Today I Learned (TIL)

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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 week ago by pelespirit@sh.itjust.works to c/til@lemmy.ca

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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.

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[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago

The hot runs cold for a minute with a tank too. It takes awhile for it to reach the tap.