To use the cold tap instead?

[upandready]

We have a combi boiler, which takes a little while (15 seconds or so) for the water to heat up when you turn on the hot tap. I'm usually too impatient to wait, so I wash my hands in the cold water. But in the meantime, the gas still fires on and runs for about 30 seconds, even after I've turned the tap off. The energy crisis has made me realise this is a waste. I need to either be more patient for the hot water, or cut my losses (literally) and use the cold tap instead. What do you do?

I always wash my hands in cold water, no ill effects. I think using hot water is just for comfort, if it was hot enough to kill germs it would scald you.

^This. It's the soap that's important, not the temperature of the water.

Wasn't there a bit of research that said for a short handwash the temperature of the water made no difference?

We don’t have a combi but it still takes a while to get from the tank to the tap, so cold water unless really mucky, for all the reasons above. And if I need to use hot I’m generally filling a washing up bowl so I’ll double up where I can.

It takes about 40 seconds for the water to move through our system and the hot to come through. I'm washed, rinsed and dying by then.

The point (obviously) is it's more efficient for the things you need larger volumes of hot water for. A bit of cold water going into the bath first is actually a good thing. It's fine for washing up, rinse off while the water is running cold.

It's the soap that breaks down the germs and bacteria. If you wanted to breakdown germs with hot water it would need to be hot enough to scald you. Handwashing promotions only recommend hot water out of comfort to try and get people to wash for longer.