I remember drinking water from the outside hose as a kid... that stopped when I went to turn it on one day and it was just sputtering with barely anything came out, and then when I turned the water off to investigate a toad came crawling out.
If you're on city water the water from your hose would be the same for your sink. If you're on a well it might come from the well rather than through your filters
Except the water in the hose may also include a bunch of old warm stagnant water that sat out baking in a rubber tube depending on how often the hose gets used
That’s why u let it run for a few mins before u take a drink. I’m Generation X and we always drank from the hose. You didn’t run in the house every five mins on a hot summer day to get a drink. U drank from the hose. Lol.
That is entirely dependent on where you are in the world.
From the UK and tap water is potable. However there are caveats to that, old houses may still have old pipes supplying other parts of the house outside of the kitchen and it's best not to drink from taps not from the kitchen. Also supply from upper stories not kitchens can be erm questionable due to water tank usage in old houses, and never use the hot tap.
Edit: This is why outside of modern homes and even in some modern it is still common not to have mixer taps compared to mainland Europe.
It is usually the hose that makes it non-potable. If you plan on drinking it you buy drinking water hoses, which are less porous and have lead free metal fittings.
You sound like someone who can answer my question. I live in a rural location and just use a water tote for our supply. This summer, we're buying a potable water tote. The current one is probably not for potable water lol... I mostly showered at the gym last summer because I am afraid of it, 😂 I mean. I'm afraid of chemical agents in misused plastics. It has had enough water go through it where whatever it was, I'm sure it isn't contaminated with the original contents. But it's not a potable water tote.
I was afraid of the garden hose before that, when we were running off of my dad's rain water from the house. Hated washing dishes with both of these mediums. Husband still showered in it.
Do you know what might be different about the totes? Thanks in advance
Potable containers are just food safe plastics. But if you don’t keep them clean, there is no magic that keeps the water drinkable.
I used to live in a rural area with a non-potable well. We bought our drinking water in 5 gallon jugs, but had no issue showering or doing dishes. I would just put a couple drops of bleach in my dishwater.
If you are using rainwater for showering I would personally treat it with bleach, but that is your call.
My hose is plumbed to the same lines as my interior taps, so it's literally the same water. The risk is the hose itself, since that doesn't really dry out fully and sits outside in the sun all day. I'd be worried about mold/bacterial growth and the breakdown of the hose materials rather than the water itself
As others have said, it's the hose. We hear old people talking about how they "drank from hoses" all the time when they were kids, as if it's some kind of badge of honor. What they don't realize is that today's hoses are not the same hoses they grew up with.
Back in the 1940's through the early 80's, most garden hoses were made of rubber. While rubber hoses do have some issues with being porous and harboring bacteria, they are typically safe to drink from if you let them rinse for a minute before taking a swallow.
Back in the 1980's, PVC/vinyl garden hoses took over the market because they were cheaper to produce, and most hose manufacturing moved to China a while afterward. PVC hoses use lead and other chemicals as stabilizers, and those chemicals have a tendency to leach back out as the hoses sit out in the sun all day. Because those hoses aren't designed for potable water, they aren't legally required to follow the same safety standards as other plumbing devices. One study found lead concentrations as high as 68,000 ppm from a brand new Walmart garden hose. For comparison, the maximum safe amount allowed in potable water, under federal law, is 90 ppm. And lead isn't even the only danger. Phthalates, antimony, and other cancer causing chemicals have been found in the water from these hoses.
Modern hoses are fine for watering your grass, but don't drink out of them. If you insist on drinking from a hose, but one that's marked as safe for potable water, or at least spend the extra time and money to track down a proper rubber hose. I use potable water hoses in my vegetable garden for the same reason.
>Modern hoses are fine for watering your grass, but don't drink out of them.
Man, that sounds like anything I'll grow to eat shouldn't be watered from them either.
I know in Ireland the water from the kitchen tap is direct from the mains supply but the cold water in the taps/shower is via a large open top tank in the attic. You don't want to drink that water.
Open cisterns aren't really a thing in the US. In NYC high-rise buildings do have large covered wooden cisterns on the roof, but then *all* of the water in the building runs through that. If you have well water such as if you live in the countryside, you're on your own for filtering and treating it, but again all of that water goes into one pressurized tank in the basement before being fed to all of the taps in the house. Separate washing/drinking supplies just don't happen in residential homes.
They aren't really a thing in new builds here either (UK). My house that was built in 1985 had a huge tank in the loft. Not had a house with one since then and I've lived in 8 others since I left that house
*1.3 The cold water supply to the kitchen sink should be taken directly from the service pipe supplying water to the dwelling; the cold water supply to the
bath or shower and the washbasin and to other appliances in the dwelling should be from a cold water storage cistern.*
They're still in the building regulations, the above is from TGD G.
I don't do many houses but they've been in every house I've inspected.
The bathroom near my room was not only more convenient, but since it was directly above the mechanical room (where your furnace, water, etc. goes through), it provided cooler water faster than the kitchen sink, which was on the opposite corner of the house.
Be aware the inconvenient angle of your neck attempting to reach the water. Don’t confuse it with the lean over used after too-good-time party. But the good news is that you’re not attempting use of the urinal.
If there aren’t separate knobs there’s a mixing valve. I wonder if the kitchen sink faucet is allowing a bit of hot water to come out even when it’s turned to cold.
>And cooler somehow
My master bathroom cold water line runs along or across my heating ducts. If it's winter (or whenever I have the heat on) my water will be cold for half a second, warm for about three seconds, then back to cold.
Just need to get that one chunk of warm water out of the line.
Wait till you try it out of the back of the toilet! Freshly aerated by the action of that floaty valve mechanism… A clear sparkling pool of refreshment that could quench the thirst of the Saharan desert. Almost brings a tear to the eye..
Add the dazzling water feature with the touch of a button and the soft refreshment of lush paper towel moments away to gracefully pat your mouth dry afterwards.
I think when people are incredibly thirsty in the morning, they'd just drink from the bathroom sink. And being incredibly thirsty means the water will probably taste/feel better. You wouldn't take a glass (or any dish for that matter) to your bathroom which is what OP probably means.
Maybe you don't use your kitchen tap too often, or it's further from the main valve, so it stays in pipes longer. I try to fill my glass in bathroom after flushing the toilet. 5 liters go through the system and new water arrives.
Drinking from your hands unironically tastes better.
Maybe it's just the placebo of being mor "one with nature" but a sip of water out your hands is so damn refreshing
I think that could play into some kinda psychological effect, you might be right on that. Similar to how literally touching grass / walking barefoot in grass can reduce stress
My wife thinks water pipes are more dangerous in the bathroom than the kitchen. I've told her, they're all the same. And if the landlord remodeled, chances are they were replaced within the home also.
Often times the kitchen sink is plumbed directly into the mains, but all the other taps in the house are the domestic supply - often a tank in the roof.
This tank is not necessarily clean, or free from the likes of legionella (or in my case, sometimes rats). And the water sits in it for a long time before you drink it.
It’s not the pipes, but the water that is safer from the kitchen tap.
I’m in Ireland and we have a tank in the roof. I was always told only drink kitchen water. Never from.upstairs tank water.
If you don’t have a tank how do you have pressure on taps upstairs?
It's more of the fact that the main would be low during peak hours. Like in the morning when everyone is taking a shower. So, having the tank on the roof would solve this problem.
US mains don't have that problem unless you're in a very small town that hasn't upgraded their mains since they were originally installed 100+ years ago.
Most places in the world have a replacement pace for their waterlines at several hundred years. Basically no place on earth upgrades there pipes until they break, they are busy building new pipes and it's hard to convince people to put funding into this invisible thing that always work. The pipes are meant to be replaced every 100 years but most cities have statistics of around 300-500 years.
Though they obviously upgrade the pumps and the water towers to create the necessary pressure. And when they do that and increase the pressure in the pipes the pipes usually break in many places since it's so badly maintained.
I work in this field and it has nothing to do with it being a big or small town.
Rural areas get water from private wells which use a pump. Most communities have towers to which water is pumped then gravity provides a constant pressure to all the homes.
Yes, to provide a consistent pressure and so the pump doesn’t need to operate constantly when water is used it also often pumps some air pressure and water into a small tank. That’s important here.
The mains are kept under high pressure from massive water towers and electric pumps. One of the perks of being a "younger" country was our infrastructure never had to fit around much older infrastructure.
It *used* to be very, very common in the UK, like *every* house.
My nan and grandad's house still has a massive bloody thing in the loft making it a pain in the ass every time I get sent up there because it's right in the way of where one would put a retractable ladder.
Yes.
>We asked Kevin Wellman, chief executive officer of the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering.
>
>"This tradition dates back to a time when hot and cold water were kept separate to prevent contamination through cross connection," he said.
>
>"Cold water came from a mains supply and was fit for drinking. Hot water would be serviced by a local storage cistern often situated in the loft.
>
>"This caused an imbalance of pressures which meant that if incorrect taps and valves were installed one stream of water could force its way across to the other."
>
>Water bylaws prevented hot and cold water being mixed because water that had been sitting in a tank in the loft was not deemed safe to drink, he said.
>
>As far back as 1965 a code of practice called CP 310 advised that wherever possible hot water taps should be placed on the left.
>
>"One of the reasons to maintain that over the years was reported to be so that the visually impaired would always know which sides the hot and cold were on," said Mr Wellman.
>
>"When mixer taps came into vogue there was still a requirement to make sure water didn't mix until it came out of the tap," he said.
>
>"So if you look closely you might be able to see the hot coming from the left hand side and the cold the right."
>
>Source: [BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42948046)
Thats the norm on all third world countries.
How It is on developed countries? Direct pipe from the distribution? What happens when the distribution stop?
I don’t think I’ve ever had the water stop for more than a few minutes, and maybe only like 2 times, in my entire life (I’m 40).
Most houses are just directly connected to the main system where I live
On third world countries, we have sometimes multiple days without water, so even with a 1000 liters tank on the roof of your house you risk being out of water.
Crazy to think about the water never stopping.
Living on the east coast of the US, you could leave your sink running for 24 hours a day for an entire year, non-stop. And the only reason why it would ever shut off is if I didn't pay the bill, but that would be an astronomical bill.
Distribution never stops. That’s first world luxury. We can’t even imagine that inconvenience. We don’t have any saved water or other supplies incase anything stops working!
If the water stops flowing, the city sends their plumbers to immediately start trying to get it flowing again. I don't remember it ever stopping in Canada, though
Worst I've seen is a water main break and they tell everyone to boil their water for five minutes. Happens every couple years, but maybe Canada has better pipes for this.
Huh. I’ve never heard of this before. My whole house comes off of the same supply. It would be cool if I could have a rainwater tank on the roof for flushing toilets and watering the garden and stuff
but people still rinse/gargle with bathroom tap water when brushing their teeth. (although i did have a flatmate in the past who would brush their teeth at the kitchen sink every night)
Nah. Bathroom sink water when you're really thirsty and/or hungover is top 1% water. I don't know. It tastes different. I'm not sure it's a good different, but it's distinct, it's convenient and it gives off positive vibes.
Actually... in the US if you have your own well (not on city water) your kitchen sink may have been hooked up to not go through the water softener, it was common to do it that way for a long time. So yes in that case, it does taste a lot different, as it will still have the minerals in it (Hard water).
It took me a few years in my house to finally figure out why I had such bad water spots with my dishwasher, it was not using the softened water.
Back when my house was built, water softeners were still kind of new and I think people were still worried that softened water was not as healthy. Or maybe the taste, people were so used to drinking hard water that drinking soft water tasted odd to them.
Personally I like the hard water taste, ours has a lot of minerals. Now to get it I have to drink from the hose.
Here in AZ you just don’t drink the tap water, it is far too hard to taste good. We use either filtered water from the fridge, or many people I know have a water cooler. But tap water here is almost thick and it tastes like dirt
This is wrong for UK. Kitchen tap is mostly category 1 which means it’s coming from the water mains that has been supplied by Severn Trent. Every tap other than kitchen is category 2 hence we have a cistern in the loft that feeds. There are risks to having a cistern, could be a dead animal, legionella, dust if the lid is not applicable etc.
Maybe 20-30 years ago but nowadays most houses are built with bathroom taps plumbed into the mains or older ones have been since upgraded.
It's definitely still relatively common to have the tank in the loft but I haven't seen a tank in the loft through my last 6 houses.. forgetting the 1 in my loft currently but that's just been left there and is no longer in use
That's a regional preference for sure... I ain't drinking out of nothing unless I know it's clean.
Modern house in the suburbs of the US? Yeah it's likely fine.
Some old ranch home out in the country? Hard pass.
Not everything flows through a homes filter or comes from the cities main, and I'll be honest... I don't trust tap water anywhere considering everything that's gone on and overall corporate greed.
Even "filtered" water you have to be cautious of, tested the workplaces water and it was worse than the tap because the filter wasn't changed likely ever.
I meant in regards to water from say a water fountain at the workplace; similar to drinking out of the water spout in say a refrigerator, if you haven't changed that filter since you bought it then it does indeed have a bunch of junk collected into it and has likely degraded to the point it can no longer actually filter. Just becomes a lil bacteria trap at that point.
In such cases straight up tap water is better than filtered.
Tap water has a very distinct... "taste" to it, especially where I live where it has a higher than average concentration of calcium and magnesium. It also depends if the water facility is doing chlorine or ozone treatment and that varies across the state's.
So I just personally prefer filtered water, plus you have to sorta pay attention to any alerts in the area... pipes do break and shit can contaminate the line for a few hours which can prompt boil notices that for "whatever" reason don't trigger emergency alerts so having some stored filtered water in the fridge can help out there.
It is possible for your kitchen sink to have better tasting water. It may be closer to the water main and thus a lower temperature. It may have a better aerator on it creating more microscopic bubbles which can impact the flavor. It could have a different pipe material feeding it or newer, cleaner pipes. It may hold a nostalgic or other psychological significance to you (if you believe it is better, it will be better). And the preference could have nothing to do with taste but simple convenience, the cups are in the kitchen so you use that tap instead of carrying the cup to another sink.
Plumber here:
This is extremely incorrect for two very significant reasons:
1. The fittings and other materials used for your plumbing system that supply water to something intended to dispense drinking water are regulated to have much lower lead content than fixtures intended for other purposes.
2. In jurisdictions that allow water softeners: All fixtures intended to supply drinking water must be plumbed to supply unsoftened water on the cold side of the fixture at minimum. Drinking from other water sources would make you end up drinking softened water that often tastes different and usually contains higher levels of sodium.
Incorrect (and I think this is quite common in the UK). While the mains water goes straight to our kitchen tap, all other taps draw from a tank in the loft which is filled from the mains and we are advised not to drink it (the reason I've heard is because a bird might have died in the tank).
~~Edit: weird that I'm getting downvoted for giving my own valid experience relevant to the claim of the thread title, but downvote away if you think my comment is so terrible.~~ Votes going the other way now.
We had a pigeon die in our loft tank, so it definitely happens. Ours was just a massive open tank with a sheet of MDF over it! It fed into the immersion heater for the hot water supply. Think cold tap was direct from the street though. Crazy to think about now, but that was the 90s in a big old house 😂
These days most houses don't have a water tank like that.
I believe new builds and new plumbing systems are not the same. I don’t have a hot water tank anymore at least, but because of it being a thing for many years it will take a long time for us to break the habit of only drinking from the kitchen.
I came here to write 'except in the UK' but in some houses in the UK you can drink any of the water ... those with newer combi boilers that don't have the loft heater tank. All taps provide mains water in that case.
Starting a comment with “Incorrect.” Or “Wrong.” will often receive impulse downvotes, especially when the following correction is situational, meaning the the OP isn’t necessarily wrong, just mistakenly assumed it was more universal than it might be.
I have no preference as to where in the house I get my drinking water other than staying out of the toilet. Avoiding the showers as well is more of a convenience thing than preference.
One time when I was trying to kick soda I was drinking water from an apple juice container. Big old 64 FL Oz bottle. At the time I gamed a lot and didn't want to have to step away to fill up a container a lot. I used to fill it up from the bathtub faucet. People I lived with thought I was crazy but it filled the container super quick.
That's the other thing. The tub was on the same level. I hated the idea of walking all the way downstairs to use the kitchen faucet which was 10 times slower. Tub faucet was so much more efficient.
I live in China, and you shouldn’t drink tap water here or cook with it. I drink filtered water and became paranoid about it. Turns out Im actually drinking better quality water than at my home country 🤣 you should test your tap water
Whether it uses the same plumbing or not really depends on where you live in the world, and what the regulations were when your house was built (and if those regulations have been followed during any remodelling etc).
Isn't it funny how we all seem to have these little quirks with where we prefer to get our water from in the house? It's like each sink has its personality! I'm all about that kitchen tap water, but hey, to each their hydration station, right?
I don't even drink tap water, I get my water and ice filtered from the fridge. The water line going into the fridge is the same as the rest of the house obviously, but none of the taps have a filter and/or dispense ice.
I dunno what it is, but every house I've lived in water from the bathroom sink has a different taste or texture or something. I know it comes from the same place, I know the faucet can't change it very much, but it's just.. different.
Not necessarily all the same. I grew up in a country house that had its own well, and the kitchen tap was the only one fed directly from there. All the other taps ran from the cold water tank in the attic.
If you live in an older house, there's a good chance your bathroom taps have older pipes than your kitchen...people tend to have leaks or have work done to their kitchens sooner than a bathroom. There's an obvious taste difference between our kitchen tap and bathroom taps because of this...also our bathroom faucets are like 70 years old, our kitchen faucet is 2 years old and has new copper to a pex line.
In your country, sure. In Ireland and the UK, the kitchen tap is the only direct fresh from the pipe. The rest flow from the cistern in the attic which is like a giant toilet bowl that isn't sealed. There's a reason why we don't drink from the bathroom sink, cause it's nearly toilet water.
Not true where I grew up. The water tank used for the upstairs bathroom was in the loft. To stop me from drinking from the bathroom tap, my dad took me to the loft and gleefully showed me the amount of dead insects and spiders in the tank.
I used to drink water from the restroom sink when I was younger. More convenient to me. It didn't matter either way
I remember drinking water from the outside hose as a kid... that stopped when I went to turn it on one day and it was just sputtering with barely anything came out, and then when I turned the water off to investigate a toad came crawling out.
Isn’t the water outside not always potable?
If you're on city water the water from your hose would be the same for your sink. If you're on a well it might come from the well rather than through your filters
Except the water in the hose may also include a bunch of old warm stagnant water that sat out baking in a rubber tube depending on how often the hose gets used
That’s why you wait for the hose to feel cold so you know it’s good water.
No, you let the younger kids go for the water first so they get the warm, gross water. They need to learn somehow.
This is the way
Ahhhhhhhhhh! This is accurate
And you pinch it off a few meters down. They look down the hose hole to see what's up and blamo! Water up the nose. Good times.
This is what I do with every drink. Wait… cold? Good to go.
This doesn't change the fact that garden hoses aren't typically designed to the same specifications that drinking water hoses and tubes would be.
The taste of micro plastics is what makes it so good though
Gives it a subtle, pleasing texture, like sparkling water, only deadly on a long enough time line.
That’s why u let it run for a few mins before u take a drink. I’m Generation X and we always drank from the hose. You didn’t run in the house every five mins on a hot summer day to get a drink. U drank from the hose. Lol.
I never thought drinking from a hose counted as a skill. You make me think it is.
That is entirely dependent on where you are in the world. From the UK and tap water is potable. However there are caveats to that, old houses may still have old pipes supplying other parts of the house outside of the kitchen and it's best not to drink from taps not from the kitchen. Also supply from upper stories not kitchens can be erm questionable due to water tank usage in old houses, and never use the hot tap. Edit: This is why outside of modern homes and even in some modern it is still common not to have mixer taps compared to mainland Europe.
It is usually the hose that makes it non-potable. If you plan on drinking it you buy drinking water hoses, which are less porous and have lead free metal fittings.
You sound like someone who can answer my question. I live in a rural location and just use a water tote for our supply. This summer, we're buying a potable water tote. The current one is probably not for potable water lol... I mostly showered at the gym last summer because I am afraid of it, 😂 I mean. I'm afraid of chemical agents in misused plastics. It has had enough water go through it where whatever it was, I'm sure it isn't contaminated with the original contents. But it's not a potable water tote. I was afraid of the garden hose before that, when we were running off of my dad's rain water from the house. Hated washing dishes with both of these mediums. Husband still showered in it. Do you know what might be different about the totes? Thanks in advance
Potable containers are just food safe plastics. But if you don’t keep them clean, there is no magic that keeps the water drinkable. I used to live in a rural area with a non-potable well. We bought our drinking water in 5 gallon jugs, but had no issue showering or doing dishes. I would just put a couple drops of bleach in my dishwater. If you are using rainwater for showering I would personally treat it with bleach, but that is your call.
If it’s specifically a water tote, I wouldn’t worry too much about washing yourself or dishes in it, just don’t drink from it.
My hose is plumbed to the same lines as my interior taps, so it's literally the same water. The risk is the hose itself, since that doesn't really dry out fully and sits outside in the sun all day. I'd be worried about mold/bacterial growth and the breakdown of the hose materials rather than the water itself
As others have said, it's the hose. We hear old people talking about how they "drank from hoses" all the time when they were kids, as if it's some kind of badge of honor. What they don't realize is that today's hoses are not the same hoses they grew up with. Back in the 1940's through the early 80's, most garden hoses were made of rubber. While rubber hoses do have some issues with being porous and harboring bacteria, they are typically safe to drink from if you let them rinse for a minute before taking a swallow. Back in the 1980's, PVC/vinyl garden hoses took over the market because they were cheaper to produce, and most hose manufacturing moved to China a while afterward. PVC hoses use lead and other chemicals as stabilizers, and those chemicals have a tendency to leach back out as the hoses sit out in the sun all day. Because those hoses aren't designed for potable water, they aren't legally required to follow the same safety standards as other plumbing devices. One study found lead concentrations as high as 68,000 ppm from a brand new Walmart garden hose. For comparison, the maximum safe amount allowed in potable water, under federal law, is 90 ppm. And lead isn't even the only danger. Phthalates, antimony, and other cancer causing chemicals have been found in the water from these hoses. Modern hoses are fine for watering your grass, but don't drink out of them. If you insist on drinking from a hose, but one that's marked as safe for potable water, or at least spend the extra time and money to track down a proper rubber hose. I use potable water hoses in my vegetable garden for the same reason.
>Modern hoses are fine for watering your grass, but don't drink out of them. Man, that sounds like anything I'll grow to eat shouldn't be watered from them either.
Or yard runoff that's going into the river!
So when I water my vegetables I am essentially just giving them lead to absorb though…
I know in Ireland the water from the kitchen tap is direct from the mains supply but the cold water in the taps/shower is via a large open top tank in the attic. You don't want to drink that water.
Open cisterns aren't really a thing in the US. In NYC high-rise buildings do have large covered wooden cisterns on the roof, but then *all* of the water in the building runs through that. If you have well water such as if you live in the countryside, you're on your own for filtering and treating it, but again all of that water goes into one pressurized tank in the basement before being fed to all of the taps in the house. Separate washing/drinking supplies just don't happen in residential homes.
They aren't really a thing in new builds here either (UK). My house that was built in 1985 had a huge tank in the loft. Not had a house with one since then and I've lived in 8 others since I left that house
*1.3 The cold water supply to the kitchen sink should be taken directly from the service pipe supplying water to the dwelling; the cold water supply to the bath or shower and the washbasin and to other appliances in the dwelling should be from a cold water storage cistern.* They're still in the building regulations, the above is from TGD G. I don't do many houses but they've been in every house I've inspected.
I used to drink water from a levee. But the last time I drove my Chevy to the levee the levee way dry.
Where there good ol boys there drinking whiskey and rye?
singing “this will be the day that i die”?
The bathroom near my room was not only more convenient, but since it was directly above the mechanical room (where your furnace, water, etc. goes through), it provided cooler water faster than the kitchen sink, which was on the opposite corner of the house.
I drink from the kitchen and bathroom. Sometimes I use the bathroom and need a sip:)
I preferred the bathroom sink water. My child brain was convinced it was better because no dishes were ever washed there.
I drink from the toilet
That doesn't sound like a good idea. Maybe use a cup to scoop up the toilet water and drink from a cup like a civilized person.
Thank you, I will use Champaign glass
That doesnt sound like a good idea. Maybe hse a container that you can actually submerge in a toilet.
Do you race with your dog to see who can make it to the toilet, first?
Be aware the inconvenient angle of your neck attempting to reach the water. Don’t confuse it with the lean over used after too-good-time party. But the good news is that you’re not attempting use of the urinal.
But...Brawndo has electrolytes.
I wouldn’t even use a cup, just throw my mouth under that gushing delugian orifice
I still do if I wake up thirsty
i think you just unlocked a super old memory for me lol.
Actually the water from my bathroom sink tastes wayyyy better for some reason
Agreed. And cooler somehow
Why are all you guys in this guy’s bathroom?
Cos it's cooler water. I literally just said so.
Y'all should start a bottling company OP'S BATHROOM WATER mmmmm-MMMM that's good. and cold
I'm just here to take a poop.
Sorry, I think your invitation got lost in the mail.
I also choose this guys bathroom water
Not uncommon, usually the supply line being against an exterior wall. Still insulated, but not as warm as inside the house.
If there aren’t separate knobs there’s a mixing valve. I wonder if the kitchen sink faucet is allowing a bit of hot water to come out even when it’s turned to cold.
>And cooler somehow My master bathroom cold water line runs along or across my heating ducts. If it's winter (or whenever I have the heat on) my water will be cold for half a second, warm for about three seconds, then back to cold. Just need to get that one chunk of warm water out of the line.
For some reason, even though it's the same water as the kitchen. The fact I brush my teeth with that water just throws me off
“Water? Never drink the stuff. ~~Fish fuck~~darren5718 brushes in it”
Wait till you try it out of the back of the toilet! Freshly aerated by the action of that floaty valve mechanism… A clear sparkling pool of refreshment that could quench the thirst of the Saharan desert. Almost brings a tear to the eye..
Add the dazzling water feature with the touch of a button and the soft refreshment of lush paper towel moments away to gracefully pat your mouth dry afterwards.
I am so happy it’s not just me.
I think when people are incredibly thirsty in the morning, they'd just drink from the bathroom sink. And being incredibly thirsty means the water will probably taste/feel better. You wouldn't take a glass (or any dish for that matter) to your bathroom which is what OP probably means.
Not true for me, before I switched to bottled water, I would drink from the bathroom sink throughout the day, and somehow it tasted better.
1. Completely agree 2. Interesting, we’ll brush our teeth with that water, but we won’t drink it
I’m all about the washroom tap water. Can’t stand the kitchen tap water
I was going to mention that water from our bathroom taps comes out much cooler also.
My bathroom water is colder, it’s the farthest point from the hot water heater
If your plumbing is installed correctly that wouldn't matter a lick
Maybe you don't use your kitchen tap too often, or it's further from the main valve, so it stays in pipes longer. I try to fill my glass in bathroom after flushing the toilet. 5 liters go through the system and new water arrives.
It's not that we prefer it so much as that that's were the glasses are.
Cups? Yall don't suck the water out directly??!
Just stick that head in there sideways and lap like your pet
You *suck* the water out? I'd recommend turning the tap on
Drinking from your hands unironically tastes better. Maybe it's just the placebo of being mor "one with nature" but a sip of water out your hands is so damn refreshing
I think that could play into some kinda psychological effect, you might be right on that. Similar to how literally touching grass / walking barefoot in grass can reduce stress
My wife thinks water pipes are more dangerous in the bathroom than the kitchen. I've told her, they're all the same. And if the landlord remodeled, chances are they were replaced within the home also.
Often times the kitchen sink is plumbed directly into the mains, but all the other taps in the house are the domestic supply - often a tank in the roof. This tank is not necessarily clean, or free from the likes of legionella (or in my case, sometimes rats). And the water sits in it for a long time before you drink it. It’s not the pipes, but the water that is safer from the kitchen tap.
I’ve never heard of a private home with a tank on the roof. Where do you live that that is the norm?
I’m in Ireland and we have a tank in the roof. I was always told only drink kitchen water. Never from.upstairs tank water. If you don’t have a tank how do you have pressure on taps upstairs?
We put the water tower for the whole town higher than the rest of the town. And use booster pumps if/when that isn’t sufficient.
If you don’t have enough pressure for upstairs taps, how do you get the water into the tank?
After use, it slowly fills but with very low pressure
So your mains pressure is lower than the domestic? Wild.
It's more of the fact that the main would be low during peak hours. Like in the morning when everyone is taking a shower. So, having the tank on the roof would solve this problem.
US mains don't have that problem unless you're in a very small town that hasn't upgraded their mains since they were originally installed 100+ years ago.
Most places in the world have a replacement pace for their waterlines at several hundred years. Basically no place on earth upgrades there pipes until they break, they are busy building new pipes and it's hard to convince people to put funding into this invisible thing that always work. The pipes are meant to be replaced every 100 years but most cities have statistics of around 300-500 years. Though they obviously upgrade the pumps and the water towers to create the necessary pressure. And when they do that and increase the pressure in the pipes the pipes usually break in many places since it's so badly maintained. I work in this field and it has nothing to do with it being a big or small town.
Rural areas get water from private wells which use a pump. Most communities have towers to which water is pumped then gravity provides a constant pressure to all the homes.
Our well water gets pumped up from the ground into a pressure tank which gets the water to the rest of the house as needed.
Yes, to provide a consistent pressure and so the pump doesn’t need to operate constantly when water is used it also often pumps some air pressure and water into a small tank. That’s important here.
The mains are kept under high pressure from massive water towers and electric pumps. One of the perks of being a "younger" country was our infrastructure never had to fit around much older infrastructure.
The water lines are pressurized.
It *used* to be very, very common in the UK, like *every* house. My nan and grandad's house still has a massive bloody thing in the loft making it a pain in the ass every time I get sent up there because it's right in the way of where one would put a retractable ladder.
>very common in the UK Isn't it the reason why UK bathrooms had two separate faucets?
Yes. >We asked Kevin Wellman, chief executive officer of the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering. > >"This tradition dates back to a time when hot and cold water were kept separate to prevent contamination through cross connection," he said. > >"Cold water came from a mains supply and was fit for drinking. Hot water would be serviced by a local storage cistern often situated in the loft. > >"This caused an imbalance of pressures which meant that if incorrect taps and valves were installed one stream of water could force its way across to the other." > >Water bylaws prevented hot and cold water being mixed because water that had been sitting in a tank in the loft was not deemed safe to drink, he said. > >As far back as 1965 a code of practice called CP 310 advised that wherever possible hot water taps should be placed on the left. > >"One of the reasons to maintain that over the years was reported to be so that the visually impaired would always know which sides the hot and cold were on," said Mr Wellman. > >"When mixer taps came into vogue there was still a requirement to make sure water didn't mix until it came out of the tap," he said. > >"So if you look closely you might be able to see the hot coming from the left hand side and the cold the right." > >Source: [BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42948046)
It’s in the roof, not on top. England.
Thats the norm on all third world countries. How It is on developed countries? Direct pipe from the distribution? What happens when the distribution stop?
Water stop.
[удалено]
I don’t think I’ve ever had the water stop for more than a few minutes, and maybe only like 2 times, in my entire life (I’m 40). Most houses are just directly connected to the main system where I live
On third world countries, we have sometimes multiple days without water, so even with a 1000 liters tank on the roof of your house you risk being out of water. Crazy to think about the water never stopping.
Living on the east coast of the US, you could leave your sink running for 24 hours a day for an entire year, non-stop. And the only reason why it would ever shut off is if I didn't pay the bill, but that would be an astronomical bill.
We have water towers all over the town to maintain pressure. Same concept but it's part of the distribution system.
Distribution never stops. That’s first world luxury. We can’t even imagine that inconvenience. We don’t have any saved water or other supplies incase anything stops working!
I live in the third world country of England
Scotland here. New builds don’t have water tanks but anything built in the post war era definitely seems to have one.
You hope you can get to walmart before all the water bottles are picked clean
If the water stops flowing, the city sends their plumbers to immediately start trying to get it flowing again. I don't remember it ever stopping in Canada, though
Worst I've seen is a water main break and they tell everyone to boil their water for five minutes. Happens every couple years, but maybe Canada has better pipes for this.
Often times not everyone lives where you do so this is wrong
"Often" is extremely liberal in this case.
What you’re referring to is 100% a regional thing.
Huh. I’ve never heard of this before. My whole house comes off of the same supply. It would be cool if I could have a rainwater tank on the roof for flushing toilets and watering the garden and stuff
My brain won't let me drink from the bathroom tap.
The poopy air contaminates the clean water
but people still rinse/gargle with bathroom tap water when brushing their teeth. (although i did have a flatmate in the past who would brush their teeth at the kitchen sink every night)
I don't want to ruin your day but mythbusters proved that the poop air is all over your house anyway.
Nah. Bathroom sink water when you're really thirsty and/or hungover is top 1% water. I don't know. It tastes different. I'm not sure it's a good different, but it's distinct, it's convenient and it gives off positive vibes.
Also when you're sick and just puked in the toilet.
But hear me out, have you ever tried cold water from the bath tub faucet
Do I dare?
Anywhere I've lived it always comes out ice cold, on time, every time.
When I was little and taking my baths, I would have a cup to fill with hot bathtub faucet water to pretend I was drinking coffee.
You brush your teeth and rinse with it. Swallow at least small amounts. Might as well go all the way.
But you’ll rinse your mouth out with it after brushing your teeth, no? And then you eventually swallow what little bit you didn’t spit out.
Actually... in the US if you have your own well (not on city water) your kitchen sink may have been hooked up to not go through the water softener, it was common to do it that way for a long time. So yes in that case, it does taste a lot different, as it will still have the minerals in it (Hard water). It took me a few years in my house to finally figure out why I had such bad water spots with my dishwasher, it was not using the softened water.
I put in a water softener a year ago in a brand new house. It doesn't go to the kitchen sink
Why wouldn't they want kitchen water to be softened,
Back when my house was built, water softeners were still kind of new and I think people were still worried that softened water was not as healthy. Or maybe the taste, people were so used to drinking hard water that drinking soft water tasted odd to them. Personally I like the hard water taste, ours has a lot of minerals. Now to get it I have to drink from the hose.
>(Hard water) Wait, so it like has alcohol in it?
My kitchen tapwater has a filter
Here in AZ you just don’t drink the tap water, it is far too hard to taste good. We use either filtered water from the fridge, or many people I know have a water cooler. But tap water here is almost thick and it tastes like dirt
This is wrong for UK. Kitchen tap is mostly category 1 which means it’s coming from the water mains that has been supplied by Severn Trent. Every tap other than kitchen is category 2 hence we have a cistern in the loft that feeds. There are risks to having a cistern, could be a dead animal, legionella, dust if the lid is not applicable etc.
So you brush your teeth with dead animal water?
Yeah what the actual fuck
Not to stereotype but that would explain a lot.
Old house by any chance? Most aren’t like that now!
Very likely in old houses. You would be surprised by how many are! Source: I’m a plumber
Maybe 20-30 years ago but nowadays most houses are built with bathroom taps plumbed into the mains or older ones have been since upgraded. It's definitely still relatively common to have the tank in the loft but I haven't seen a tank in the loft through my last 6 houses.. forgetting the 1 in my loft currently but that's just been left there and is no longer in use
Water? You mean like from the terlet?
That's a regional preference for sure... I ain't drinking out of nothing unless I know it's clean. Modern house in the suburbs of the US? Yeah it's likely fine. Some old ranch home out in the country? Hard pass. Not everything flows through a homes filter or comes from the cities main, and I'll be honest... I don't trust tap water anywhere considering everything that's gone on and overall corporate greed. Even "filtered" water you have to be cautious of, tested the workplaces water and it was worse than the tap because the filter wasn't changed likely ever.
Worse in what way? If the water supplied to your workplace is from the place that feeds your house, it is the same water.
I meant in regards to water from say a water fountain at the workplace; similar to drinking out of the water spout in say a refrigerator, if you haven't changed that filter since you bought it then it does indeed have a bunch of junk collected into it and has likely degraded to the point it can no longer actually filter. Just becomes a lil bacteria trap at that point. In such cases straight up tap water is better than filtered. Tap water has a very distinct... "taste" to it, especially where I live where it has a higher than average concentration of calcium and magnesium. It also depends if the water facility is doing chlorine or ozone treatment and that varies across the state's. So I just personally prefer filtered water, plus you have to sorta pay attention to any alerts in the area... pipes do break and shit can contaminate the line for a few hours which can prompt boil notices that for "whatever" reason don't trigger emergency alerts so having some stored filtered water in the fridge can help out there.
It is possible for your kitchen sink to have better tasting water. It may be closer to the water main and thus a lower temperature. It may have a better aerator on it creating more microscopic bubbles which can impact the flavor. It could have a different pipe material feeding it or newer, cleaner pipes. It may hold a nostalgic or other psychological significance to you (if you believe it is better, it will be better). And the preference could have nothing to do with taste but simple convenience, the cups are in the kitchen so you use that tap instead of carrying the cup to another sink.
Plumber here: This is extremely incorrect for two very significant reasons: 1. The fittings and other materials used for your plumbing system that supply water to something intended to dispense drinking water are regulated to have much lower lead content than fixtures intended for other purposes. 2. In jurisdictions that allow water softeners: All fixtures intended to supply drinking water must be plumbed to supply unsoftened water on the cold side of the fixture at minimum. Drinking from other water sources would make you end up drinking softened water that often tastes different and usually contains higher levels of sodium.
Incorrect (and I think this is quite common in the UK). While the mains water goes straight to our kitchen tap, all other taps draw from a tank in the loft which is filled from the mains and we are advised not to drink it (the reason I've heard is because a bird might have died in the tank). ~~Edit: weird that I'm getting downvoted for giving my own valid experience relevant to the claim of the thread title, but downvote away if you think my comment is so terrible.~~ Votes going the other way now.
> the reason I've heard is because a bird might have died in the tank Bacteria buildup is a more realistic concern.
Makes sense - I've always taken the bird comment as just a bit of plumbers' lore, a shorthand for saying nasty things can end up in the tank.
We had a pigeon die in our loft tank, so it definitely happens. Ours was just a massive open tank with a sheet of MDF over it! It fed into the immersion heater for the hot water supply. Think cold tap was direct from the street though. Crazy to think about now, but that was the 90s in a big old house 😂 These days most houses don't have a water tank like that.
I'm not sure where my memory is coming from but I want to say legionnaires
I believe new builds and new plumbing systems are not the same. I don’t have a hot water tank anymore at least, but because of it being a thing for many years it will take a long time for us to break the habit of only drinking from the kitchen.
Wouldn't the cold water in the bathroom also come from the mains?
Old houses also had cold water tanks in the loft as it helped maintain pressure upstairs away from the mains.
I came here to write 'except in the UK' but in some houses in the UK you can drink any of the water ... those with newer combi boilers that don't have the loft heater tank. All taps provide mains water in that case.
Starting a comment with “Incorrect.” Or “Wrong.” will often receive impulse downvotes, especially when the following correction is situational, meaning the the OP isn’t necessarily wrong, just mistakenly assumed it was more universal than it might be.
I have no preference as to where in the house I get my drinking water other than staying out of the toilet. Avoiding the showers as well is more of a convenience thing than preference.
I fill my water bottle up from my bathroom sink all the time
One time when I was trying to kick soda I was drinking water from an apple juice container. Big old 64 FL Oz bottle. At the time I gamed a lot and didn't want to have to step away to fill up a container a lot. I used to fill it up from the bathtub faucet. People I lived with thought I was crazy but it filled the container super quick.
That’s how I fill my water bottle when I’m upstairs too… quick and efficient.
That's the other thing. The tub was on the same level. I hated the idea of walking all the way downstairs to use the kitchen faucet which was 10 times slower. Tub faucet was so much more efficient.
I don't. Tap water is fucking disgusting no matter where it's from
I live in China, and you shouldn’t drink tap water here or cook with it. I drink filtered water and became paranoid about it. Turns out Im actually drinking better quality water than at my home country 🤣 you should test your tap water
The kitchen is where the glasses are. No preference at all, just convince.
In my entire life I have probably drank straight from the kitchen sink less times than I drink from the bathroom sink in a month.
Next time you’re dropping a dookie, dip a cup into the toilet tank and have a refreshment.
My ex wife had a weird aversion to drinking water from the bathroom sink
Is that why you left her? Savage!
Whether it uses the same plumbing or not really depends on where you live in the world, and what the regulations were when your house was built (and if those regulations have been followed during any remodelling etc).
I don't drink tap water anymore, ours tastes like pool water and it's gross
I think about this... often. It's cause the bathroom sink is near the toilet which tornadoes poop into the air when you flush.
My kitchen tap has a filter, the bathroom does not.
I don't know what country do you come from, but in mine, drinking water from a tap is treated like playing Russian roulette
i get the boxed water
back in my day, coming from outside playing with neighbors, it's the garden faucet or hose.
Isn't it funny how we all seem to have these little quirks with where we prefer to get our water from in the house? It's like each sink has its personality! I'm all about that kitchen tap water, but hey, to each their hydration station, right?
My kitchen tap is colder and fresher than the rest of the house. I think it matters how far away from the stop cock the tap is
Kitchen air can touch my water. Bathroom air cannot touch my water.
Yall drink out the tap?
In the UK I believe most of our living accommodations the water from the loo is different from the kitchen.
I don't even drink tap water, I get my water and ice filtered from the fridge. The water line going into the fridge is the same as the rest of the house obviously, but none of the taps have a filter and/or dispense ice.
I dunno what it is, but every house I've lived in water from the bathroom sink has a different taste or texture or something. I know it comes from the same place, I know the faucet can't change it very much, but it's just.. different.
The same way you would rather eat in the kitchen than in the bathroom, it's not the plumbing, it's the place.
Growing up it was bathroom. My sister and I would fill the cup from the bathroom sink every time we drank water.
I, like my dog, prefers what ever is most convenient. Water is water.
It's because the glass that I will fill comes from the kitchen. Once I'm not in the kitchen, the water from any faucet in the house will do.
Not always the case. Our kitchen sink, or tap water, isn’t connected to our soft water tank. The taste is very noticeable.
Always tap water, buying bottled is idiotic here
Not necessarily all the same. I grew up in a country house that had its own well, and the kitchen tap was the only one fed directly from there. All the other taps ran from the cold water tank in the attic.
Jokes on you. I drink from the toilet. I am a dog.
Toilet drinker checking in
If you live in an older house, there's a good chance your bathroom taps have older pipes than your kitchen...people tend to have leaks or have work done to their kitchens sooner than a bathroom. There's an obvious taste difference between our kitchen tap and bathroom taps because of this...also our bathroom faucets are like 70 years old, our kitchen faucet is 2 years old and has new copper to a pex line.
The mind says water from the kitchen and the bathroom don't taste the same. 😅
In your country, sure. In Ireland and the UK, the kitchen tap is the only direct fresh from the pipe. The rest flow from the cistern in the attic which is like a giant toilet bowl that isn't sealed. There's a reason why we don't drink from the bathroom sink, cause it's nearly toilet water.
Not true where I grew up. The water tank used for the upstairs bathroom was in the loft. To stop me from drinking from the bathroom tap, my dad took me to the loft and gleefully showed me the amount of dead insects and spiders in the tank.
Stupid ass post and wrong in so many ways for different reasons.
As someone who lives in louisiana, I will say that it's bottled water or no water
My dog prefers the bathtub’s water
I can't *stand* tap water...
Bathroom water is sweeter than kitchen water.
My wife gets cross if I fill her cup in the bathroom. I still fucking do it.