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

My bathroom tap comes from the attic water tank so would be more stagnant. I definitely wouldn’t drink it. Kitchen water comes directly from the mains.

I will only use hot water when brushing my teeth. We have a water tank and I dread to think what's in there.

I think water in modern tanks is ok to drink.

Cold water is straight from the mains.

Didn't the origins of "you can't drink from the hot tap" come from the fact that people having outside tanks up in the loft and the added risk of an old dead pigeon floating around in it 🤮

I don't it tastes funny

Bathroom water is nasty

I'm in the US so pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't the water in the tank come from the mains supply anyway? If not, where does that water come from? Are these tanks so big that the water doesn't get 'cycled through' very often?

I'm not sure I'd want to bathe in pigeon-water, let alone drink it. Don't the tanks have lids to keep critters out?

Our house water comes from a well on our property. Hard as nails but tastes delicious. Our 'outside' water is fed to our pond by an irrigation canal that runs through our area. When we first moved here we swam in the pond, but when neighbours heard we did, they warned us not to swim or let the kids play in the sprinklers as that water was absolutely untreated.

We had a dead pigeon in our water tank once, and dead spiders... thankfully we now have a combi 😬

Water from the cold water tank doesn't get treated like water from the mains.

It would be very unusual in the UK if your tank was fed with anything other than water from the mains. There are legitimate reasons to avoid it, e.g. standing around in a place where dust/insects can get in. But not because it's untreated water. It all ultimately comes from the same place.

If I REALLY needed a drink and couldn't go downstairs then I may have a sip of upstairs bathroom tap water- but otherwise NO.

Mine tastes better from the bathroom!

I'm in a hardwater area so I'm not drinking from any taps. I buy any water thats for drinking

Utter madness

No you don’t drink from bathroom taps.

Some people clearly aren’t reading the (many!) posts about having a tank. I’ve always lived in houses with tanks. Had a cockroach, in several bits, come out once whilst running a bath. Nice.

In our rental, the tank had to be emptied to flush the system three times-legionnaires check and we had to make sure there was a cover on the tank.

When tested the bathroom tap is quite gross. But I don't care and still do it.

Of course you can, combi boiler finest Yorkshire water here.

I am going to tag Mumsnet finest plumber in for his opinion @pigletjohn

Noooo don't do it if the water comes from a tank in the loft. Some sort of slug like creature came out of the bathroom tap once !

Pigletjohn has already answered. Yes our header tanks have lids and none of us have died from drinking bathroom water so far

I would never drink bathroom water - it’s got water softener in it!

We have a combi boiler so all the water comes from the mains and is fine to drink.
We used to have a water tank for the bathroom though and no I would not drink water out of that.
God knows what was lurking at the bottom.

I grew up being told not to, so I'd never drink a whole glass of bathroom water. I might drink a mouthful if I was really, really thirsty.

Combi boiler here - I'm fine to drink from the bathroom tap bit it sometimes goes weirdly warm (something about a hot pipe near a cold pipe?)

I get the tank thing but really I wouldn't be too precious. I washed pots in the bathroom for ten days when we had the kitchen done and we are still here (and were not ill)

Mains fed, soft, delicious, pure Scottish water here! I drink from the bathroom tap.

All our cold water comes from directly from the main so technically we can. A lifetime of conditioning and the fact we have mixer taps means that I v v rarely do. Exceptions have been when I've been ill (e.g. Migraine and haven't wanted to go downstairs for a drink.

I live in a flat, so does that mean all my water comes from the same place and is safe to drink?
Obviously there'd be no point my drinking bathroom water as the kitchen is almost as close...

Cold water comes direct to your cold taps from the mains supply.

If you have a cold water tank in the loft then that feeds your hot water tank which has the heating element in it to make it hot. It then feeds your hot taps so, unless you drink from the hot tap, your drinking water is always fresh.