Is that because you are updating your own system and know it will take ages so you leave it - or is it because they wanted you to update their PC for them ?
In one of my childhood homes, after renting it for 5 years we prepared to leave and I went up into the attic with our electrician and saw inside the water storage tank, several bats in a few states of decomposition: from skeletons to only half rotten! I have the same habits as you after seeing that :)
Certainly a good idea with showers in hotels. Legionaire's is really not fun. I used to work in a lab testing shower water for it and yes, there are some suprisingly nice and expensive hotels that have perpetual issues because they can't be bothered to fix the plumbing.
As a plumber, I can tell you that the main reason for that, in 2021, is "old habits die hard". Even with old storage tanks, there are ways to prevent backwash and there exist regulations concerning that.
But a Reduced Pressure Zone device would probably need to be used to comply with the regulations which would be expensive to maintain and less practical than having two separate taps
Exactly the reason; to keep mains water separate from possible contamination. Regs were relaxed years ago. Similarly, do you remember when all toilets had to have syphon flushes and a way had to be made to run the overflow. The good 'ol days - not!
I agree. As afellow plumber as well, there are solutions. Here in France, a disconnector (lets say 2 check valves + purges in a single item) has become mandatory right after the water meter. You technically can't pollute the main anymore.
The only logical thing I could come up with is this: you're supposed to use the drain plug, fill the sink with mixed water, then wash your hands with that. Possibly sharing the same fill with several other people before you drain the sink.
I feel this is generally just an oversight looking at design over function. I get frustrated by this when I find taps that run too near the back edge of the sink. However I've used plenty of taps that are deep enough into the sink that it leads me to believe it's someone looking at the style more when they buy and not pairing it with the sink they've purchased correctly.
@@NeptunesOrca Funny as it sounds, linguistics is a *huge* part of computer science. Most CS students (at least in the US) have to take formal language/grammar classes, just the same as linguistics students, because that all has implications for how code is designed, interpreted and run. When they say "programming language," after all, they do mean *language* in the truest sense.
J Dailey also, computer science majors are required to have a focus in their degree as well. That focus can be in linguistics, mathematics, physics, electronic systems, etc. Side note: I’m not a CSCE Major, but I was looking into it when I was initially choosing my engineering major and before I switched from Electronic Systems Engineering Technology to Mechatronics.
@@moonjail8502 funny that, the university I go to doesn't have it as a required course. In fact, it was just added as an upper-level elective last semester, because a number of students voiced their interest in more theoretical topics.
Same memories for me. In fact in my mind it was "only ever drink from the cold water tap IN THE KITCHEN, as the others come from the loft, not the mains.". So strong was this, that even now, living in Australia where we have mixer taps all over the house, I do not like drinking from ANY tap other than the cold water tap in the kitchen.
@Chase Williams In the united states lead regulations were different for bathroom and kitchen so the bathroom water did indeed have more lead on it. It keeps being amended through the years, Obama admin finally made bathroom lead standards more strict
You have missed out part of the story. The man who invented the valve that prevented hot water from contaminating the cold was British, and European plumbing systems were constructed after this invention.
Kevin P In the late 80's a study was conducted showing that Britons prefer store-bought drinking water. For this reason the cold water tap was completely removed leaving only the hot water tap and the beer tap (sometimes other alcoholic beverages depending on location). Due to poor media coverage of the 1987 water debates, Americans are often ill-informed and believe that the beer tap was removed instead of the cold water tap.
And old couple I once knew used to make coffee by tapping water from the radiator... They needed hot water to make coffee, and the radiator-water was hot, so why not? ... I never drank any coffee when visiting them....
if you make coffee and the water boils (as we do in italy), all of the bacteria (or most of them) are killed, so it's safe to use the tap water. sorry if i made some mistake, i'm still learning english
This is safe if the water is boiled and used fairly soon the longer it's left the more chance of legionalla bacteria to form giving risk if it's inhaled + if there are chemicals present heating can make them more aggressive
I once lived in a house where the mixer tap in the kitchen actually had two separate channels within the chrome "dispenser". It was horrible to use as the two streams would exit side by side with no actual mixing so washing one's hands was a wierd feeling of freezing and boiling in what looked like a single stream. This was obviously someone's way of providing a mixer tap without violating the relevant regulations
my parents bath used to have a massive fancy old brass mixer tap that did the same thing... it was an actual mixer tap but the streams barely mixed... such an odd feeling on my toes
Same and this was in a (admitedly kind of shitty) rental flat I was in ~6-7 years ago. So not that long ago. I always assumed it was just a low quality tap.
@@Station9.75 I watched something a a river that was built over and is used as apart of a sewage system... Someone actually has to go down there from time to time and break massive bits of sewage, or it would get stuck and eventually stop...
Here in Canada we've had mixer taps since I was young in the 70's... and I was always told to make sure you're running fully cold water for drinking, and to let the water run a few seconds before filling your glass. I was taught the boiler might leech metals etc into the water. We never had separate taps though. Odd.
In the US, there's still a lot of people who will drink water straight from the cold tap in the kitchen, but they will not drink from the bathroom tap. They believe, with no basis whatsoever, that bathroom water is somehow tainted or polluted even though all the supply pipes are connected to the same source. These people also tend to vote Democrat.
When I was young (in the 1960s), I always drank water from the bathroom sink faucet because it was colder, and seemed to taste better. When I got older, I realized why. The water main entered the home directly below in the basement. The kitchen faucet was on the other side of the house, so the water got warmer as it traveled through more pipes. It just wasn't as refreshing.
I'm not sure that really make sense. The water would have travelled through miles of pipes to get from the treatment plant to your home; why would a hundred feet or so of extra piping be what made it go bad?
@@teh-maxh Same reason it takes a while for the hot water to turn hot. The pipes running under your house get to room temperature, which is warmer than cold mains water and cooler than hot heater water. Surely you could get the kitchen sink water colder by running it a bit to clear that length of pipe, but that happens faster closer to the source.
Do you mean you initially installed windows with the ridiculous grandma-setting that lets windows install and update without you giving the active nod?
The main issue with the water is that it is (or was) stored in a tank. I remember back when we had wells, elder people pulled out buckets of water just to spill it on the ground somewhere, simply to create a water "flow" out of the well, otherwise the water will get "dead". The well simply needs certain amount of consumption in order to stay clean. It is the same with water tank: works well when you have higher water consumption and gets really bad when it is too low.
I remember having this explained to me when I lived in England back in the 80s. But the craziest Brit thing I experienced was buying a blender, taking it home, and then finding no plug attached when I went to plug it in.
I grew up in the UK, so am very familiar with wiring plugs. I have lived in Japan for the past 30 years and a couple of years ago, the plug on my iron wasn't working. I can remember the shock of people around me when I calmly just snipped it off, revealed the two wires inside and put a new plug on. Japanese plugs are two pronged affairs with no earth and either wire can go to either prong. It doesn't matter how you plug it into the socket so it is a foolproof system and hardly a difficult job. The Japanese are far too quick to throw things away before trying to even see if they can fix it. The iron is still working normally now and there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't.
@@andrewjones-productions In most small mains appliances, the live and neutral are transposable, and a lot of them don't have an earth connection either.
I live in a rural area, so our tap water is drawn from groundwater, filtered inside our house, and then kept in our own water heater. It's not shared with even another household, so I feel pretty safe. I drink tap water all the time.
Where i am in Canada, I usually run the tap for a couple of seconds before drinking it as well... Mostly because in my old house the sink was on the other side of the house from where the water enters, so it sits, tastes funny and gets warm. Even in my apartment i do that, because it's a shitty apartment and the cold water has to travel from the basement to the 2nd floor, so if i want cold water, i have to run it for like 5-10 seconds. better than the hot water. We have Hot Water "On Demand" so it heats the water as we use it, and we won't see even warm water come out of our tap after 30 seconds of running it full blast.
I moved from New York to London 20 years ago and love almost everything about Britain. I am glad to know that I'm not the only person who has noticed this. A single tap through which you can completely manage the temperature seems a no brainer. The other thing I don't get is carpeted bathrooms. Other than those two things, Britain rocks.
I don't mind a little rug next to teh bath that I can throw away when it gets too nasty, but fitted carpet around a toilet bowl is just gross. You can't super clean it like with a tile floor.
valiant971 nobody has carpeted bathrooms since the brief trend for doing so in the 1970's. If you have been staying in places with carpeted bathrooms you should really look to increase your accommodation budget!
Interesting info. Here in the US I think most of us probably grew up with mixer style faucets and were always told to run the cold for a little while before drinking from it. That's if you drank tap water at all. I'm fortunate enough that my grandmother has a natural well on her property that we all get our drinking water from. Right from the mountains, best tasting water I've ever had.
We once found a decomposed bat on our water tank, together with a LOT of mud and rust from the old street pipes. The water tank lid was cracked. But the water tanks are only used for the bathrooms, so we didnt drank that nasty water at least. We brushed our teeth with it tho =P Here where i live in Brazil the houses usually have no boilers or central heating, the water is heated electrically in the shower/tap heads. Water tanks are mainly used to help in cases of water shortages or to add pressure to the water (the water slowly accumulates on the water tank then is released with more pressure due to gravity) It´s cool to see how different the world is in some aspects and yet how similar it is in others =)
TheVintageStuffGuy1998 Well it's unheard of to me so don't count on that. It will completely depend on which country/countries you're looking in too I'd bet.
This doesn't explain why every kitchen (where you'd normally be getting a drink) I grew up with had a mixer tap, and every bathroom (where you mostly wash your hands) had separate taps. It just seemed completely perverse.
@@35mm21 Showers aren't meant to be drank from. Ablution water water doesn't need to be drinkable Just because something has water doesn't mean you're meant to drink from it. For example, depending on your suburb in Australia, toilets are filled with clean drinking water. But you wouldn't drink the clean drinking water out of the cistern of a toilet.
@@mandowarrior123 Which makes me wonder which genius thought that water was safe for showering and bathing in. If it's contaminated, it should not be put in a place where the human body can be exposed to it. Great for flushing the loo, not for much else. Those cold water tanks could easily be converted to rainwater collectors with the boiler inlet diverted to take water from the main.
+Wario64I You mix them in the bowl to get a reasonable temperature and wash with that. You also use less water that way than using a constantly running tap.
+NotInHD Yeah, but we dont have to wash our hands in festering rat water. That's a big bonus right there. Plus, warm water is nice. So, what do British build their futuristic houses out of then? Stones?
The way it works in sweden is that hot water in the tap is heated via your boiler or whatever via a heat exchanger. The "dirty" water is just used for radiators. So yeah, we shower in drinking water.
+HillMeister's HQ This is the way it works in all modern houses in the UK. The house I grew up in was built in the 1930s/1940s and had a hot water tank like Scott describes in the video. The house I live in now was built around 2010 and uses a boiler to heat water on-demand, so it's all safe to drink. No water in the house sits around in a tank, except for the central heating system which AFAIK is not connected to the taps.
+bigwhiteyeti Many American houses have a tank for hot water storage, but I've never seen an open one. Most are street pressure, so the chance of cross contamination would be small.
The hot water isn't considered drinking quality mind you, as it passes through a heat exchanger. Still fine to drink unless it's a poorly maintained system
We too use the same application in Turkey too. It disturbs me when someone drinks water from the glass in a tab, in many American movies. We would never drink water in toilet, because it is bathroom not the kitchen. We buy or fill our drinking water and use the tap water just for tea and cooking. The tap water is scientificly drinkable BTW. But it doesn't taste good you know. When it's combined with bathroom water and the glass in the bathroom, no thanks.
Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you. Venkman: What? Spengler: Don't cross the streams. Venkman: Why? Spengler: It would be bad. Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"? Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. Stantz: Total protonic reversal! Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
This system is so inconvenient. Here in the Netherlands every water is drinkable, hot OR cold. Our tap water is even cleaner then the water out of bottles. My question is not WHY Britain uses this system; but why do countries still have tap water which isn't clean or healthy enough to drink?
We had plumbing long before most (possibly any) countries and almost all the houses that were built with plumbing are still lived in. My house is 110 years old, which is nothing by English standards. My house's plumbing reflects the situation that pertained 110 years ago.
@@joshuarosen6242 But the old unsafe plumbing (steel or even worse, lead) usually can in todays time easily by upgraded with a liner. And old pipes often have been over dimensioned anyway.
@@marwerno that may be true of mains pipes but a lot of the small diameter pipes that lead from the main to the individual houses are also lead. Obviously, lead has its drawbacks but the water quality coming out of our taps is very good and doesn't have elevated lead levels so it's simply not worth the effort of replacing pipes that aren't leaking.
Here in Finland, where as far as I know (some 30 years) there's always been just mixer taps, I was still told as a child not to drink the hot water. The reason given was that the hot water pipes could be made with lead somehow (soldering perhaps?) and thus could poison you over time.
Yeah, I was brought up being told the same thing here in Sweden, so I do the same thing as Tom does; I always run the cold water for a few seconds before I use it for cooking or drinking.
Skellious My house has lead on the mains supply so I always waste a gallon or so before using it for potable water. Apparently though the inside of the lead pipe gets a coat of the minerals in the water that stops the lead getting into the water.
I was taught to never drink from the hot tap and to let the cold run for a while because the copper pipes in the old house I grew up in used leaded solder
I'm in Canada and the government tested our university's water. It's found to have too high lead content to be safely drinkable without incurring brain damage. So we've also been told to run the cold water (5-10 seconds) and never use hot for drinking!
in really old times the pipes themselves was made out of lead, but they are safe to drink because the oxidized layer formed prevents it from putting lead into the water. only if you make a new cut or scrape will it potentially have enough trace to cause harm. if you need work doing to a house that still has lead pipe though, they would have to re plumb your whole house
That is really bad copper and lead are metals and react electricaly with each other this is cathode and anodes the information is easily available and can help create the lead byproduct that Is poisonous through plumboslency look this word up plumbo is like the Latin for lead (might not be Latin!)
In bs there is still as reasonable practical meaning if the person ain't got the money you remove what you can at a cost they Can afford eg if nessisary removing the assessable joints cleaning the pipe ends of lead and replacing the joint maybe in some cases removing an replacing short lengths of the pipe a heavy brass fitting can be used to joint lead in to copper but not the other way so you can replace part of a system I'm not I'm not an expert plumber and don't have much knowledge about lead as it's not so much of an issue but it would be good to check up on anything lead pipe work you may be Doing or quoting with it obviously present with iphe or other body that has some authority in the industry Wat your saying maybe the case but what if that pipe goes to the street main are you digging up the customers floor garden driveway at your cost let alone the water main may still be lead meaning replacing it was pointless!
im not too informed about the whole process of lead pipes, its just some basics they told us in college when i did my course. not sure if you're from england but thats what they told us because of health and safety regulations state they have to be removed. i think all the public sector of pipes are already converted or was never lead to begin with (public sector meaning pipes up to the house) in referance to what you was saying about plumboslency, if you read the wiki page it says "Plumbosolvency of water can be countered by achieving a pH of 7.5 by increasing the pH with lime or sodium hydroxide (lye), or by providing a protective coating to the inside of lead pipes by the addition of phosphate at the water treatment works" this is what i said prior about the protective layer.
we Poles are not poor and we buy bottled water because why would we drink tap water which tastes bad and is from river? meanwhile brits drink sewer water from thames
@@makorek thats sad because water sources in middle Europe (or at least in Slovakia) are one of the purest in the world. Generally you dont drink tap watter from river but from the original source / lake where drinking watter is stocked. When I used to live in Ireland, people there got sick from local watter sometimes but that's not the thing in V4 countries. In fact, the tap watter is healthier and of better quality than the bottled one.
My father told me about a hotel he worked at in the 60s, the tank in the loft had a dead pigeon wedged in the main cold feed from the storage tank. Never use wood or carpet as a replacement for a tank lid as mould loves to grow on this, and drop into the water.
I was told that the upstairs bathroom water was just not safe to drink, I still to this day don't feel comfortable drinking water from hotel bathrooms for that reason
1:24 "You have cold, safe, or as the regulation calls it, wholesome drinking water, and you have, well, almost certain..." I fully expected him to say "death".
"You don't cross the streams!" "Why, what happens if we cross the streams?" "Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light." "Right. That's bad."
In the last 40 years I not lived in a house with separate taps, or header tank. My last house I had for 7 years had one when I moved in, within a month it was out, and mixer taps fitted.
The fun part is that "don't drink the hot water" is still a valid thing to remember. There are plenty of old houses with old water tanks in their lofts that are still used (because this is the UK, we don't knock things down, we just keep living in them). The last house I lived in still had a water tank to store hot water. It was rubbish, especially when running a bath and the hot water ran out.
+James Grimwood its always been in my head you dont drink hot water, just a fact like the sun is hot, its interesting to learn its got a reason behind it :)
+James Grimwood One other reason not to drink the hot water is that the metals from the pipes and the solder holding them together as well as any chemicals leaching from plastic piping or rubber seals, will leach out faster in hot water and might collect in the tank or heat exchanger. Though, with either hot or cold water, running it for a few minutes will often reduce the levels of these contaminants.
+James Grimwood When I moved in to a new house a few years ago (in London where it's hard water) the water tank was so furred up with calcium that I'd be lucky to get one sink of hot water let alone a bath or shower. I had that ripped out ASAP and a combi boiler installed. Now I have hot water on demand and a huge storage space where the tank was.
In the houses you’re talking about even the cold taps in most bathrooms are fed from the loft storage tank . Only the cold tap in the kitchen is truly fresh.
Used to be the case in our 1960s built house, at least the upstairs bathroom cold taps. But now no more; all from the rising main. So we don’t drink rat water any more 😊
Depends on the age of the building I find. For example I live in 100yo cottage so plumbing and elec was installed decades after it was built so seperate taps etc. My parents built a new home when they retired they have mixers.
my kitchen has a mixer tap and the bathrooms and utility room all have separate taps (i don’t have enough room by my kitchen sink to have separate taps)
I've wondered about this for decades from the time I lived in the UK and then was a student there. Now, thanks to you, I can finally sleep soundly at night. Cheers for putting my restless mind to bed!
In Malaysia where I currently have a house the building code is that kitchen taps has to be directly connected to the main line (no tank). My house has 5 bathrooms plus kitchen and all other taps except the kitchen tap comes down from a 2 M3 tank under my roof. The water from the main line is sort of drinkable ...ish ... but a filter or boil it is probably recommended ;-)
Not long after moving into my current house, years ago, we had black feathers coming through the bathroom taps, due to the decomposing crow in the water tank.
Thank you Tom! I finally understand UK taps. I've been asking that question for years. Considering the age ofsome of the hotels I've stayed in over there I am grateful for separate taps now. :)
I'm loving this series about British things, being a Brit, they all seem like the norm. However, it is nice to learn something about how they came to be!
Yeah, my family immigrated to Canada when I was younger and everyone at school when I was a kid always thought I was weird for not wanting to drink tapwater.
its about the water source yo. i was born in the philippines and always boil water before drinking. you dont boil, you will have diarhea for sure. then here in canada, i drink straight from the tap. as in. i was like "you sure this is safe" and yeah, i drink straight from the tap and never had diarrhea. its all about the water source yo. its the source.
***** Not always, we now do it just for cultural reasons since the better side of the world does better water treatments, though in the past, doing so saves people's lives.
In fairness, the Brits learnt that trick from the Chinese long ago. I mean, though the British are famed for their love of tea, the drink is, of course, a Chinese invention. And we all thank you kindly for all those lovely cups of tea we've had ever since. :D
ironmatic 1 Nowadays, yes. In the past, however, the water for the bathroom sink was in a separate water tank in the ceiling and was usually not as clean as the main water.
If the tap water quality in Great Britain is as good as the Dutch tap water, its quality is the same as or better than bottled water. Only in places where the tap water reeks of chlorine (e.g. on the Costa del Sol) would I recommend you buy water in a supermarket.
I so miss Tom Scott videos! Nine years on and still watchable. I believe youtube pushed Tom and others to the point of no return in demanding long-form videos.
+Arcanis Depends on where you go, I live near Glasgow and Glasgow is alright as long you as you don't get stabbed, and the highlands and the islands are nice to look at, bout it though.
In my parents house they used to have two uncovered cold water tanks. Sometimes you'd get bits of dead wasps coming out of the taps, or on one memorable occasion, a live spider. My dad put an enclosed tank in and that all ceased.
Short answer is they could fail if not maintained. Long answer: There are valves we use in industry called anti-Syphon valves. Which are essentially a check valve that will introduce air when pressure becomes negative. We use them in chemical mixing applications (among other safe gaurds) so if water pressure is lost chemicals can't be sucked into the main. The valves cost about $1500 and must be recertified every year.
Is it just a 'placebo' that water from the bathroom tap tastes different to water from the kitchen tap? I know I could do a blind test, but I don't want to intentionally drink bathroom water, however irrational...
It's not a placebo (or taste illusion) at all. In some houses kitchen taps are used more frequently and for longer periods than bathroom taps. This gives time for the pipes to the bathroom to build up a scale or oxidise, and this can change the taste of the water slightly.
True. Bathroom taps are used for a quick hand wash and a toothbrush wetting. The kitchen tap is used for all dish washing and kettle filling, some handwashing and by "the mythical rule" all drinking too. Stands to reason that the bathroom tap would taste a little stagnant.
Andrew Bulman No, in your house as in many houses the cold in the bathroom could be from a storage rank and the kitchen tap direct from the mains. The confusion cones when lazy youtubers like the one here give out the wrong info as if it's correct. If your bathroom fold rap is from a storage tank the water will taste different as the chlorine content will have evapourated. The water companies put enough chlorine in the water to last for up to three days, as they feel that's how long it make take to get from the treatment works to your house. Once the water comes into open air the remaining chlorine evaporates in around 30 minutes. An interesting test would be for you to sample three glasses of water at your house. One from the bathroom cold tap which should not taste of chlorine One drawn from your kitchen rap but one hour old. This again should not taste of chlorine One fresh from the kitchen cold tap in which you could taste the chlorine
Simon Sackville Sorry, that's incorrect. Water pipes only built up scale if the water rises above 65 degrees C, as at that temp the water can no longer contain its calcium content. That's why kettles scale up and water jugs don't. The difference in taste is due to the presence or lack of chlorine in the water due to how it's been stored in the house, such as in a mains pipe or open tank in the loft
Yeah, we have some in Sweden. Most are mixer taps, but some are Double Taps. :p It's a pity the pump's not working! I have a double tap in my home, my grandmother has one. She had one replaced with a mixer 5-odd years ago. I always run the cold for a few seconds, but that's to make sure it's nice and cold. I heard from someone that I preferably shouldn't drink of hot water. I was baffled as to why. It was implied that there was something obvious which I was missing. I reckon it was this which they meant.
+TheBcoolGuy A friend of mine once told me that hot water tanks have some nodules of cadmium attched to the insides to prevent corrotion, and that's why you should never use hot water for anything that's going to be imbibed (drunk) or ingested (eaten).
There is a weird mix of mixer and non mixer taps in the UK. In my house, the kitchen tap is a mixer fed by the on-demand boiler and the mains cold water supply. The bath taps are separate, and so are the basin taps in the bathroom and second toilet. Of course, the kitchen (mixer) tap is the one I drink from most often. It's all the same water, but you can't wash your hands with warm water in any of the other basins because it comes out at 9 billion °C from the hot tap. It's so stupid!
I got two suggestions: 1) **closed** feeder tanks with a breather valve, and 2) back flow check valves if you are worried the shower hose or dish rinse nozzle will suck your washwater back into the city supply. Just saying.
Going around every single house in the UK and fitting closed feeder tanks is unrealistic...great for future new homes if only they even had water tanks fitted. Tom does mention this. As for back flow check valves, all homes in the UK have these. As Tom mentioned in the very same part of the video you are referring to, it’s if it fails. Separate taps and supply points was always for redundancy.
You are supposed to use a non return valve on the cold mains side when fitting a mixer tap. Although not everyone does and they can cause all sorts of problems; personally I dont mind two taps, you just take a few seconds to fill the basin.
Where I live, you need a return/check valve on the inlet of the water boiler, to prevent backflowing of warm water into the cold water supply and then additionally another specialised check valve before the mains Water meter, in case the water mains supply craps out, so water from your home can't contaminate the mains down the road. Still drinking warm water is a big No-No. Cheers.
Also, if you look at the tap design. The outlet from the tap is always above the top of the basin so water from the basin cannot enter the supply system.
This is the way in New Zealand too, old houses often have tanks in, or on, the roof and double taps. I live in an old house that was renovated and the tank removed and a mixer tap installed by a previous owner, but other houses on the street were built to the identical plan and some still have tanks and double taps. I'm not aware of any paranoia here about drinking from the hot tap, but.. .why you would drink from the hot tap? Who likes warm water. The only way I end up drinking from the hot tap is when I use it to fill a kettle to boil, and that takes care of any bacteria.
Magnus Bergmark But there won't be any more minerals in the hot water than the cold water, because it's from the same mains pipe, the only difference is the hot water has been through the tank on the roof and the hot water cylinder.
Skellious You know what a metaphor or a exaggeration is, no? Might want to look it up. While you are on it, also check sarcasm; might prove helpful at times.
ElizaberthUndEugen sorry, I tend to miss metaphors and especially sarcasm. As a result, when I write something that is not meant to be taken seriously, I use a ":P" to signify tongue-in-cheek.
Here in the United States even though we have mixer taps, you really shouldn't be drinking any water that is heated in a tank water heater. It has to do with a few factors like bacterial growth, ingestion of trace amounts of metals like from the Zinc rods which prevent galvanic corrosion in the tank, and corrosion from the tank itself since i'd wager less than 1% of the country actually replaces their anode rod every 5 years like they should.
I also run the cold tap for a few seconds before taking a drink. I never knew why until now. We learn more growing up than we know at the time. Thanks Tom.
i do to but for a far more practical reason water from mixxer tap will not be as cold as possible if its not run for few seconds(if setting already wasnt full cold)
So, did anyone else just used to freezing cold water because your tap takes an hour to get actual hot water... If you get warm water instantly from your bathroom tap consider yourself blessed, one or two taps...
"I'm visiting my parents" - cuts to windows update in progress.
Me: Yes, that sounds very familliar.
Is that because you are updating your own system and know it will take ages so you leave it - or is it because they wanted you to update their PC for them ?
90 Lancaster that’s because they don’t know how to do it themselves and because I “work with computers “ I get to do theirs.
@@ginger_housecat And sometimes they call anybody who can do anything with a computer "programmer".
I assumed the "installing updates" was a reference to the new bathroom. Perhaps it was both.
For Windows 8 no less!! At least it's not Vista! Yuck!!!
In one of my childhood homes, after renting it for 5 years we prepared to leave and I went up into the attic with our electrician and saw inside the water storage tank, several bats in a few states of decomposition: from skeletons to only half rotten! I have the same habits as you after seeing that :)
So... did you cook them?
Has not being able to use your shop drove you to watching 6 year old vids Alec :D
so that's where coronavirus came from...
Alec Steele don’t worry, your safe in America now where your water in MT likely come from a nice well or a spring.
My house is from 1850 and it has a boiler most people in Britain now don’t use the water storage tanks
Letting the water run for a bit before drinking is a good tip no matter where you are.
Certainly a good idea with showers in hotels. Legionaire's is really not fun. I used to work in a lab testing shower water for it and yes, there are some suprisingly nice and expensive hotels that have perpetual issues because they can't be bothered to fix the plumbing.
Not so in some countries...
That's just common sense.
@@iainmackenzieUK I was thinking the same thing. You could run the water for a week from a tap in Bali and it would still be unsafe to drink.
Don't have time for that
As a plumber, I can tell you that the main reason for that, in 2021, is "old habits die hard". Even with old storage tanks, there are ways to prevent backwash and there exist regulations concerning that.
But a Reduced Pressure Zone device would probably need to be used to comply with the regulations which would be expensive to maintain and less practical than having two separate taps
Exactly the reason; to keep mains water separate from possible contamination.
Regs were relaxed years ago.
Similarly, do you remember when all toilets had to have syphon flushes and a way had to be made to run the overflow. The good 'ol days - not!
Old habits die hard is so very true because pipes and tanks used to be lead. Pressure reducer valves are building code requirements where I live
Regulations, not solutions.
I agree.
As afellow plumber as well, there are solutions. Here in France, a disconnector (lets say 2 check valves + purges in a single item) has become mandatory right after the water meter.
You technically can't pollute the main anymore.
"Jaaaack! Where is Tom?"
"in the bathroom, Martha! He's talking to that internet thing again!"
Martha?!
Why did you say that name?? What does it mean!?!
@@deeraz its a name
@@deeraz I'm batman.
666th like
@dom nic awesome
This doesn't explain why there are always too short and you end up rubbing your hands against the sink when you wash off the soap!
So true,
The only logical thing I could come up with is this: you're supposed to use the drain plug, fill the sink with mixed water, then wash your hands with that. Possibly sharing the same fill with several other people before you drain the sink.
Quite possible but I have never seen any brits doing that apart from when they wash their face in the morning.
I feel this is generally just an oversight looking at design over function. I get frustrated by this when I find taps that run too near the back edge of the sink. However I've used plenty of taps that are deep enough into the sink that it leads me to believe it's someone looking at the style more when they buy and not pairing it with the sink they've purchased correctly.
Some U.S. mixer taps from the 1950s are ridiculously short and they actually protruded from the rear wall of the sink.
When I want to learn about building codes and plumbing in another country, I always turn to my friendly neighborhood computer scientist.
Who naturally has a degree in linguistics instead of any of those other things
@@NeptunesOrca Funny as it sounds, linguistics is a *huge* part of computer science. Most CS students (at least in the US) have to take formal language/grammar classes, just the same as linguistics students, because that all has implications for how code is designed, interpreted and run. When they say "programming language," after all, they do mean *language* in the truest sense.
J Dailey also, computer science majors are required to have a focus in their degree as well. That focus can be in linguistics, mathematics, physics, electronic systems, etc.
Side note: I’m not a CSCE Major, but I was looking into it when I was initially choosing my engineering major and before I switched from Electronic Systems Engineering Technology to Mechatronics.
@@moonjail8502 funny that, the university I go to doesn't have it as a required course. In fact, it was just added as an upper-level elective last semester, because a number of students voiced their interest in more theoretical topics.
@@moonjail8502 But formal languages are nothing like natural languages!
Same memories for me. In fact in my mind it was "only ever drink from the cold water tap IN THE KITCHEN, as the others come from the loft, not the mains.". So strong was this, that even now, living in Australia where we have mixer taps all over the house, I do not like drinking from ANY tap other than the cold water tap in the kitchen.
@Chase Williams why are you drinking from the bath tap
@@JudgeDeadMJ Cleaning teeth, duh....
@Chase Williams In the united states lead regulations were different for bathroom and kitchen so the bathroom water did indeed have more lead on it. It keeps being amended through the years, Obama admin finally made bathroom lead standards more strict
@@JudgeDeadMJ He’s not he is drinking out the loo!😊
I know what you mean - we must be of a similar age - I solve this problem by only drinking from a clean bottle, preferably a BEER bottle - now!!
That explains why my taps are labelled "COLD" and "RAT" then..
Funny!
Oh, how nice to have a tap which spills out soup.
No it’s BAT, part of the letter has rubbed away 😬
You've running rats???!!!!
Sooo jealous!
better than them labelled "Tom" and "Jerry". I still like the 2 taps labelled "Coke" and "Whiskey"
You have missed out part of the story. The man who invented the valve that prevented hot water from contaminating the cold was British, and European plumbing systems were constructed after this invention.
LINDY
I
N
D
Y
why are all the youtubers im subscribed to always in each others comment section it feels like seeing your teacher in public
Hi Lindy
But actually, it’s more complicated than that…
and the invented water too!British
"Thanks for hydrating yourself with me, have a nice day"
-Wholesome drinking water
@Mark Omega Ok and
@Mark Omega 655th like
lmao
Eddie Hall needs to read this.
Underrated comment
Damn, I REALLY miss the regular Tom Scott videos - they were / still are some of the finest broadcasting available in the UK.
Yea, and most of the World... :(
Where's the third separate tap that beer comes out of?
>has murican flag
>talks about beer
LUL
Actually, in the US there are a lot of micro breweries that are brewing fantastic craft beers.
I think he might have mixed his beer with water
@ I Am SeCToR i think you might have mixed up hes with his
Kevin P In the late 80's a study was conducted showing that Britons prefer store-bought drinking water. For this reason the cold water tap was completely removed leaving only the hot water tap and the beer tap (sometimes other alcoholic beverages depending on location). Due to poor media coverage of the 1987 water debates, Americans are often ill-informed and believe that the beer tap was removed instead of the cold water tap.
My parents told me never to drink the water out the bath, but tbh i think they just wanted some privacy
And old couple I once knew used to make coffee by tapping water from the radiator... They needed hot water to make coffee, and the radiator-water was hot, so why not? ...
I never drank any coffee when visiting them....
if you make coffee and the water boils (as we do in italy), all of the bacteria (or most of them) are killed, so it's safe to use the tap water.
sorry if i made some mistake, i'm still learning english
Your English is better than that of some natives' :-)
Hello myself😂
This is safe if the water is boiled and used fairly soon the longer it's left the more chance of legionalla bacteria to form giving risk if it's inhaled + if there are chemicals present heating can make them more aggressive
I once lived in a house where the mixer tap in the kitchen actually had two separate channels within the chrome "dispenser". It was horrible to use as the two streams would exit side by side with no actual mixing so washing one's hands was a wierd feeling of freezing and boiling in what looked like a single stream. This was obviously someone's way of providing a mixer tap without violating the relevant regulations
Had a kitchen tap in a flat that was like this. It wasn't that old, I think it was just a shitty tap
my parents bath used to have a massive fancy old brass mixer tap that did the same thing... it was an actual mixer tap but the streams barely mixed... such an odd feeling on my toes
5 Gum moment?
Same and this was in a (admitedly kind of shitty) rental flat I was in ~6-7 years ago. So not that long ago. I always assumed it was just a low quality tap.
That's what this one in the video has too
US: Wow, Brits are so fancy
UK: Literally bathing in dead rat water
Better call Dr. Fauci. We've found the source of the virus!
@Achronic Deth ? You must be confused
@@Urbicide Dr. Faucet
dead rat water >>
@Achronic Deth ur speaking our language says it all
"If it always worked, why we need to change it?"
After 4 years in England I understood that is their universal motto (for everything, seriously).
Like some of their sewage "systems"...
What’s wrong with the sewerage system?
@@Station9.75 I watched something a a river that was built over and is used as apart of a sewage system... Someone actually has to go down there from time to time and break massive bits of sewage, or it would get stuck and eventually stop...
Yep we say, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'
@@Tasorius we had proper sewerage systems when many countries were crapping into buckets.
I love the Windows Updates install after you mention visiting your parents... I can relate.
Yep 😂
Here in Canada we've had mixer taps since I was young in the 70's... and I was always told to make sure you're running fully cold water for drinking, and to let the water run a few seconds before filling your glass. I was taught the boiler might leech metals etc into the water. We never had separate taps though. Odd.
I was told the same thing.
Two is a quorum so it must be true. The other 7 billion have it wrong! 😉
In the US, there's still a lot of people who will drink water straight from the cold tap in the kitchen, but they will not drink from the bathroom tap. They believe, with no basis whatsoever, that bathroom water is somehow tainted or polluted even though all the supply pipes are connected to the same source. These people also tend to vote Democrat.
*On a Tom Scott video about British drinking water taps*
"Haha time to own the libs."
@@MrPLC999 old houses can have lead pipes in the bathroom, and some of them leach a lot of lead into the water
My 1950s house I grew up in in Canada had separate taps in the basement bathroom
When I was young (in the 1960s), I always drank water from the bathroom sink faucet because it was colder, and seemed to taste better. When I got older, I realized why. The water main entered the home directly below in the basement. The kitchen faucet was on the other side of the house, so the water got warmer as it traveled through more pipes. It just wasn't as refreshing.
I'm not sure that really make sense. The water would have travelled through miles of pipes to get from the treatment plant to your home; why would a hundred feet or so of extra piping be what made it go bad?
@@teh-maxh Because all those underground miles are chilled - the further you go above ground, in the house, it gets warmer.
@@teh-maxh Same reason it takes a while for the hot water to turn hot. The pipes running under your house get to room temperature, which is warmer than cold mains water and cooler than hot heater water. Surely you could get the kitchen sink water colder by running it a bit to clear that length of pipe, but that happens faster closer to the source.
Don't lie Tom, you just wanted an excuse to say, "Don't cross the streams!"
@@Foebane72 it's from ghostbusters.
@@Foebane72 what
@@Foebane72 say what now?
Say what again i double dare ya!
@@stephenwalsh4481 'What' ain't no country I've ever heard off.
"I'm visiting my folks this weekend..." *Windows Updating* -that seems familiar. :D
+Ben Lewis Every. Single. Time.
My nth viewing of this video and only now did I notice it.
I literally searched the comments for one like this, I laughed.
Story of my life
Do you mean you initially installed windows with the ridiculous grandma-setting that lets windows install and update without you giving the active nod?
"Cold water is wholesome". You see, the cold water tap dispenses a rich, hearty chicken broth. Hence the "wholesome" moniker!
Rat broth
@@JoshSweetvale furry discord rat broth
@@guardrailhitter Belle Delphine bath water?
@@Darklor_WCF as far as im aware it aint furry water sooo atleast that goes away
What are you going on about.
The main issue with the water is that it is (or was) stored in a tank. I remember back when we had wells, elder people pulled out buckets of water just to spill it on the ground somewhere, simply to create a water "flow" out of the well, otherwise the water will get "dead". The well simply needs certain amount of consumption in order to stay clean. It is the same with water tank: works well when you have higher water consumption and gets really bad when it is too low.
One hand is melting off, the other is frozen. GG Britain. GG!
Jep... Thats so true
This needs more upvotes.
You won't feel the difference after a while anyway.
@@adamfra64 I hope you speak polish better than english, because that is not understandable.
PopFox or you could just slightly fill the sink? Plugs are an amazing new invention!
“Manuel, there are two dead pigeons in the water tank...”
This comment just made my day!
Yindee8191 00 Oh not pigs! PIGEONS! Like your english... 😂
Faulty Towers?
@@mrbill517 Fawlty Towers.
I love Fawlty towers
"Don't cross the streams."
I feel like Tom was waiting for the Ghostbusters theme to kick in.
Hey! I caught that reference too. Nice one.
I thought i'd have a quick look in the comments before i wrote the Ghostbusters reference.
This
Thank goodness! I've been struggling to place the quote!!
I remember having this explained to me when I lived in England back in the 80s. But the craziest Brit thing I experienced was buying a blender, taking it home, and then finding no plug attached when I went to plug it in.
No plug? So how did it work? Do you have to purchase it separately?
@@TaraConti in old appliances you had to attach your own plug and know how to wire one not common practice anymore
I grew up in the UK, so am very familiar with wiring plugs. I have lived in Japan for the past 30 years and a couple of years ago, the plug on my iron wasn't working. I can remember the shock of people around me when I calmly just snipped it off, revealed the two wires inside and put a new plug on. Japanese plugs are two pronged affairs with no earth and either wire can go to either prong. It doesn't matter how you plug it into the socket so it is a foolproof system and hardly a difficult job. The Japanese are far too quick to throw things away before trying to even see if they can fix it. The iron is still working normally now and there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't.
Tom has a video for that. 👍👍
@@andrewjones-productions In most small mains appliances, the live and neutral are transposable, and a lot of them don't have an earth connection either.
Well I've had a mixer tap all my life and I also run cold water for a few seconds before I drink from it.
Seeing your water systems infrastructure I would never drink from the tap in the entirety of the USA.
I live in a rural area, so our tap water is drawn from groundwater, filtered inside our house, and then kept in our own water heater. It's not shared with even another household, so I feel pretty safe. I drink tap water all the time.
Litego you legend
gundam fan I know right.
Where i am in Canada, I usually run the tap for a couple of seconds before drinking it as well... Mostly because in my old house the sink was on the other side of the house from where the water enters, so it sits, tastes funny and gets warm. Even in my apartment i do that, because it's a shitty apartment and the cold water has to travel from the basement to the 2nd floor, so if i want cold water, i have to run it for like 5-10 seconds. better than the hot water. We have Hot Water "On Demand" so it heats the water as we use it, and we won't see even warm water come out of our tap after 30 seconds of running it full blast.
British people think they're ready for the zombie apocalypse with their double taps.
wooow... wooooooooooooooow..
It hurts to know i dont have the worst/best pun.
haha
I don't get this
We are!
I moved from New York to London 20 years ago and love almost everything about Britain. I am glad to know that I'm not the only person who has noticed this. A single tap through which you can completely manage the temperature seems a no brainer. The other thing I don't get is carpeted bathrooms. Other than those two things, Britain rocks.
I don't mind a little rug next to teh bath that I can throw away when it gets too nasty, but fitted carpet around a toilet bowl is just gross. You can't super clean it like with a tile floor.
@@rmutch63 everything is wrong with it
valiant971 nobody has carpeted bathrooms since the brief trend for doing so in the 1970's. If you have been staying in places with carpeted bathrooms you should really look to increase your accommodation budget!
@@rmutch63 Bathrooms Ronnie. The post stated bathrooms, not bedrooms. Get some readers and see clearly!
i haven't seen any carpeted bathrooms save for some hotels. it's just unhygienic.
Interesting info. Here in the US I think most of us probably grew up with mixer style faucets and were always told to run the cold for a little while before drinking from it. That's if you drank tap water at all. I'm fortunate enough that my grandmother has a natural well on her property that we all get our drinking water from. Right from the mountains, best tasting water I've ever had.
Similar experience for me also from US Great Lakes the water tastes amazing here I hate water bottles
@@willwunsche6940 water bottle gross hate them i use glass waterbottle you can find them at DG for $5 I do not remember the price.
@@WilliamHollinger2019 just crank the tap and get pure fresh water.. guess we arent all as fortunate
@@WilliamHollinger2019 not everyone has 5 bucks for a glass of water
@@reservoirfrogs2177 It's those reusable water bottles made from glass. Glass bottles with a sealable lid are becoming difficult to source.
it is amazing how many arguments can be started over the tap-water in london
*england. london is just one city.
London tap water genuinely makes me gag
GamerGecko26 Birmingham has the best drinking water by far. Crisp and clean from Wales
UK
not really, isnt the mersey river one of the most polluted, idk if its been cleaned up nowadays
I am a pest controller, I have removed pigeons, squirrels and rats in various states of decay from cold water tanks, it ain't pretty!
... try fixing the roof!
You just need better tanks like the rest of the planet then hahha
I have done it from drinking water well and the people drank that water and never died from it
I could even see scull at the bottom of the well
Thats how some of us get our only source of protein.
We once found a decomposed bat on our water tank, together with a LOT of mud and rust from the old street pipes. The water tank lid was cracked.
But the water tanks are only used for the bathrooms, so we didnt drank that nasty water at least.
We brushed our teeth with it tho =P
Here where i live in Brazil the houses usually have no boilers or central heating, the water is heated electrically in the shower/tap heads. Water tanks are mainly used to help in cases of water shortages or to add pressure to the water (the water slowly accumulates on the water tank then is released with more pressure due to gravity)
It´s cool to see how different the world is in some aspects and yet how similar it is in others =)
So when you wash your hands you get to choose between ice cold and scolding hot?
Yes. Or (in winter when the hot tap hasn't been run for a while) you get ice cold and then scalding hot from the same tap.
***** Wait what? I wouldn't feel clean if I didn't wash under running water.
***** Disgust.
***** I think that's what most people are brought up to do.
TheVintageStuffGuy1998 Well it's unheard of to me so don't count on that. It will completely depend on which country/countries you're looking in too I'd bet.
This doesn't explain why every kitchen (where you'd normally be getting a drink) I grew up with had a mixer tap, and every bathroom (where you mostly wash your hands) had separate taps. It just seemed completely perverse.
Depends on the piping. When there was a local heater under the sink that heated a split of the cold water stream, it should be safe.
@@35mm21 Showers aren't meant to be drank from. Ablution water water doesn't need to be drinkable
Just because something has water doesn't mean you're meant to drink from it. For example, depending on your suburb in Australia, toilets are filled with clean drinking water. But you wouldn't drink the clean drinking water out of the cistern of a toilet.
@@35mm21 Touch'e
However, you wet your toothbrush which goes in your mouth
Is this basically saying THAT I'VE BEEN SHOWERING IN DEAD RAT WATER?!!
almost certainly yes
You can have some soup AND shower at the same time! win-win!
@@crookeddesk no. why would i....
@David Lockett no wonder my skin's glowing
@@racitup4114 and i can confirm, sniff me and it'll send you right to heaven
Wouldn't it be more logical to make sure no rats decay in the tank?
Nah, too much effort.
Stagnant water that is not refrigerated... they don't even have tops for reasons... no way to make it safe.
In Britain, they need the rent.
@@mandowarrior123 Which makes me wonder which genius thought that water was safe for showering and bathing in. If it's contaminated, it should not be put in a place where the human body can be exposed to it.
Great for flushing the loo, not for much else. Those cold water tanks could easily be converted to rainwater collectors with the boiler inlet diverted to take water from the main.
@@Stoney3K rainwater is a lot worse, tap water is chlorinated, which keeps it safe for a while. Also, radiators can use the system safely ofc.
How do you wash your hands when the only temperatures are cold as fuck and hot as shit
+Wario64I You mix them in the bowl to get a reasonable temperature and wash with that. You also use less water that way than using a constantly running tap.
+Wario64I You gotta use the cold water to cool your hands after scalding them
+Wario64I Well, you don't. You wash you're hands in the warm-up stage of the hot water, it's not instantly boiling hot water.
+NotInHD its 2016. No need to. The British system of separate taps is old and backward.
+NotInHD Yeah, but we dont have to wash our hands in festering rat water. That's a big bonus right there. Plus, warm water is nice. So, what do British build their futuristic houses out of then? Stones?
You don't have this problem in India, when I was a kid, I was taught, "Never drink any kind of Tap Water."
Switching between nearly freezing water to almost boiling water to try and make an acceptable temperature is something I cannot wait to get rid of.
You could put a plug in and wash your hands in the already mixed water.... ?
The way it works in sweden is that hot water in the tap is heated via your boiler or whatever via a heat exchanger. The "dirty" water is just used for radiators. So yeah, we shower in drinking water.
+HillMeister's HQ This is the way it works in all modern houses in the UK. The house I grew up in was built in the 1930s/1940s and had a hot water tank like Scott describes in the video. The house I live in now was built around 2010 and uses a boiler to heat water on-demand, so it's all safe to drink. No water in the house sits around in a tank, except for the central heating system which AFAIK is not connected to the taps.
+bigwhiteyeti Many American houses have a tank for hot water storage, but I've never seen an open one. Most are street pressure, so the chance of cross contamination would be small.
The hot water isn't considered drinking quality mind you, as it passes through a heat exchanger. Still fine to drink unless it's a poorly maintained system
We too use the same application in Turkey too. It disturbs me when someone drinks water from the glass in a tab, in many American movies. We would never drink water in toilet, because it is bathroom not the kitchen. We buy or fill our drinking water and use the tap water just for tea and cooking. The tap water is scientificly drinkable BTW. But it doesn't taste good you know. When it's combined with bathroom water and the glass in the bathroom, no thanks.
Bahadır Onur Güdürü yes, it is a bit of a luxury to be living in northern europe in that way - lots of rain but also lots of clean drinking water
Who on earth drinks hot or even lukewarm water?
KIDS FROM AFRICA!!!!!!!!
REALLY? ARE YOU SURE? PLEASE SAY IT AGAIN. COULDN'T UNDERSTAND YOU
Well, if you put it in the Kettle it won't take as long to heat up.
Purple Turtle
fast forward say 50 years from now, say you are 70 yearls old old, you will probably like drinking warm rather than cold.
Most people in China (PRC)
I was wondering about this when i was in Britain. And here it is on my recommendations list... 10 years after released.
Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Venkman: What?
Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Venkman: Why?
Spengler: It would be bad.
Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Stantz: Total protonic reversal!
Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
Don't cross the streams.
I was waiting for that reference
This system is so inconvenient. Here in the Netherlands every water is drinkable, hot OR cold. Our tap water is even cleaner then the water out of bottles. My question is not WHY Britain uses this system; but why do countries still have tap water which isn't clean or healthy enough to drink?
We had plumbing long before most (possibly any) countries and almost all the houses that were built with plumbing are still lived in. My house is 110 years old, which is nothing by English standards. My house's plumbing reflects the situation that pertained 110 years ago.
clown! all uk water is potable. In NL with your lack of freshwater lakes your water is probably desalinated.
Romans had better plumbing than the uk. Fact. I sm British. Europe does it better generallyy.
@@joshuarosen6242 But the old unsafe plumbing (steel or even worse, lead) usually can in todays time easily by upgraded with a liner. And old pipes often have been over dimensioned anyway.
@@marwerno that may be true of mains pipes but a lot of the small diameter pipes that lead from the main to the individual houses are also lead.
Obviously, lead has its drawbacks but the water quality coming out of our taps is very good and doesn't have elevated lead levels so it's simply not worth the effort of replacing pipes that aren't leaking.
Here in Finland, where as far as I know (some 30 years) there's always been just mixer taps, I was still told as a child not to drink the hot water. The reason given was that the hot water pipes could be made with lead somehow (soldering perhaps?) and thus could poison you over time.
both hot and cold were made with lead at one time. we still occasionally find parts of our water system in britain have lead piping.
Yeah, I was brought up being told the same thing here in Sweden, so I do the same thing as Tom does; I always run the cold water for a few seconds before I use it for cooking or drinking.
Skellious
My house has lead on the mains supply so I always waste a gallon or so before using it for potable water. Apparently though the inside of the lead pipe gets a coat of the minerals in the water that stops the lead getting into the water.
Skellious I'm probably misremembering, a guy in the comments below said it indeed is because of heavy metal poisioning, but from copper, not lead.
Staffan Thomén I've heard both copper and lead. The piping for the hot water was copper, but lead was there too.
At a hotel I ran years ago, the decorators had cleaned their paint brushes in the cold water tank.
I'm a decorator... I swear to god, we're not all that stupid 😂🤦♂
Hi Tom. In many, if not most mixer taps, the water is kept separate up to the outlet nozzle.
I was taught to never drink from the hot tap and to let the cold run for a while because the copper pipes in the old house I grew up in used leaded solder
I'm in Canada and the government tested our university's water. It's found to have too high lead content to be safely drinkable without incurring brain damage. So we've also been told to run the cold water (5-10 seconds) and never use hot for drinking!
in really old times the pipes themselves was made out of lead, but they are safe to drink because the oxidized layer formed prevents it from putting lead into the water. only if you make a new cut or scrape will it potentially have enough trace to cause harm. if you need work doing to a house that still has lead pipe though, they would have to re plumb your whole house
That is really bad copper and lead are metals and react electricaly with each other this is cathode and anodes the information is easily available and can help create the lead byproduct that Is poisonous through plumboslency look this word up plumbo is like the Latin for lead (might not be Latin!)
In bs there is still as reasonable practical meaning if the person ain't got the money you remove what you can at a cost they Can afford eg if nessisary removing the assessable joints cleaning the pipe ends of lead and replacing the joint maybe in some cases removing an replacing short lengths of the pipe a heavy brass fitting can be used to joint lead in to copper but not the other way so you can replace part of a system I'm not I'm not an expert plumber and don't have much knowledge about lead as it's not so much of an issue but it would be good to check up on anything lead pipe work you may be Doing or quoting with it obviously present with iphe or other body that has some authority in the industry Wat your saying maybe the case but what if that pipe goes to the street main are you digging up the customers floor garden driveway at your cost let alone the water main may still be lead meaning replacing it was pointless!
im not too informed about the whole process of lead pipes, its just some basics they told us in college when i did my course. not sure if you're from england but thats what they told us because of health and safety regulations state they have to be removed. i think all the public sector of pipes are already converted or was never lead to begin with (public sector meaning pipes up to the house) in referance to what you was saying about plumboslency, if you read the wiki page it says "Plumbosolvency of water can be countered by achieving a pH of 7.5 by increasing the pH with lime or sodium hydroxide (lye), or by providing a protective coating to the inside of lead pipes by the addition of phosphate at the water treatment works" this is what i said prior about the protective layer.
I just run the cold tap for a couple of seconds to make sure the water that comes out is nice and cold to drink, so I don't drink luke-warm water.
Yeah, that also shows that it is fresh from the mains though as the water that gets warm has been sitting in the tap. Cold water is so much nicer too.
make sure you filter it before drinking, chlorine and chloramine destroys your gut
we Poles are not poor and we buy bottled water because why would we drink tap water which tastes bad and is from river? meanwhile brits drink sewer water from thames
@@makorek thats sad because water sources in middle Europe (or at least in Slovakia) are one of the purest in the world. Generally you dont drink tap watter from river but from the original source / lake where drinking watter is stocked. When I used to live in Ireland, people there got sick from local watter sometimes but that's not the thing in V4 countries. In fact, the tap watter is healthier and of better quality than the bottled one.
@@lukyluky1337 water in Slovakia is straight up green in some places😅
My father told me about a hotel he worked at in the 60s, the tank in the loft had a dead pigeon wedged in the main cold feed from the storage tank.
Never use wood or carpet as a replacement for a tank lid as mould loves to grow on this, and drop into the water.
I was told that the upstairs bathroom water was just not safe to drink, I still to this day don't feel comfortable drinking water from hotel bathrooms for that reason
Chris urquhart cos in a hotel room at 4am there's nothing else to do but that??
Daniel Ellis Or in your case,your boyfriend
I was told at school to only drink out of a cold water tap. I think this was a universal British meme at least back in the 1980s when I was a kid.
The cold water from my parents upstairs tap is lovely.
@@michaelmartin9022 Congratulations! I understand that cold dead rat soup is really quite an acquired taste :-)
1:24 "You have cold, safe, or as the regulation calls it, wholesome drinking water, and you have, well, almost certain..."
I fully expected him to say "death".
"You don't cross the streams!"
"Why, what happens if we cross the streams?"
"Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light."
"Right. That's bad."
I scrolled down looking for a Ghostbusters line, and here it is. : )
It would be bad.
Total protonic reversal
I don't get it. What is "The Ghost Busters"? That dumb cartoon?
@@Foebane72 just watch it
In the last 40 years I not lived in a house with separate taps, or header tank. My last house I had for 7 years had one when I moved in, within a month it was out, and mixer taps fitted.
The fun part is that "don't drink the hot water" is still a valid thing to remember. There are plenty of old houses with old water tanks in their lofts that are still used (because this is the UK, we don't knock things down, we just keep living in them). The last house I lived in still had a water tank to store hot water. It was rubbish, especially when running a bath and the hot water ran out.
+James Grimwood its always been in my head you dont drink hot water, just a fact like the sun is hot, its interesting to learn its got a reason behind it :)
+James Grimwood One other reason not to drink the hot water is that the metals from the pipes and the solder holding them together as well as any chemicals leaching from plastic piping or rubber seals, will leach out faster in hot water and might collect in the tank or heat exchanger. Though, with either hot or cold water, running it for a few minutes will often reduce the levels of these contaminants.
I hate that, worse when you take a shower and the hot runs out
+James Grimwood When I moved in to a new house a few years ago (in London where it's hard water) the water tank was so furred up with calcium that I'd be lucky to get one sink of hot water let alone a bath or shower. I had that ripped out ASAP and a combi boiler installed. Now I have hot water on demand and a huge storage space where the tank was.
+mike mac When the cold water runs out..that's worse.
In the houses you’re talking about even the cold taps in most bathrooms are fed from the loft storage tank . Only the cold tap in the kitchen is truly fresh.
I would not call the water supply system of London 'Fresh'...
I came here for this
@@vrajeala666 Me too.
Used to be the case in our 1960s built house, at least the upstairs bathroom cold taps. But now no more; all from the rising main. So we don’t drink rat water any more 😊
Meanwhile in Australia:
“What if we do both?”
Depends on the age of the building I find. For example I live in 100yo cottage so plumbing and elec was installed decades after it was built so seperate taps etc. My parents built a new home when they retired they have mixers.
my kitchen has a mixer tap and the bathrooms and utility room all have separate taps (i don’t have enough room by my kitchen sink to have separate taps)
@@noob_duck1454 Exact same in my house
It's OK because you're on the underside of the earth.
I've wondered about this for decades from the time I lived in the UK and then was a student there. Now, thanks to you, I can finally sleep soundly at night. Cheers for putting my restless mind to bed!
they like to separate from everything, that's why
Huehuehue
Haahhahahahahahaha! Excellent!
That’s Italy mate XD
Didn't America declare separate independence?
No, we just have some common sense.
Its one of the last forms of segregation they can legally enjoy. That... and the divider bar at the check out of a supermarket.
In Malaysia where I currently have a house the building code is that kitchen taps has to be directly connected to the main line (no tank).
My house has 5 bathrooms plus kitchen and all other taps except the kitchen tap comes down from a 2 M3 tank under my roof.
The water from the main line is sort of drinkable ...ish ... but a filter or boil it is probably recommended ;-)
That's like Singapore in the 1960's.
My mate pissed in the water talk in the attic at a house party. They must have rubbed piss in their face so many times without realising
XD
golden shower legit
Omg this always drove me crazy - best episode ever!
Not long after moving into my current house, years ago, we had black feathers coming through the bathroom taps, due to the decomposing crow in the water tank.
2:22 I had that advice too. And it’s valid. My 1983 house has the said cold water tank in loft with no cover. Combi defo the way to go instead.
Why not install a cover?
yep still never drink from the Hot water tap and i've had a modern combi boiler for nearly 10 years now :D
Me too
Thank you Tom! I finally understand UK taps. I've been asking that question for years. Considering the age ofsome of the hotels I've stayed in over there I am grateful for separate taps now. :)
I'm loving this series about British things, being a Brit, they all seem like the norm. However, it is nice to learn something about how they came to be!
Do you know where we get the term "whet your whistle?"
Totally climbed into my air b&b’s attic in London and I can safely say in the cold water tank there are no rats
It's usually pigeons.
They dissolved before you got there.
and are you living up there now ?!
2:00 "you don't cross the streams"....GHOSTBUSTERS!!!
It would be *bad*.
Most people in America also still have 2 valves on most sinks. Blender valves are mainly used for rest areas and showers.
Two valves, yes, but they send the water to the same faucet, mixing the water and allowing you to regulate the temperature.
And then you have us Chinese who boils water before drinking.
Yeah, my family immigrated to Canada when I was younger and everyone at school when I was a kid always thought I was weird for not wanting to drink tapwater.
its about the water source yo. i was born in the philippines and always boil water before drinking. you dont boil, you will have diarhea for sure. then here in canada, i drink straight from the tap. as in. i was like "you sure this is safe" and yeah, i drink straight from the tap and never had diarrhea. its all about the water source yo. its the source.
*****
Not always, we now do it just for cultural reasons since the better side of the world does better water treatments, though in the past, doing so saves people's lives.
In fairness, the Brits learnt that trick from the Chinese long ago.
I mean, though the British are famed for their love of tea, the drink is, of course, a Chinese invention.
And we all thank you kindly for all those lovely cups of tea we've had ever since. :D
Commie..
My parents told me to never drink the bathroom sink water.
Okay... Why?
ironmatic 1 Watch the video.
Jason Haven I did. The water in your bathroom sink is no different then water in any other room.
ironmatic 1 Nowadays, yes. In the past, however, the water for the bathroom sink was in a separate water tank in the ceiling and was usually not as clean as the main water.
Now days you can drink the water from your toilet.
why would anyone drink hot water ever?
if you are sick .... why are you drinking tap water?
Tap water isn't as unhealthy as you might think. Well, depending on which country you live in.
If the tap water quality in Great Britain is as good as the Dutch tap water, its quality is the same as or better than bottled water. Only in places where the tap water reeks of chlorine (e.g. on the Costa del Sol) would I recommend you buy water in a supermarket.
The main thing we were told as kids was don't drink cold water from the bathroom tap. Obviously no-one drinks from the hot tap.
+sixtopian better to use a kettle
I so miss Tom Scott videos! Nine years on and still watchable. I believe youtube pushed Tom and others to the point of no return in demanding long-form videos.
@Tom Scott:
Thank you!
This has been a mystery for me since I was at holiday in Scotland 3 summers ago.
Ps. I'm from Sweden.
+Sion and you went to Scotland, there are far more interesting places to go
+Arcanis Depends on where you go, I live near Glasgow and Glasgow is alright as long you as you don't get stabbed, and the highlands and the islands are nice to look at, bout it though.
In my parents house they used to have two uncovered cold water tanks. Sometimes you'd get bits of dead wasps coming out of the taps, or on one memorable occasion, a live spider. My dad put an enclosed tank in and that all ceased.
@tomscott What about one-way flow valve? You apply that on 'clean' water supply and don't have to worry about contamination, I guess
Short answer is they could fail if not maintained. Long answer: There are valves we use in industry called anti-Syphon valves. Which are essentially a check valve that will introduce air when pressure becomes negative. We use them in chemical mixing applications (among other safe gaurds) so if water pressure is lost chemicals can't be sucked into the main. The valves cost about $1500 and must be recertified every year.
only in Britain! A non-return valve is a very simple product but did never cross the channel.
2:03 Can't you install a non-return valve on the cold water hose?
Your voice should be kept in a museum, it's deep but sounds sort of clogged, never heard the kind before
@@mvmlego1212 Ezreal please
@@mvmlego1212 Ahh.. League good memories
Brian blessed
Is it just a 'placebo' that water from the bathroom tap tastes different to water from the kitchen tap? I know I could do a blind test, but I don't want to intentionally drink bathroom water, however irrational...
It's not a placebo (or taste illusion) at all. In some houses kitchen taps are used more frequently and for longer periods than bathroom taps. This gives time for the pipes to the bathroom to build up a scale or oxidise, and this can change the taste of the water slightly.
True. Bathroom taps are used for a quick hand wash and a toothbrush wetting. The kitchen tap is used for all dish washing and kettle filling, some handwashing and by "the mythical rule" all drinking too. Stands to reason that the bathroom tap would taste a little stagnant.
Andrew Bulman
No, in your house as in many houses the cold in the bathroom could be from a storage rank and the kitchen tap direct from the mains. The confusion cones when lazy youtubers like the one here give out the wrong info as if it's correct.
If your bathroom fold rap is from a storage tank the water will taste different as the chlorine content will have evapourated. The water companies put enough chlorine in the water to last for up to three days, as they feel that's how long it make take to get from the treatment works to your house. Once the water comes into open air the remaining chlorine evaporates in around 30 minutes.
An interesting test would be for you to sample three glasses of water at your house.
One from the bathroom cold tap which should not taste of chlorine
One drawn from your kitchen rap but one hour old. This again should not taste of chlorine
One fresh from the kitchen cold tap in which you could taste the chlorine
Simon Sackville
Sorry, that's incorrect. Water pipes only built up scale if the water rises above 65 degrees C, as at that temp the water can no longer contain its calcium content. That's why kettles scale up and water jugs don't. The difference in taste is due to the presence or lack of chlorine in the water due to how it's been stored in the house, such as in a mains pipe or open tank in the loft
I always drink from our bathroom cold tap; tastes perfect! we do have really clean water here on the Moors mind you, no hint of Chlorine.
Yeah, we have some in Sweden. Most are mixer taps, but some are Double Taps. :p It's a pity the pump's not working! I have a double tap in my home, my grandmother has one. She had one replaced with a mixer 5-odd years ago. I always run the cold for a few seconds, but that's to make sure it's nice and cold. I heard from someone that I preferably shouldn't drink of hot water. I was baffled as to why. It was implied that there was something obvious which I was missing. I reckon it was this which they meant.
+TheBcoolGuy A friend of mine once told me that hot water tanks have some nodules of cadmium attched to the insides to prevent corrotion, and that's why you should never use hot water for anything that's going to be imbibed (drunk) or ingested (eaten).
+TheBcoolGuy I was told hot water was made of snow and therefore was full of larvae. The person who told me this was and still is a complete moron.
There is a weird mix of mixer and non mixer taps in the UK. In my house, the kitchen tap is a mixer fed by the on-demand boiler and the mains cold water supply. The bath taps are separate, and so are the basin taps in the bathroom and second toilet.
Of course, the kitchen (mixer) tap is the one I drink from most often. It's all the same water, but you can't wash your hands with warm water in any of the other basins because it comes out at 9 billion °C from the hot tap. It's so stupid!
bigwhiteyeti You can just mix with different amounts of hot and cold.
Even after living in Ireland for a year, years ago, I still didn’t knew the answer. Thank you!
This guy is recording in a bathroom, still sounds better than me recording in my quiet room
I got two suggestions: 1) **closed** feeder tanks with a breather valve, and 2) back flow check valves if you are worried the shower hose or dish rinse nozzle will suck your washwater back into the city supply.
Just saying.
Going around every single house in the UK and fitting closed feeder tanks is unrealistic...great for future new homes if only they even had water tanks fitted. Tom does mention this.
As for back flow check valves, all homes in the UK have these. As Tom mentioned in the very same part of the video you are referring to, it’s if it fails. Separate taps and supply points was always for redundancy.
In other words, get your water systems up to American code. 😂
"Don't cross the streams." That got my thumb up! Top work, that.
And yet again I learned something from this channel 😊
Tom: Don't cross the streams
Egon: I approve of this message
You are supposed to use a non return valve on the cold mains side when fitting a mixer tap. Although not everyone does and they can cause all sorts of problems; personally I dont mind two taps, you just take a few seconds to fill the basin.
Where I live, you need a return/check valve on the inlet of the water boiler, to prevent backflowing of warm water into the cold water supply and then additionally another specialised check valve before the mains Water meter, in case the water mains supply craps out, so water from your home can't contaminate the mains down the road. Still drinking warm water is a big No-No. Cheers.
Yea that makes sense
My Spanish wife was putting water into a pan from the hot water tap... I was appalled.
My African wife doesn't drink water, or has even seen water... I was appalled.
Naked Snake I died 2 weeks ago.
my 7 African wives drink water when i tell them too. Allahu Akbar.
My Greek wife drinks my tap water. I was not appalled.
But, if that water comes through a mains fed combi boiler it will be fine.
Also, if you look at the tap design. The outlet from the tap is always above the top of the basin so water from the basin cannot enter the supply system.
This is the way in New Zealand too, old houses often have tanks in, or on, the roof and double taps. I live in an old house that was renovated and the tank removed and a mixer tap installed by a previous owner, but other houses on the street were built to the identical plan and some still have tanks and double taps. I'm not aware of any paranoia here about drinking from the hot tap, but.. .why you would drink from the hot tap? Who likes warm water. The only way I end up drinking from the hot tap is when I use it to fill a kettle to boil, and that takes care of any bacteria.
Yes, but not an abundance of minerals.
Magnus Bergmark But there won't be any more minerals in the hot water than the cold water, because it's from the same mains pipe, the only difference is the hot water has been through the tank on the roof and the hot water cylinder.
And if the tank start to rust?
Magnus Bergmark There'd be stains in the kettle from it. There's none.
+Magnus Bergmark Flavor
I still prefer mixed taps/faucets, though, for the simple reason that you can get the exact temperature you want.
but the only time i want hot water is for doing the washing up or washing my face and then I am running it into a bowl so I can mix it in there.
Skellious I see, you dig doing it the middle ages way. To me this sounds gruesome.
ElizaberthUndEugen If you think people in the middle ages had access to clean hot water then you are sorely mistaken.
Skellious You know what a metaphor or a exaggeration is, no? Might want to look it up. While you are on it, also check sarcasm; might prove helpful at times.
ElizaberthUndEugen sorry, I tend to miss metaphors and especially sarcasm. As a result, when I write something that is not meant to be taken seriously, I use a ":P" to signify tongue-in-cheek.
Here in the United States even though we have mixer taps, you really shouldn't be drinking any water that is heated in a tank water heater. It has to do with a few factors like bacterial growth, ingestion of trace amounts of metals like from the Zinc rods which prevent galvanic corrosion in the tank, and corrosion from the tank itself since i'd wager less than 1% of the country actually replaces their anode rod every 5 years like they should.
I also run the cold tap for a few seconds before taking a drink. I never knew why until now. We learn more growing up than we know at the time. Thanks Tom.
i do to but for a far more practical reason water from mixxer tap will not be as cold as possible if its not run for few seconds(if setting already wasnt full cold)
So, did anyone else just used to freezing cold water because your tap takes an hour to get actual hot water... If you get warm water instantly from your bathroom tap consider yourself blessed, one or two taps...
Thanks always wondered about that. Like the Ghostbusters reference: "don't mix the streams".
Finally, after all these years... The knowledge I have been seeking
Same bro
This was totally my experience as a Brit, glad to have closure after all this time!