To think you can drink from a bathroom tap?

[cheesenpickles]

Help me settle a long-standing debate in my household.

My dh thinks that you can't drink water from the bathroom tap and only a kitchen tap.

I think he's daft as a brush and it all comes from the same source. It's totally fine to drink.

Discuss

Genuinely the stupidest MN post I've read for a while

Haha! I have no idea if we have a tank. I think not as we've had our loft converted.

I've drunk bathroom tap water a number of tones and have retained all my fingers and toes.... for now.

You cannot drink water from the bathroom tap unless it was put in as drinking water. In our previous houses our bathroom water always came from a tank so was not drinking water. I am not sure about this house but am not going to risk it.

I have never known why this is until but have always gone to the kitchen for water rather than use bathroom tap. I was told as a child that that's what you do and never questioned it! This thread is a revelation Especially as we don't have a tank in my current house so might start trying out the bathroom water

My mum always said it's different water where we live and she is right. And if you drink from the bathroom tap you will get a bad stomach so I never do this ! The fresh water pipe goes into the kitchen tap but not the bathroom one apparently 🤷🏼‍♀️

Legomadx2 Why do you say it is the stupidestmost stupid post on MN? It is the responses that are stupid, as clearly we don't know where the bathroom water comes from in OPs bathroom, yet everybody thinks they are right whatever they are saying.

When I was a kid and asked if anybody wanted a drink my mum would say “ get the water from the toilet, it’s colder”
So I’d put the glass in the toilet and flush.
Figured out years later she meant the tap,
Ah well she got what she deserved, she was a crap mother

Hahahaha my DH thinks I'm disgusting for drinking from bathroom tap but I think it tastes great 😂

In my house the water upstairs and downstairs comes from the mains but before we had work done the upstairs supply came from the storage tank in the loft - and god knows what was floating in there. So no, if it's not direct from the mains upstairs I wouldn't drink it.

You can have a tank and still have the cold water come from the mains.

There are three types of boiler - the regular one with the tank in the loft, the combi one with no tank and the system boiler.

The system boiler is mains fed, so the cold water is safe to drink. The hot water comes from the tank. If you have a tank in a cupboard upstairs - these are system boilers. They can also be used with solar panels.

If you have a combi boiler then all the water in the house will be mains feed so yes .
If normal boiler and hotwater tank then no as cold water for bathroom water is stored in tank in loft probably uncovered and not fresh .
I drunk water from cold tap at work that was feed from tank on building roof uncovered and ended up with disintry and was hospitlised

My parents had a new water tank after having lived in their house for 20 years and my mother said that there was a disgusting layer of muck and dead insects at the bottom of the old tank. So I wouldn't drink bathroom water in a house that has a water tank.

This thread has made me realise I've been cleaning my teeth and drinking from tank fed bathroom taps for years .

Can't report any ill effects yet.

Noooo! Not from the tank. Water from the cold water tank doesn't get treated like water from the mains. You can brush your teeth with it and stuff but I wouldn't be drinking it. It's not drinking water. It tastes fine and I've had a gulp of it before to stop myself throwing up if I'm ill (ironically) but as a rule we don't drink it.

... before we had work done the upstairs supply came from the storage tank in the loft - and god knows what was floating in there

Same here ... except I found out what was floating in there. Previously husband warned me not to drink from the bathroom tap and I mocked him. Before the builders removed the the tank they discovered a dead pigeon in it.

I do.

I'm not sure if you are supposed to but I have not got anything nasty from it (yet).

Never do if abroad though as their water systems often work differently.

@justthecat

My dad is a chemical engineer and for a while worked for the local water board. He now swears that he will only drink San Pellegrino due to how shit the treatment process of British tap water is (and the unreliability of most bottled water). However he uses tap water in cooking and for his coffee he just hasn't drunk it for over 20 years. I think he's bonkers but he does know what he's talking about.

As others have said, it depends whether there's a tank. The house I grew up in has one although I never saw it until I was clearing the attic to move out.

It's hard to get out of the habit of not drinking it though. Even now I go down to the kitchen for drinking water even though we definitely have no tank.

If the house is old enough the tank could be made of lead. It was in our first flat, so definitely not for drinking.

I've heard of rats being found in the upstairs tanks

I've always been told you shouldn't because the water comes from a tank in the loft rather than from the mains. I think it varies from house to house though.

If you have a water tank nope, we had a dead pigeon and a squirrel in ours in the 80s . No water tank and fed from the mains you’re fine.

I can from my tank if I want. It is plastic and has a close-fitting lid, and I cleaned it out scrupulously. Chlorinated water flows into it and is used frequently enough that it can't go stagnant. Thanks to the softener it has no limescale or mineral deposits.

Importantly, it also has a good insulating jacket. People think it's to stop the tank freezing, but (in England) it's too big, it won't unless the house is empty. The insulation is to stop it getting warm on a hot sunny day and breeding bacteria. A roof can get unbearably hot in the sun.

Our bathroom tap water comes out a tank in the attic. As a child my dad found a dead rat in the tank. So no, I don’t drink out the bathroom tap.