Do people drink water from the bathroom tap tap

[KW33]

Back story is I work in a perdomately male work place. We have a small coffee machine that needs to be filled up with water every so often. The unisex toilets are not too far from where the team sit. On two separate occasions, one male manager went into the bathroom to fill up the water. I interjected and said no, I will get water from the water despenser in the kitchen which is not close to where the team sit. Then the same thing happened today, another male colleague went to do the same thing. I again interjected and got the water from the kitchen water despenser. When I asked the colleague today, he said it's the same water tank so why wouldn't you use the tap water from the bathroom. I said no that's disgusting at which point another male colleague said there's no difference. He would use his tap water in the bathroom at home. Again I was lost.

So now I want to know is this a thing? I have never used the bathroom tap water as drinking water and never would. However this might be a me thing, or is it a woman thing. I have now started asking everyone....even though what one of them said about it being from the same tank may be true. In my head the kitchen tap water can be used for drinking and the bathroom tap water is for washing your hands etc. Has anyone else had a similar experience or thing to be amazed at what some people class as normal and you class as disgusting.

I wouldn't drink water from the tank. Who knows how clean the tank is and how long the water has neen sitting in it. The cold kitchen tap is drinking water.

Also, in the office bathroom people are using those taps before washing their hands. The person filling the jug is handling the taps and then handling the jug. Food related equipment does not belong in the bathroom.

Been drinking cold water from the bathroom cold tap for almost 50 years since we moved into this house. I'm still alive.
Or am I a ghost.......?

If it's direct feed from the rising main then it's OK. If it's via a header/storage tank then no- you don't know what might have fallen in the tank and be decomposing!

Surely if it's going into a coffee machine it's a moot point?

If my downstairs kitchen tap is turned on, the upstairs bathroom tap turns into a trickle. I'm assuming both are on the mains? Does that sound right??

I drink from the bathroom tap, I know long ago it used to be something to avoid. I wouldn't fill up a bottle or kettle from a toilet sink at work though but I can't quite explain why.

My teen son always does it at night when he is too lazy to go downstairs, he told me it was from the same water tank when I told him not to. We have it filtered but he knows more than I do about the water tank. 🤣

As child I always used to get water from the bathroom tap. As an adult I only drink from the kitchen and tell my children not to drink from the bathroom tap. I read that it's different pipes/tank but I could be wrong. Anyway it seems a bit grim getting wayer from the bathroom tap where everyone poops , pees and washes there dirty hands there, even if it gets cleaned , still find it a bit gross

This

I do, at home, but I know that the bathroom tap is not fed from the loft tank, it's mains. Our tank just feeds the immersion heater and the bath tap.

I would be reluctant to drink even mains water from a 'public' loo as I don't know how often the taps are cleaned, and it's not outside the realms of possibility that someone has got something gross on the tap that's gradually being washed off as the water runs. Not an issue when you're washing hands with soap but I'd not want to drink it!

I'd also be cautious in case it is coming from a tank rather than direct from the main, both because of potential for germs and also physical contamination from a badly fitting lid. (a la fawlty towers with the pigeon!)

I remember being told at school that the bathroom taps were not drinking water and we had to use the drinking fountains and this was because the tanks were on the roof and so dead birds could get in it and it wasn’t safe to drink.

I remember thinking how ick it was to wash my hands in water that dead birds were floating in and why that was okay!

Even though I know my bathroom tap is fed from the mains, I am still less than keen to drink from it because at Dad's the bathroom tap is fed from a tank in the loft, and we were on pain of death or worse not to drink from it. It tasted stale anyway, so we didn't.

I regularly drink cold water from the bathroom tap and I’ve worked in places where the only water is from the sinks in the toilets.

I’m the same and grew up being told to only drink from the kitchen tap, never the bathroom. My DH promises me that the bathroom tap now is no different from the kitchen tap, but I still can’t get my head around it. I believe it may come from many moons ago when the bathroom water came from a tank in the loft, and no you wouldn’t want to drink that water. But now, bathroom water largely is from the mains so it is the same water as your kitchen tap.

It's the same water. 🤷‍♀️

Probably more frequently than the taps and sinks in your home. Professional cleaners are very careful not to cross contaminate and use separate cloths and mops.

Commercial storage tanks are sealed metal boxes though, not like the ones that used to be common in houses, no dust or insects getting in.

At home I'd drink from my bathroom tap as I know my taps are clean.
At work though I would rather drink water from the kitchen tap as I wouldn't like to think how dirty the team would be in a unisex toilet.

We can only drink water from the kitchen tap because we have a water softener which “contaminates” all the other taps in the house with salt. Also, when I was a little child my mother put me off drinking water from the bathroom tap by telling me it was full of tiny little monsters, too small to be seen by the naked eye, so there’s that too.

Anecdote incoming: the Midland Hotel at St Pancras had a header tank up in the attics the size of a swimming pool. A guest drowned in there once (I can only assume drink was involved) and nobody discovered the body until the tap water started tasting funny 😬

(this was about 100 years ago)

On old houses the bathroom water might not be mains but in new houses it is. I do often refill my glass from the tap in my bathroom because I clean. I would be a bit repulsed at the idea of the kettle having been into the men's loos to be honest. I realise the water will be clean and have been boiled anyway but just thinking about people touching dooe handles and taps and then the kettle...and I've learnt from other threads that other people don't wash their hands!

Yes I drink water from the bathroom tap - every night in fact - and your situation at work wouldn't bother me at all. What on earth do you think is going to happen

Oh I had no idea this wasn't still the case 😂 I've grown up not drinking from the bathroom tsk because of this.

Those sinks are strictly for handwashing. They shouldn't be used for any other purpose, for infection control reasons.

"I again interjected and got the water from the kitchen water despenser"

What is the kitchen water dispenser? Do you mean the kitchen tap or a specific tap for drinking water or one of those bottled water type things?

As many others have said, it depends how the system is set up. When I was a kid we weren't allowed to drink water from the bathroom taps because the water came from a tank in the roof with standing water in it. The kitchen tap was connected to the mains and so we had to use that.
I'd wonder in your case if the "kitchen water dispenser" is there specifically because the rest of the water is not drinkable and comes from a tank somewhere.