Shower water not hot enough

[hmatharo]

I recently had a full bathroom built in my basement. The shower faucet is by Delta brand and it has a single valve (not separate hot and cold water valves). To turn the water on you simply turn the valve counterclockwise. The more you turn it the hotter it's supposed to get. However, it doesn't get fully hot...it just gets warm. All of the other faucets in my house (showers and sinks included) will output nice and hot water. I've tried increasing the temperature setting on my water heater but that didn't fix the problem. When the faucet is off, the valve's arrow is pointing right...when I turn the valve as far as it can go, the arrow is pointing upward...so it seems like the valve wants to be able to turn more, but there's some kind of plastic piece on the inside stopping it from turning further. What do I do? What are the steps to fixing this problem? I'm a novice and new homeowner and I need this problem fixed fast. Thanks!

[hmatharo]

Well, I figured it out...wasn't hard at all. In case anyone cares to know what I had to do I'm posting a reply to my own question.

It turns out that there's a safety mechanism (for children so they don't burn themselves) built inside the knob that doesn't allow people to turn the knob all the way to hot. It's a smart idea, but unfortunately I didn't want to have it...but to remedy the situation, I simply had to pop off the top of the water handle knob using a flat-head screwdriver and unscrew the screw that becomes exposed. Then slide the handle knob out so that's it's completely off and then rotate the little white plastic thingy (don't you love my use of technical terms?) slightly clockwise so that it would allow me to turn the water more towards HOT. Then slide the handle knob back on, put the screw back in and pop the top back in place. Took a total of 5 minutes to fix. Just call me MacGyver.

[Phelps]

I knew the answer before I read your post. Oh well. See what a person can learn if you are curious and just start tearing into things?

[tuffun]

hmatharo - welcome to the world of "Autodidacticism"

or more to the point - self learned.

grats for your fixin it with no one but yourself.
that's how most of us started - hmm that seems broke
lemmie take it apart ......

[Phelps]

My brother in law is that way. He came up to visit once and he brought an outboard motor with him that didn't work. He wanted me and him to tear into it and see. Another time, he started to tear my parents toaster apart to see what was wrong. He is a factory worker and those guys are sort of that way.

Because of such ambitions, he has remodeled his house, not knowing what he was doing, and did beautiful work, including new door, deck with roof, exposing a stairway by cutting hole out of sheetrock and framing it in, putting in new kitchen counters, putting in laminate floring in the kitchen, and much more. You have to have that fearless attitude.

[amillertools]

unfortunately I tend to break things even worse before getting to the "learning" stage