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responsive faucet

water temperature is highly responsive to control
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hot/cold mixing is done at the end of the faucet (just before aerator) so that temperature control is more sensitive. This would be a luxury feature in high-end kitchen faucets with long spouts and in bathroom showers where there are at least a few feet between the control and the spout.
jeremyFaden, Dec 28 2004

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       I believe that pipe cooling is why your hot water is cold when you first turn on the faucet. Having the mixing occuring at the head instead wouldn't fix that problem, and also probably wouldn't change the responsiveness to any perceivable degree.
contracts, Dec 28 2004
  

       You would have a lesser degree of pipe cooling in a 3 port system as opposed to a 2 port system but you would need more copper to do this and also a circulation pump with your boiler on demand. The mixing of the hot and cold can be achieved too. This is all very trivial if you have the money and are not worried about saving th planet!.
gnomethang, Dec 28 2004
  

       I believe that the author wishes to remove the delay between changing the temperature adjustment and feeling the change. e.g. in the shower if you crank the temperature from comfortable to completely hot and back again, it may take a few seconds before you're scalded.   

       The proposed idea would do that. I'm not seeing anything about how it would be implemented. Not sure why I'd want it.
half, Dec 28 2004
  

       Having the mixing occuring at the head probably wouldn't change the responsiveness to any perceivable degree.
contracts, Dec 28 2004
  

       How about an old-fashioned two-faucet system with a hot-only tap and a cold-only tap? This way the mixing occurs past the aerators and beyond the end of the pipe altogether. The temperature adjustment--the mix--happens in death-defying mid-air! In fact, with articulated faucet or showerheads the user can, by aiming the water streams, design exactly where the mix occurs for that finest of fine control over temperature.
bristolz, Dec 28 2004
  

       Because of the way the convergence works, proper attention must be paid to the sweet spot for an optimal experience in [bristolz]' shower.   

       Why would mixing it at the head not change anything? A quick guesstimate shows that for my shower, with one of those massaging shower head on a hose things, it takes somewhere just shy of 2 seconds for water to get from the mixer to the head @ 2.5 gal/min flow rate.   

       Simply moving the mixing valve up closer to the shower head would have to make a difference. Wouldn't it?
half, Dec 28 2004
  

       I agree, something like [bris]'s idea is necessary. Also, the water should be diverted and not come out of the faucet at all until it is the right temperature. So you don't turn on "hot" and then stand shivering under ice cold water while you wait for it to become hot.
phundug, Dec 28 2004
  

       Ahh, you just need a good on-demand water heater with the extra temperature controller pad (similar to a typical wall mount digital thermostat) you can install right in the shower. Turn on full hot, but set the temperature to wherever you desire (you learn in a shower or two where to set it). I really miss the one we installed in our last house. No more adjusting, no more scalding or cold blasts, just nice hot endless showers.
oxen crossing, Dec 28 2004
  

       Wow, I'm just in such a state of joy..."oxen-crossing",
blissmiss, Dec 28 2004
  

       Welcome [jeremyFaden]. I offer a bun to you as you seem to have produced a realistic solution to shower temperature time lag issues. Granted, they aren't the most pressing issues in the world, but there are a couple of seconds a day when I have made my shower scalding hot, realised, turned it down again, and would rather not spend the next two seconds having my skin melted off me while I wait for the cooler water to feed through.
wagster, Dec 28 2004
  

       [half], the experience from which my opinion is derived is, in my shower, you can never really tell how much of a turn of the knob will alter the temperature. When you turn the knob to say, add more cold water, it will still take X amount of time for the extra cold water to get to the head, and chances are that when it gets there, it will still be either too much or not enough, necessitating another trip to the controls. *shrugs* Maybe I'm missing something.
contracts, Dec 28 2004
  

       You seem to be talking about accurate temperature control while the author is talking about the speed of change in temperature. Two different things. They are related, in that a reduced lag time will make the manual feedback loop of which you speak, more effective.   

       The way I read it, the author is addressing the "it will still take X amount of time for the extra cold water to get to the head" part of your statement by attempting to reduce X. If the mixing is done in the head, the slug of pre-change temperature water won't have to be expelled from the pipes before the adjusted mix reaches your personal temperature sensors. The scalding/shrinkage will begin sooner.   

       Right after this, we're going to start working on solving the next item down on the "World Crisis" list.
half, Dec 28 2004
  

       I think I was missing this: the two separate temperature pipes would be running directly to the showerhead, and the controls (regardless of their physical location) would, instead of allowing more hot or cold through the individual pipes to the head where they are then conjoined, it controls the amount of output at the outlet, as well as the mix.
contracts, Dec 28 2004
  

       Okay, not a world crisis, but 2 seconds is a very long time for feedback in a control loop, and we live with it every day. Surely this accounts for some of the strife in the world.
jeremyFaden, Dec 29 2004
  
      
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