Why does the force of the water coming out a sink faucet not strengthen when both hot and cold handles are turned as far as they can go, versus one or the other?
In: Engineering
So first as other commenter has said both hot and cold water come from the single pipe entering the house so pressure of both are the same.
Second if you have 2 pipes with different pressure joining up to a common point e.g. a tap, pressure don’t add up, instead water with higher pressure get pushed to low pressure region. In your example with both handles fully open, the higher pressure pipe will not only push water out of the tap, but also push water backwards into the lower pressure pipe.
Because the total pressure is still the same as the pressure coming into the house. You’ve just diverted one stream through the hot water tank and then reconverged it at the tap.
Because unless you have a special setup they ultimately come from one single pipe so the pressures don’t just add up. When you switch from hot to cold you are just routing whatever pressure you have through a different path
It may also be related to the aerator on your faucet. For example, your faucet may have an aerator that allows a maximum of 1.5 Gallons Per Minute (GPM) to pass through. If you turn the cold handle all the way on and the water pressure is high enough, you may get 1.5 GPM of cold water. Then if you also turn the hot handle all the way on, you may have something like 0.75 GPM each of hot and cold water.
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