still not have a handy 1/2" cold line there, that line has been replaced by a 3/4" line. Second, if I were to simply Tee off the 3/4" line I'd have to cap this 1/2" line and now have to wonder which is worse...dead end line or hotsy totsy toilet? (and the toilet DOES fill with noticably warm water during flush cycle...or at least the several flushes we did while playing with it (wife even washed her hands in the toilet since it's not been 'used' yet )

Given that, it seems to me the dead end line should dump somewhere. If I leave it and change the plumbing upstream I THINK I could swap some hot/cold however I would then have to go flip the supply tubes at my kitchen sink, washer/dryer connection, lavatory and shower in this same bathroom.

sigh...

me thinks we'll be reviewing those other hot/cold lines & make sure my thoughts above are accurate, if they are accurate, I might leave well enough alone.

I guess this isn't as bad as when I cross connected some hot/cold lines and had cold feeding both cold AND hot lines in the house... I was wondering why my hot faucets downstairs never put out hot water...seems the boob I 'hired' to do the work did some while he was sleepy. Fortunately I caught that and this is my only issue.