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I was taught by parents to not pour hot water to the kettle, because the water heater might have lead pipes and cold water was omitting them. I wonder was it th

I was taught by parents to not pour hot water to the kettle, because the water heater might have lead pipes and cold water was omitting them. I wonder was it the case...

IAmBroom 1y ago
That might have been true locally, but you need to know the actual lead levels (which can change with infrastructure changes) in cold and hot water to know for sure. I replaced my hot water heater and supply pipes myself, so it has no more lead than the cold. They're currently tearing up my street to replace the lead in supply lines, so... everything will hopefully improve here.
dpark 1y ago
It’s more that hot water will leech more lead from whatever lines do you have, including in the water heater itself. The biggest concern would generally be lead solder. There’s no reason you would have lead lines for hot water and copper lines for cold. Also the hot water sits in a tank (in most homes) full of scale and may just taste worse.
quickthrowman 1y ago
Your parents were correct about the advice, but wrong about the reasoning. Possibly hot water leaches out lead easier, but it’s more about water sitting in a hot water tank. Hot water in a home usually sits in a metal tank that is full of scale/minerals. Once the sacrificial anode is used up (maybe 1% of people actually replace their anode when needed), the tank begins corroding. Hot water is for washing things, cold water is for consumption.
roryirvine 1y ago
I grew up doing this, though in our case the old heating system drew water from a tank in the roofspace where it could have been left sitting for a long time before being used. We were also taught to run the cold tap until it got really cold (indicating that fresh water from the mains was coming out) before drinking from it. Weirdly, I remember that we had our water pipes replaced with plastic and the heating system modernised when the house was renovated in the late 80s, but we still persisted with those habits afterwards... Australian friends still get super upset with me for wasting so much water - they have water conservation drummed into them from an early age, so tend to see running the tap even for a second or two too long as being some sort of terrible sin.

I was taught by parents to not pour hot water to the kettle, because the water heater might have lead pipes and cold water was omitting them. I wonder was it the case...

IAmBroom 1y ago

That might have been true locally, but you need to know the actual lead levels (which can change with infrastructure changes) in cold and hot water to know for sure. I replaced my hot water heater and supply pipes myself, so it has no more lead than the cold. They're currently tearing up my street to replace the lead in supply lines, so... everything will hopefully improve here.

dpark 1y ago

It’s more that hot water will leech more lead from whatever lines do you have, including in the water heater itself. The biggest concern would generally be lead solder. There’s no reason you would have lead lines for hot water and copper lines for cold. Also the hot water sits in a tank (in most homes) full of scale and may just taste worse.

quickthrowman 1y ago

Your parents were correct about the advice, but wrong about the reasoning. Possibly hot water leaches out lead easier, but it’s more about water sitting in a hot water tank. Hot water in a home usually sits in a metal tank that is full of scale/minerals. Once the sacrificial anode is used up (maybe 1% of people actually replace their anode when needed), the tank begins corroding. Hot water is for washing things, cold water is for consumption.

roryirvine 1y ago

I grew up doing this, though in our case the old heating system drew water from a tank in the roofspace where it could have been left sitting for a long time before being used. We were also taught to run the cold tap until it got really cold (indicating that fresh water from the mains was coming out) before drinking from it. Weirdly, I remember that we had our water pipes replaced with plastic and the heating system modernised when the house was renovated in the late 80s, but we still persisted with those habits afterwards... Australian friends still get super upset with me for wasting so much water - they have water conservation drummed into them from an early age, so tend to see running the tap even for a second or two too long as being some sort of terrible sin.