Is is OK to drink hot water from the tap?

[Rapidskies]

Originally posted by: mjrpes3
I've heard 'rumors' that you NEVER should drink hot water from tap, water that's gone through the hot water heater. If you want hot water, always get from cold tap and heat in the microwave.

Does anyone know if this is true or not, and what the reason is?

True but only if you have a dead cat in your hot water heater.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: supafly
I've never even heard that rumor, but it sounds ridiculous.

ditto. if it tastes weird, get a new hot water heater.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: brunswickite
I don't think hot water from the tap is always clear. I have seen it with a whitish/grey color before.

This is not saying that its dangerous, but there could be some truth to the rumour.

thats beause its heated. if you let it sit and cool on the counter, it will clear up. there arent any additives being put in the water when its heated, so i seriously doubt there is any foundation to the rumor at all

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: Rapidskies

Originally posted by: mjrpes3
I've heard 'rumors' that you NEVER should drink hot water from tap, water that's gone through the hot water heater. If you want hot water, always get from cold tap and heat in the microwave.

Does anyone know if this is true or not, and what the reason is?

True but only if you have a dead cat in your hot water heater.

what is the best way to get the cat in? the holes in mine are very small

maybe i could get a kitten inside, feed it/grow it up to cat sized, then close it in

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: SSSnail
I have a chemist friend that works at the city water purification facility. From what she told me, don't drink the water from the faucet, ever. Boil it first.

dont start panics here. if their water locally is crap, its a mixture of their process and the existing piping to the houses. i work in the water/ wastewater industry, and i can assure you that the regs on drinking water are a lot tighter than you think. tap water is safe to drink everywhere in the phoenix metro area, as im sure it is in most large cities. i program the processes that filter and treat water for many cities here in az, the biggest probs are the pipes on your own property, not the city water systems. unfortunately, the city isnt responsible for piping past their flowmeters, you are.

 

[nakedfrog]

The idea of a hot water heater seems very inefficient to me... my water heater is strictly used to heat cold water.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: supafly
I've never even heard that rumor, but it sounds ridiculous.

I've heard it more than once. I never do it. And I never heat water in a microwave unless I'm testing the microwave. I always heat it on my stove.

In older houses, there can be lead solder used in the piping. If water sits in those pipes for a while, lead is leached into the water. I've heard it suggested more than once that if you think you have such piping, you should run your water for at least 15 seconds in the morning before drinking it. Similarly, if water is exposed to lead in the hot water system, drinking it can be not as good for you as drinking water from your cold water supply line. There might be other sources of contamination in your household hot water. Aside from that, why would you want to use your water heater to heat water you drink or cook with? Wash dishes with it, wash your clothes, take a shower or bath. I'd suggest you don't drink it or cook with it.

 

[jdini76]

Really, the hot water from the tap shouldn't be hot enough to cook with. If it is, then you are at risk of causeing harm to little kids or yourself. Therefore you are mocrowaving it anyway.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Tarrant64

Originally posted by: brunswickite
I don't think hot water from the tap is always clear. I have seen it with a whitish/grey color before.

This is not saying that its dangerous, but there could be some truth to the rumour.

Yeah, exactly. Whitish/Grey color.

That's because it's got air bubbles in it. Let it stand a while and it will clear.

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
The idea of a hot water heater seems very inefficient to me... my water heater is strictly used to heat cold water.

actually, it is the opposite, if you have an external source of hot water, then you could pipe that into a "hot water heater" and it would use almost no energy since the water is already hot. you would save a lot of money


us poor saps with only a cold water supply have to pipe it into our water heaters and pay large $$$ to get the water heated from ~55F to ~120F

 

[jdini76]

Originally posted by: Tarrant64

Originally posted by: thirtythree
If you have a water softener, you may not want to drink the hot water.

(edit: but I don't think it'll hurt you anyway -- if it was bad, it seems like your cold water would be somewhat contaminated too since they run through the same faucet and all)

Yeah, my parents have a water softener. My dad bought a new car, and my mom is about to do the same(Ford Exploder dying). They have yet to replace it, for the 3 years they have said they need to. I guess when their kids move out there's no need to do anything. 😛

What!? What you just said makes no sense.

What the hell does buying a new car have anything to do with a water softener.

Also a water softener is perfectly safe. All it does is remove minerals from the water buy replacing them with trace amounts of sodium(aka salt). It has the same effect to Cold water as well.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: SSSnail
I have a chemist friend that works at the city water purification facility. From what she told me, don't drink the water from the faucet, ever. Boil it first.

Wow...

LA county drinking water is perfectly safe. In fact, it's more tightly regulated than bottled water and usually cleaner.

I grew up in LA. I drank the tap water every day of my life from a baby until I left LA in my late teens. I am 40 now with no issues whatsoever.

Your "friend" is an idiot.

 

[Midlander]

Originally posted by: FoBoT

Originally posted by: Rapidskies

Originally posted by: mjrpes3
I've heard 'rumors' that you NEVER should drink hot water from tap, water that's gone through the hot water heater. If you want hot water, always get from cold tap and heat in the microwave.

Does anyone know if this is true or not, and what the reason is?

True but only if you have a dead cat in your hot water heater.

what is the best way to get the cat in? the holes in mine are very small

maybe i could get a kitten inside, feed it/grow it up to cat sized, then close it in

:laugh:

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: supafly
I've never even heard that rumor, but it sounds ridiculous.

I've heard it more than once. I never do it. And I never heat water in a microwave unless I'm testing the microwave. I always heat it on my stove.

The microwave is faster and more convenient...why bother with the stove?

Originally posted by: SSSnail
I have a chemist friend that works at the city water purification facility. From what she told me, don't drink the water from the faucet, ever. Boil it first.

In countries with untreated water, you boil it to kill the bacteria and the like. Here, I'd worry more about chemical than biological contamination, and boiling won't do jack (unless you're catching the vapors and drinking those instead).

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: supafly
I've never even heard that rumor, but it sounds ridiculous.

I've heard it more than once. I never do it. And I never heat water in a microwave unless I'm testing the microwave. I always heat it on my stove.

The microwave is faster and more convenient...why bother with the stove?

Faster? More convenient? I don't think so. On the stove I generally boil water. I can hear and see if it's boiling. In a microwave, I can't hear it because the damn oven is real loud what with the fan. If I'm standing so close to the oven that I can see inside to see if the water is boiling I'm exposing my head to high levels of EMF's (yes, I've measured them). EMF's fall off by the inverse square of the distance. Fry your head, I'll spare mine. How bad are those EMF's for you? It's been debated for decades, but I figure the less I suffer, the better. I'd rather burn a little gas on my stove than pump 1000+ watts in my microwave. Besides, microwave ovens burn out (I'm on my 3rd right now). I've never had a gas stove burn out. I could go on...

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: SSSnail
I have a chemist friend that works at the city water purification facility. From what she told me, don't drink the water from the faucet, ever. Boil it first.

Wow...

LA county drinking water is perfectly safe. In fact, it's more tightly regulated than bottled water and usually cleaner.

I grew up in LA. I drank the tap water every day of my life from a baby until I left LA in my late teens. I am 40 now with no issues whatsoever.

Your "friend" is an idiot.

The water you get from the city may be safe but certain buildings may not be up to code and thus could very well be contaminated. Also, every once in a while there is a scare in any major city about water quality, which makes people think about various filtration / boiling / distilling methods so that any scares don't affect them. Like I said, however, not all potential issues are eliminated by that. We had manganese problems here and there wasn't really anything the average consumer could do about it.

That said, the "I did x all my life therefore x is safe" is completely bogus logic and is never a demonstration that "x is safe". All it demonstrates is that "x does not always cause major problems" which is a fairly weak observation anyway.

 

[hanoverphist]

most places with chemical health hazards in the water are being treated and dumped back in the sewer system (when you clean out the bad and reintroduce it into the ground it naturally filters it and makes it potable again). Ive helped build a couple superfund sites here, since motorola used to dump TCE into big evaporating clarifiers and in the sewer before they realized it broke down into vinyl chloride and caused cancer. all water reclamation can not be used as drinking water, so you dont need to worry about that. it is dumped into big lined reservoirs and evaporated, as well as being used for larger scale city water features. chlorine is used to process all water coming in for drinking, and is very much metered and controlled to make sure it isnt changing the pH enough to be a health risk. by the time it gets out the plants it is drinkable. flouride is added in some cities to help as well, and most every water system has granulated activated carbon filtering modules as well as UV systems to kill bio risks. arsenic is the "new black" in the water industry, and is also removed effectively before it even leaves the sites. if anything is in your water, the water softener salesman put it there or there is a large leak in your neighborhood that is introducing it.

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: hanoverphist
most places with chemical health hazards in the water are being treated and dumped back in the sewer system (when you clean out the bad and reintroduce it into the ground it naturally filters it and makes it potable again). Ive helped build a couple superfund sites here, since motorola used to dump TCE into big evaporating clarifiers and in the sewer before they realized it broke down into vinyl chloride and caused cancer. all water reclamation can not be used as drinking water, so you dont need to worry about that. it is dumped into big lined reservoirs and evaporated, as well as being used for larger scale city water features. chlorine is used to process all water coming in for drinking, and is very much metered and controlled to make sure it isnt changing the pH enough to be a health risk. by the time it gets out the plants it is drinkable. flouride is added in some cities to help as well, and most every water system has granulated activated carbon filtering modules as well as UV systems to kill bio risks. arsenic is the "new black" in the water industry, and is also removed effectively before it even leaves the sites. if anything is in your water, the water softener salesman put it there or there is a large leak in your neighborhood that is introducing it.

I know from local experience that they do not test the water for all possible contaminants, and in fact when we had the manganese problem here (which is an issue only for a select group of people - infants and people with liver disease I believe), all kinds of interviews with the water people were done and they basically said they only test for what they think to test for and can't test for everything.

So they may test for certain things, but it seems likely that water contamination is not an entirely implausible thing to worry about. There was also a major cryptosporidium(sp?) water problem in milwaukee not too long ago.

 

[Feldenak]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: SSSnail
I have a chemist friend that works at the city water purification facility. From what she told me, don't drink the water from the faucet, ever. Boil it first.

Wow...

LA county drinking water is perfectly safe. In fact, it's more tightly regulated than bottled water and usually cleaner.

I grew up in LA. I drank the tap water every day of my life from a baby until I left LA in my late teens. I am 40 now with no issues whatsoever.

Your "friend" is an idiot.

I grew up drinking Ohio River water and other than having 11 toes, 12 fingers and an odd facial tic I'm perfectly fine. 😉

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: torpid

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: SSSnail
I have a chemist friend that works at the city water purification facility. From what she told me, don't drink the water from the faucet, ever. Boil it first.

Wow...

LA county drinking water is perfectly safe. In fact, it's more tightly regulated than bottled water and usually cleaner.

I grew up in LA. I drank the tap water every day of my life from a baby until I left LA in my late teens. I am 40 now with no issues whatsoever.

Your "friend" is an idiot.

The water you get from the city may be safe but certain buildings may not be up to code and thus could very well be contaminated. Also, every once in a while there is a scare in any major city about water quality, which makes people think about various filtration / boiling / distilling methods so that any scares don't affect them. Like I said, however, not all potential issues are eliminated by that. We had manganese problems here and there wasn't really anything the average consumer could do about it.

That said, the "I did x all my life therefore x is safe" is completely bogus logic and is never a demonstration that "x is safe". All it demonstrates is that "x does not always cause major problems" which is a fairly weak observation anyway.

And you can throw a bunch of obscure "what-ifs" in there to justify unreasonable fear.

Yeah, while I was growing up we had a couple boil orders. So what? For the most part, tap water is perfectly safe.

There is an unreasonable fear of tap water in this country. Most of it fueled by the bottled water and filter companies. You can be duped, or you can save your money and still remain perfectly healthy.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
that is silly , drink it

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: supafly
I've never even heard that rumor, but it sounds ridiculous.

I've heard it more than once. I never do it. And I never heat water in a microwave unless I'm testing the microwave. I always heat it on my stove.

The microwave is faster and more convenient...why bother with the stove?

Faster? More convenient? I don't think so. On the stove I generally boil water. I can hear and see if it's boiling. In a microwave, I can't hear it because the damn oven is real loud what with the fan. If I'm standing so close to the oven that I can see inside to see if the water is boiling I'm exposing my head to high levels of EMF's (yes, I've measured them). EMF's fall off by the inverse square of the distance. Fry your head, I'll spare mine. How bad are those EMF's for you? It's been debated for decades, but I figure the less I suffer, the better. I'd rather burn a little gas on my stove than pump 1000+ watts in my microwave. Besides, microwave ovens burn out (I'm on my 3rd right now). I've never had a gas stove burn out. I could go on...

i hear wearing a tin foil hat will cut those emissions down a lot! 😛


i have an electric range, it would take longer than 3 minutes to boil water. i can stick a bowl of water in the micro and set it for 3 minutes, walk away and know that when i come back it will be about to boil. too hot to drink as coffee, and hot enough to cook noodles. how is this so different than your "i can hear it boil" thing? you dont have to watch the micro cook, just assume that its a standard oven and let it work.

and gas stoves can explode yer house down! microwave ovens cant do that.

 

[Excelsior]

meanwhile, millions of people across the world drink water from disease/parasite infested ponds/streams....

 

[Wreckem]

Originally posted by: Tarrant64
True or not, at my apartment the hot water is fine. But at home the hot water comes out looking pretty dirty. Well, not dirty, but most certianly not clear. My parents just say they need to change their filter or something rather with the water heater.

Oddly enough the water is OK.

However, we did find out that the water period from the faucet was killing all the plants in the house. They tried using bottled water and the plants are fine now. Stupid, I know.

Well yeah clhorine is bad for plants even in small amounts...

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Muse
Faster? More convenient? I don't think so. On the stove I generally boil water. I can hear and see if it's boiling. In a microwave, I can't hear it because the damn oven is real loud what with the fan. If I'm standing so close to the oven that I can see inside to see if the water is boiling I'm exposing my head to high levels of EMF's (yes, I've measured them). EMF's fall off by the inverse square of the distance. Fry your head, I'll spare mine. How bad are those EMF's for you? It's been debated for decades, but I figure the less I suffer, the better. I'd rather burn a little gas on my stove than pump 1000+ watts in my microwave. Besides, microwave ovens burn out (I'm on my 3rd right now). I've never had a gas stove burn out. I could go on...

Well, I usually use the method of setting it for the amount of time that water always takes to heat to the appropriate temperature, and walking away. It's worked so far.

Funny, I've never had a microwave burn out, and I get mine free from craigslist. You sure you're doing it right?