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Anecdote: a plumber in my family swore by this effect and always connected ice makers to the hot water line in new houses. Their justification was that even if
by Lammy 4y ago
Anecdote: a plumber in my family swore by this effect and always connected ice makers to the hot water line in new houses. Their justification was that even if their observation was wrong it was still one less thing that was likely to freeze in winter.
- 1970-01-01 4y agoHot water lines connected to hot water tanks will contain more impurities. Those impurities will slow the melting rate of the ice cubes.
- eru 4y agoThat sounds like a waste of electricity.
- GrantZvolsky 4y agoHot water pipes don't have the same potability guarantees as the cold pipes, so this practice would unnecessarily increase your risk of poisoning.
- analog31 4y agoIn my part of the country, the hot water is softened, so it has an elevated salt content.
- GrantZvolsky 4y agoThis thread has revealed an interesting cultural difference, with me being in the minority that gets hot water from a remote provider, as opposed to having a heating system and heating it myself.
- brutusborn 4y agoI think that depends where you live. Regulations in my location changed so that hot had to have the same configuration as cold (and supposedly the same potability?). Old houses in the area have separate taps for hot / cold whereas newer houses built after the change have combined hot/cold.
- ars 4y agoThe hot water tank has a magnesium or aluminum anode. You should ABSOLUTELY not drink that water!! Find an old tank and open it, and you'll never even consider drinking that water.
- notjtrig 4y agoHot water tanks and heating elements corrode over time.
- rootusrootus 4y agoThe tank is lined with glass, it shouldn't corrode unless that surface gets broken.
- sgerenser 4y agoThe sacrificial anode rod is designed to corrode. Depending on its composition that means higher concentration of aluminum or magnesium in the water.
- mbreese 4y agoI don’t know why I think this, but I have it in my head that hot water heaters can have more mineral build up. This is why I always thought you should use cold water. Even though the hot was still drinkable, it might be harder water. I have no idea if this is accurate.
- cyounkins 4y agoHot water heaters frequently have sacrificial anode rods to prevent corrosion. The rods corrode over time and dissolve into the water. Lower cost aluminum rods have health concerns, not as much with magnesium rods. See also Tom Scott's video on Britain's history with separate hot and cold taps and why hot taps sometimes had unsanitary cold water tanks to supply them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA
- IshKebab 4y agoDepends on your heating system surely?
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoRecommendations for Belgium: do not drink the hot water For Geneva: you can drink the hot water For France: you can drink the hot water but it is disgusting All of them talk about the same effects (fisdolved oxygen, piping ,...) and come to different conclusions. My take on that: nobody questions the potability of cold tap water so I will use that one, there is nothing to gain (possibly a shorter time to boil? that trumps the extra cost?)
- unlikelymordant 4y agowouldn't the refrigerator have to work a lot harder in that case to remove the extra heat? doesn't seem beneficial from an energy use perspective, considering you have to pay to heat the water, then cool it again.
- klyrs 4y agoThat was my initial reaction too, but upon consideration, how long does it take for hot water to get down the line? Typically, both the hot and cold water lines are full of room-temperature water until you run them long enough to heat up all of the piping between source and sink. I'm having trouble picturing an in-home ice maker having enough throughput for it to actually matter.
- bombcar 4y agoThis is the reality of the matter, though there may be some minor benefit to "using up" hot water a bit more. Practically it's unlikely to matter either way.
- d--b 4y agoYes, I’d be pretty pissed off if my plumber did that.
- jazzyjackson 4y agoheat isn't real, it's just a measurement of the entropy in a system if hot water takes shortcuts and freezes faster than cold, then it requires less energy to do so - that is the crux of the debate
- eru 4y ago> heat isn't real, it's just a measurement of the entropy in a system You say that as if entropy ain't realy. > if hot water takes shortcuts and freezes faster than cold, then it requires less energy to do so - that is the crux of the debate You can't escape the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
- 4y ago
- Groxx 4y agoUnless they were inches from the water heater, or had a hot water recirculation system in place: lol no. Those pipes never even got warm. Ice makers don't use anywhere near enough water to flush even a short line. --- For doing the math! Many ice makers use about four fluid ounces of water per cycle, slightly over 100ml: https://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-support-search-content?contentId=16918 https://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-support-sear... Per hourly cycle. Or nearly. When was the last time you turned on the hot water an hour after anyone else used it, and had even the most sightly warmed water within one half to one third of a glass of water? Never. Even the under-sink heaters hardly work that fast, and their water only has to travel like a meter at most.
- jcampbell1 4y agoThe hot water has less dissolved gasses. In some cases it has less chlorine. I put water in a glass pitcher in the fridge because it tastes better after sitting at a lower pressure and off gassing. I agree that the water enters the ice maker at room temperature, but it may not be a bad idea regardless.
- HPsquared 4y agoIf it's heated within a closed system (i.e. mains pressure hot water), the gases are still there - they can only leave the water if you have an open tank, which is a bit old-fashioned. You can observe this by running hot water into a glass from the faucet: it appears cloudy, which is the dissolved gases boiling off. This means, once the hot water within the pipe has cooled (within the pipe) it'll still have the same gas content as cold water.
- philco 4y agoWhaaaattt, whoa. Wouldn't that cause the temperature in the food in the freezer to heat cycle, causing very no bueno bacterial consequences?
- boomboomsubban 4y agoNo? The freezer is cold without any water connected to the ice maker.