To not drink bathroom water?!

[AddisonM]

What is the answer to this??

I would never drink it. I’m unclear on why, other than my mum, aunts etc all used to say you shouldn’t drink water from the bathroom tap.

This is a long standing debate between DH and I - he thinks I am insane. It’s the same water, says he.

I assumed it was one of those weird family idiosyncrasies but then my neighbour the other day said something about never drinking water from the bathroom tap 🤷🏻‍♀️

My Mum asked me recently if it's okay to drink bathroom tap water. I said you always told me not to! She said I know but I'm not sure why any more. Our house is mains water but I still feel the need to go downstairs to get a drink.

I prefer the bathroom water to.my kitchen water!

We don't have any water tanks in our house, hot or cold. All of the water from all of the taps is potable.

Its a joke as the tanks in the loft could have things floating in them (although they actually have a lid)
Fawlty Towers fan?

I used to be a water quality adviser for the local water company.

Ww advised people to only drink water from the kitchen cold tap as it's a) the most used tap in the house b) its the first tap off the rising main so its the freshest c) as a water company we only dealt with external pipes and had no idea if a house was served by a header tank or all on direct feed, or had lead or even asbestos internal plumbing.

...and yes , animals are known to drown in header tanks.

But the bathroom taps get black gunk inside the end bit so that puts me off plus my dad said not to do it. The kitchen tap never gets gunky so I don't get why the bathroom tap does. Apparently it's harmless but it's disgusting so no thanks.

Yes why doesn't that happen in kitchen taps? I've not once cleaned the kitchen tap nozzle, always looks clean, bathroom ones however....!

My bedroom is downstairs, so I would have to go up two floors to get water from the kitchen.

I was always brought up not to drink bathroom water or out of the hot tap. It was because the pipes and supply of water was different in the past.

Having worked in many lofts and seen inside many thanks I'd never drink it, revolting habit

It's not really a thing of the past either, they're very common

Ours is off the mains so exactly the same water as in the kitchen. No tank in the loft here!

Yes why doesn't that happen in kitchen taps?

Because it's clean mains water that hasn't sat in your loft or cupboard for an indeterminate amount of time

@Chanjer all my taps mains fed, no tank, this house and the last.

(Still don't drink from the upstairs ones! Was brought up not to and it stuck!)

@AddisonM It’s lead piping. In older houses (1930s) the piping in the bathroom was lead - an excellent reason not to drink from the bathroom tap. We had an old house where even the kitchen tap ran off lead and my parents advice was to run the tap a good 2 minutes every morning to clear the water.
I drink from my bathroom taps now because I watched the plumber strip out all the old pipe work.
Also true that some houses had water that had been cycled through the tank in the loft. Again not advisable to drink

I need to take a tablet every night at bedtime and always forget to take a drink upstairs with me. Every night I run through a whole dialogue in my head of my Dad telling me not to drink bathroom water. I think in our house it might have been something to do with lead? And even though we live in a new-build I still just take the tiniest amount of water from the bathroom tap to swallow the tablet. Even as I do it, I know it's ridiculous.

That was also the hearsay of my childhood OP. Don’t drinks the water from the upstairs tap.

I still won’t in my own (new build) house 🤔

We drink from upstairs and it's actually nicer! It's filtered to get rid of limescale and other crap. Our kitchen tap is connected straight to the mains and is definitely Eau de Londres .

I prefer bathroom water

@MustardMitt

A long time ago, bathroom taps were fed from a tank in the loft. If this is the case in your home, then absolutely don’t drink it. Likelihood is though that your water is mains fed and exactly the same as downstairs.

You are spot on! It's a hangover from those days I think!

Nowadays it is usually exactly the same source as downstairs. I wouldn't do it in a hotel though

Someone I know once described bathroom water as tasting of pencil sharpenings and I knew exactly what they meant!

My bathroom tap is direct from the outside, like the kitchen tap, but lots feed from the tank in the lofts were any number of creepie crawlers could fall in

We have a cold water tank and I've been drinking bathroom water for over 30 years! Never had a problem (apart from the extra toes).

It’s a psychological block for me - I feel like it tastes different even though I’m sure it doesn’t, my brain just says so!

@Sparklesocks it does taste different in our house! When I was pregnant I could taste it and couldn’t stand the bathroom water.

That said, our house was built in 1988 and all the water comes straight from the mains so there are no health issues. The bathroom water just tastes a bit more metallic. It doesn’t taste too bad to me now but I remember how awful it was when I was pregnant so I won’t touch it other than to brush ny teeth.

We were always told that, I did get confused as a child because they were adamant you don’t drink it but expected us to brush our teeth with it....