Drawing water from the hot tap.

[Dave-G]

Wifey isn't overly happy that I draw water to be boiled in a kettle or pan from the hot tap. 

The house is a 1980's build and water is fed through a blue plastic pipe. My thinking is that the water has been previously heated sufficiently to kill off any bugs or bacteria and its a way to get more value from the constantly hot water that is barely used and wasteful.

Of course she's thinking of the old days with lead pipes etc so any input from people who know a lot about this would be appreciated. I may choose to show her any replies to ease her mind - or otherwise.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Dave-G

[WalkedUp]

Interesting question. I would not consider water from the hot tap to be potable due to the time it has stood for and the additional plumbing it is in contact with increasing the risk of bacterial and chemical contamination. 

[Tonka54]

19 minutes ago, Dave-G said:

Wifey isn't overly happy that I draw water to be boiled in a kettle or pan from the hot tap. 

The house is a 1980's build and water is fed through a blue plastic pipe. My thinking is that the water has been previously heated sufficiently to kill off any bugs or bacteria and its a way to get more value from the constantly hot water that is barely used and wasteful.

Of course she's thinking of the old days with lead pipes etc so any input from people who know a lot about this would be appreciated. I may choose to show her any replies to ease her mind - or otherwise.

My Mrs is the same , she does not like the fact that it has past through the boiler. I am with you on this though, personally I cannot see a problem as the water has entered the boiler as "Potable" and just been heated up. That is assuming that the water has not sat in an immersion tank for a while.

As far as I can see, the only reason for using the cold tap to fill the kettle would be if additional filtering had been added to cold feed that leads directly to the tap.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Tonka54
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[Dave-G]

Thanks, I should add its in a built up area with chlorinated water supply.

[Dave-G]

7 minutes ago, WalkedUp said:

Interesting question. I would not consider water from the hot tap to be potable due to the time it has stood for and the additional plumbing it is in contact with increasing the risk of bacterial and chemical contamination. 

Good point - the sink taps are less than 4 feet from the entry point, but I wonder how many miles of pipes the cold water has passed though to get here?

[clangerman]

going by smell taste and bits floating in the muck I think hot or cold is the least of your worries 

[nobbyathome]

If your hot water is drawn from a tank in the loft you will have a lot more bacteria in it than strait from the main cold feed but as you are boiling it it will make no difference 

[enfieldspares]

8 hours ago, WalkedUp said:

Interesting question. I would not consider water from the hot tap to be potable due to the time it has stood for and the additional plumbing it is in contact with increasing the risk of bacterial and chemical contamination. 

This. Always. And why you should NEVER use the tap water in any bedroom in an hotel as drinking water.

Edited February 11, 2022 by enfieldspares

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, I would never use the hot tap water for drinking, 👎 , it is better to have a constant flow straight from the  cold mains, it's interesting what you say on lead pipes which are still in use today, I've never heard anyone die from lead poison, Dave you should be able to find out where your supply is coming from using the post code, as a side note I happen to see a very bad water leak last Sunday and spent a long time on phone explains to the lady with TWA about this and exact location, it's still going 🤔

Edited February 11, 2022 by oldypigeonpopper

[Walker570]

I was brought up when lead pipes where the norm. I'm now in my eighties and amazingly survived without lead poisoning. My take is, if you have time to worry about the potability of water from one tap or the other, then you don't have enough to do.  Although our water system is 'treated' it is one of the safest in the world and the few hours water will be standing in a copper tank is very unlikely to cause a problem.  If your taking a drink of water then why use the hot water tap, if you are boiling some for a cuppa char I really do not see a problem.    Take care out there we live in such a dangerous world.

[discobob]

I am no expert but my thought is this.

If you have separate heat and hot water then fill your boots, but if you have a combi boiler could there not be a chance however remote of cross contamination of the water for your central heating and your hot tap water when going through the heating part?? I may however be wrong and they are two separate circuits but I know our boiler prioritizes hot water when someone takes a shower if the central heating is on

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Careful with your thought process Mate!  

[DUNKS]

Grandma always used to use water from the tank in the loft until I went up there one day to fix the leaky valve and found several rotting starlings in the tank. Was an old metal tank with no lid!

[Blackpowder]

Over the years as a plumber I have seen dead mice, sparrows starlings in the attic feed tank to traditional hot water systems.    If you have a combi boiler or unvented cylinder that problem does not arise in most circumstances.  It was alwys held that water drawn fresh from the mains would make the best tea!

 

Blackpowder

 

[DUNKS]

Friend of ours in Canada was brought up in a house his great grandad built in 1800 and something. House is on a beach and water has always been drawn by a siphon pipe from a lake above the house. When his mum passed away at age 96 our friend thought he would rent out his mums house. House had to be inspected by local authority and the water supply was instantly condemned as totally undrinkable. Wife and I have spent many a holiday drinking it with no ill effects. You can perhaps be too fussy.

5 minutes ago, Blackpowder said:

Over the years as a plumber I have seen dead mice, sparrows starlings in the attic feed tank to traditional hot water systems.    If you have a combi boiler or unvented cylinder that problem does not arise in most circumstances.  It was alwys held that water drawn fresh from the mains would make the best tea!

 

Blackpowder

Drawn fresh from the mains in most of Derby also means drawn through LEAD pipes.

 

[mel b3]

3 minutes ago, DUNKS said:

Friend of ours in Canada was brought up in a house his great grandad built in 1800 and something. House is on a beach and water has always been drawn by a siphon pipe from a lake above the house. When his mum passed away at age 96 our friend thought he would rent out his mums house. House had to be inspected by local authority and the water supply was instantly condemned as totally undrinkable. Wife and I have spent many a holiday drinking it with no ill effects. You can perhaps be too fussy.

 

The neighbours at our woodland in Wales , drink water from the streams . One neighbour drinks water that is first diverted into a settling pond , then runs through a filtration system as it enters the house( no chemical treatment) , and the other neighbour drinks it straight from the stream(as do most residents of the valley) , with no treatment or filtration at all. All of them appear to be in the rudest of health.

[discobob]

18 minutes ago, mel b3 said:

The neighbours at our woodland in Wales , drink water from the streams . One neighbour drinks water that is first diverted into a settling pond , then runs through a filtration system as it enters the house( no chemical treatment) , and the other neighbour drinks it straight from the stream(as do most residents of the valley) , with no treatment or filtration at all. All of them appear to be in the rudest of health.

ah - but is that upstream or downstream from you???

[mel b3]

28 minutes ago, discobob said:

ah - but is that upstream or downstream from you???

One is upstream and one is downstream.  I'm my defence,  whenever i bathe in the stream , I always get out for a wee 😁.

[discobob]

1 minute ago, mel b3 said:

One is upstream and one is downstream.  I'm my defence,  whenever i bathe in the stream , I always get out for a wee 😁.

😂😂

Do you use apple scented Head and Shoulders to treat them from time to time 🤣

[mel b3]

2 minutes ago, discobob said:

😂😂

Do you use apple scented Head and Shoulders to treat them from time to time 🤣

You wouldn't expect anything less from a good neighbour like myself 😊.

I actually use a ozone friendly bio degradable type shower gel stuff   whenever I bath in the stream , it's made for this exact use .   Even at the height of summer , that mountain stream is so cold , that when it hits my nuts it gives me a headache 😄.

[Tonka54]

My Wife has made a valid point based on @Dave-Goriginal comment. Contamination problem aside, there is very little financial benefit to be gained from using hot water from the boiler to bring back to the boil in a kettle.

In the case of a modern combi-boiler, the heating and hot water systems are separate, so no holding tank, the hot water is heated on demand from the tap.

True, there is obviously a small amount of water that has been "standing" for a while in the pipework between the boiler and the hot tap in use, this would normally be run off whilst running the tap for a few seconds to wait for the hot water to come through.

So, her argument is this, when you turn on the hot tap and stand there running your fingers under the flow waiting on average 30 to 45 seconds for the water to go from stone cold to fairly hot, you are both using electric via the boilers water pump and gas via the boilers heating system to get it to that stage. 

You then use further electric via the kettle to bring it to the boil, which means that there is a distinct possibility of using more energy than just boiling a measured amount of cold water directly in the kettle.

She then goes on to say, If men really want to save some energy the solution is quite simple. They should get up off their Ar**es and do something constructive instead of drinking so much ******* tea.😁 

 

Edited February 11, 2022 by Tonka54

[Bruno24]

I would not drink from a hot tap where the system has a header tank as anything that drowns in the tank will contaminate the water and could be fatal if consumed.

Several years ago in my local town a baker died mysteriously of a disease (can't recall what it was) but when it was investigated after a while it was found that a pigeon had got into the loft space through a missing roof tile and drowned in the header tank  which the baker drank and it was said that it was this that killed him.

I have read that in the past that drinking wells where made poisonous by throwing a dead body down the well and it could kill anyone not knowing it was there.

So beware!

[Dave-G]

That's a lot of input thanks everyone. I knew there'd be stuff I'd forgot to include, such as: Its a copper tank system in the airing cupboard at the top of the stairs with a header tank directly above it in the loft that has a decent lid over it. All the hot water is gravity fed.

The control panel under the gas boiler in the kitchen has two settings: Hot water advance and heating advance - but there is also an electric immersion heater element in the copper cistern that's a bit much for my feeble brain to figure if water is heated by gas or electric. 

Taking an average feedback it seems there is little to be gained from my feeble attempts to mitigate the huge gas price rises we keep hearing about.

My next effort is to utilise the masses of junk mail, newspaper and cardboard waste in the garden incinerator to heat a kettle placed on its 'chimney' prior to finishing on the stove in cooking or the electric kettle for tea etc. That waste otherwise goes into the recycle bags but the council is too fussy about things like hard cardboard etc.

I'll add I'm fully retired and have become mildly reclusive with lockdowns - breathing issues/virus avoidance etc so have little else to occupy myself with.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Dave-G

[Tonka54]

Hi Dave, I would sort through all that junk mail and see if you have been offered a replacement boiler scheme, sound like the set-up you have presently would not look out of place in a museum. 

The purpose of the immersion heating element in the tank is to give you hot water when your main gas boiler is between on/off cycles, or to give you plenty of hot water for baths/showers,  there should be a manual switch to operate this somewhere.

Now you have explained your system , the answer to your question is easy, do not, under any circumstances, use your hot tap as drinking water, it's just not worth the risk.

Ps:  A good trick to reduce your junk mail is to write on it " Unsolicited  Mail  RTS "  and pop it in your nearest post box unstamped. This means the sender gets it back and has to pay the postage. This tends to **** them off and remove you from their mailing list.   

Edited February 11, 2022 by Tonka54

[Dave-G]

1 hour ago, Tonka54 said:

Hi Dave, I would sort through all that junk mail and see if you have been offered a replacement boiler scheme, sound like the set-up you have presently would not look out of place in a museum. 

The purpose of the immersion heating element in the tank is to give you hot water when your main gas boiler is between on/off cycles, or to give you plenty of hot water for baths/showers,  there should be a manual switch to operate this somewhere.

Now you have explained your system , the answer to your question is easy, do not, under any circumstances, use your hot tap as drinking water, it's just not worth the risk.

Ps:  A good trick to reduce your junk mail is to write on it " Unsolicited  Mail  RTS "  and pop it in your nearest post box unstamped. This means the sender gets it back and has to pay the postage. This tends to **** them off and remove you from their mailing list.   

Thanks very much for that superb explanation - it clears the issue up very nicely - and I'll stop drawing from the hot water tap. We do get occasional mail about replacement boilers but the annual British Gas boiler Homecare maintenance chap says our Ideal Classic is in very good order with years left in it and there's plenty of spares for it. I'll keep it in mind. 

My bit of the spectrum is getting more noticable: I used the junk mail term for mostly leaflet drops - the estate is plagued with them, mostly from local fast food joints and cab firms.