There are! They’re called thermostatic faucets.
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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I'm amazed at the comments explaining incoming water temperature fluctuations and pressures....
No no, thermostatic tap/faucet mixes waters depending on the output temperature. Ignores all of the variables except the thermal mass (I guess reaction speed) of the thermostatic system.
I think they are normally like 10x the price of a standard mixer tap tho.
So, it's a budget choice
Yeah, and obviously if the 'hot' water isnt hot, there isn't anything it can do.
When I bought the faucet for my bathtub, the regular one was 35€ while the thermostatic one was 60€. I wonder why they still make the regular ones
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I have a feeling like you could do a completely mechanical one. Like a way to push it open and a part gets pushed out to stay put so when you open the faucet back up it bumps it and has a little resistance when it first turns so you don't accidentally move it. Rotate the full way around to reset.
It's reasonably common for showers to have a mixing valve and a flow rate valve on separate handles. That accomplishes what you want. You just have to remember which is which and only use the flow rate valve to turn on and off.
More importantly, hot water circulation systems should be more common. It's the waiting for the cold water in the line to flush out that really makes setting temperature a hassle.
hot water circulation systems should be more common
That just sounds like a waste of energy. Why not have the water heater right next to your shower, so that there's no wait? It's how it was set up in my parents home. Really enjoyed that setup, never had to wait for hot water.
Because the kitchen isn't always wall to wall with the bathroom?
That's still confusing to me. My parents had the water heater tank in the bathroom, between the shower/bath and the sink. The kitchen sink had a separate small water heater.
Most houses in the US have a single water heater, usually in the basement or utility room, with pipes running all through the house.
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I'm irritated by these half-measures. Just bathe in the hot water heater!
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On demand recirculating works reasonably well but only for people who tolerate it. Push button, wait 3 min, water hot. It works for me but I know it’s way too much trouble for other people. It saves water and energy.
If you have a consistent schedule, you can also use timers for those so you don’t always need to remember to run it.
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I assume electric showers are pretty rare over there? We’d have like a 16mm2 cable ran to the bathroom for a 10.5kW shower. And with one of those it’s practically instant heat, and enough to heat high flow.
I've never seen one. We've got on-demand water heaters that feed entire homes, but the electric versions are notorious for breaking a lot. The trend is toward heat pump hot water storage tanks that cool the air around them and put that heat into the water tank.
Thanks for info, good to learn.
I prefer a water shower, thanks
I've seen some videos about those, my understanding is that they're used in warmer climates where the cold water line is already relatively warm year round.
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and when the hot water heater is two floors down and the pipe from there runs up unheated parts of the building, it takes a very long time to get even a hint of warmth out of the hot water faucets.
i've lived 3 minutes away from hot water for nearly thirty years now. it sucks. if i ever get money enough to own a house, or choose where i live with little regard to cost, it will have instant hot water (tankless water heaters).
I thought a hot water circulator would be great, and it kind of is, but it comes with a drawback that I hadn’t considered. If you want cold water from the tap, to fill a glass of water at night for example, you have to wait for that just as long as you would have had to for the hot water before!
The solution to that is for a third return line to be run during a new build or remodel, but that's definitely not a weekend project for most homes.
My super basic faucet handles are exactly that…you twist it left-right to set temp and tilt it up-down for pressure from off to full. We just leave it rotated wherever we like it for temp and tilt up to turn on each time to the desired pressure. Our water pressure is always variable, so the amount tilted up varies, but the “rotational temp” almost never needs changing. There’s no fancy thermostatic valve in these like some shower have. There’s even those fancy kitchen sink faucets that remember everything and you just tap them with your hand and they automatically turn on/off to your settings of temp and pressure. I think they are called “touchless faucets”. Pretty sure even Ikea sells one.
I feel like sink handles like mine are super common, too. I’ve had similar ones in the states and in Europe…
My kitchen faucet does this. It's a 2-axis lever. Y axis is the temperature adjustment, X axis is flow. As long as you leave it set to the same Y position when you turn it off and on, it'll be at the "last used combination".
Mine did this was well. If looks like a little stick on a ball
Indeed :). That's what these are. 
You mean a (single handle) mixer tap?
Keep in mind that mixing the levels of hot and cold water isn't the only factor in the final temperature. It's also the actual temperature of the water in the pipes. Depending on where your pipes run, the cold water in the pipes may be warmer or cooler than the underground source of the water. The hot water may also have cooled more or less since leaving your hot water heater. Initial temperature may therefore be too hot or cold compared to where it ends after a period of use.
Ambient temperature in the room will also affect how hot you want the final temperature to be
We have mixer taps in our bathroom sinks and showers. Just lift the handle up and the temp is the same as it was last time you used it.
The only correct kind of faucet is the kind with a thermostatic handle for temperature, and a separate handle for flow.
They are almost exclusively available for showers and that's stupid. It's the correct solution for the problem, with extremely few drawbacks.
The only improvement I could see is making the temperature handle short circuit to the drain until the water going through is hot enough. But I dont know if that's really possible without electronics, and I really dont want my faucet handles to be plugged in or take AA batteries.
Being able to maintain the ratio with fluctuating water pressure would be cool too. It's probably possible to do entirely mechanically.
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would love indexing and numbers on my handle
or just go full Japan and incorporate a thermostat
That's not even Japan, any European country has that as standard on showers
oof, you caught me red-handed, USian here 😭
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