155
TIL why you're not supposed to cook or drink hot tap water - it's the lead (and other heavy metals) (www.epa.gov)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/til@lemmy.ca
81 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hot water dissolves lead more quickly than cold water and is therefore more likely to contain greater amounts of lead. Never use water from the hot water tap for drinking, cooking, or making baby formula.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Growing up in the US I learned this exact thing was why there were two taps in the UK instead of a shared tap. That and Legionnaires growing in the hot tanks.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Yeah that's not been true for about 50 years.

    We replaced all our lead, and it's a legal requirement to if you find a lead pipe in a system, replace it no matter what (even in listed buildings) or disable the outputs entirely (the latter is more common in VERY OLD buildings, with people then adding a new system somewhere else, sometimes with exposed pipework rather than having to potentially damage walls.)

    We also just don't do hot water tanks any more usually, instead doing on-demand boilers.

    Does mean that the hot runs cold for about a minute, but it balances out

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •