On Sat, 06 May 2006 11:02:15 +0100, David P wrote:

|In another thread we are currently discussing if it was safe make a cup
|of coffee from water which had been taken from the hot water tap (US:
|faucet) and boiled for a brief period in an automatic kitchen kettle.
|
|
|See "Safe to drink boiled water from hot tap?"
|Google groups = http://tinyurl.com/oqdya
|direct =
|
|
|However what about brushing your teeth? Most people would brush their
|teeth using water from the cold tap in the bathroom.
|
|Maybe, jus maybe, water from the hot tap in the bathroom is safer than
|from the cold? The following post in the original thread started off
|my line of thinking:
|
|On 05 May 2006, Dave Plowman wrote in the original thread:
|
| ... but do you really want to drink water that has
| been held nice and warm with a selection of dead spiders, flies,
| bats, rodents and other loft inhabitants in it?
|
| how often do people have to be told the tank should have an
| approved cover and venting to prevent this?
|
| It's not just drinking the stuff. If you shower or have a bath,
| there's a good chance you'll get some of that water in your mouth
| and eyes, etc. So it should be to a decent standard - not from the
| graveyard of assorted species through your neglect.
|
|
|My own hot water tank is in the roofspace and it gets a feed from the
|rising water main to the house and the tank has a tight fitting cover.
|
|However the cold water tank in my roofspace is much older and had a
|damaged top and I can see the base of the tank is full of crud.
|
|It seems that I am nrushing my teeth using water from the worse one !!!
|
|This must be true in millions of households. Many have a heating system
|like mine with hot & cold tanks in their roofspace plus a hot water
|cylinder. {1}. And maybe they too have their cold water in the bathroom
|supplied from their tank in the roofspace.
|
|In an old house the heating system is quite likely to be much newer (say
|five to 10 years) that the cold water system (say 30 to 40 years).
|
|In future, should I use the hot water tap (before the water runs too
|hot!) to brush my teeth?

Stop worrying, the risks either way are minimal. One does not drink a lot
of water when brushing your teeth.

If you want to avoid all risk stay in bed, which incidentally is more risky
than getting up.
--
Dave Fawthrop dave hyphenologist co uk Google Groups is IME the *worst*
method of accessing usenet. GG subscribers would be well advised get a
newsreader, say Agent, and a newsserver, say news.individual.net. These
will allow them: to see only *new* posts, a killfile, and other goodies.