It started as an innocuous habit about midnight. My husband would wake up thirsty, shuffle to the toilet, and drink straight from the faucet instead of going to the kitchen. I thought it was funny at first.
But after months of watching him do it, I got tired of that.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how the water in the bathroom wasn’t as clear and clean as the water from the kitchen sink. He kept saying, “Water’s water.” One night, though, I couldn’t help but be curious, even if I was a little scared. I wanted to know if he was right or if my gut feeling was right.
What I learned was really surprising. Even while both taps normally pull from the same water source, the plumbing inside the house can make a huge difference. Most of the time, kitchen faucets are connected directly to the main cold-water line. This keeps the water cleaner and fresher.
Bathroom taps, on the other hand, might be connected to older or supplementary pipes, or even a storage tank on the roof or in the attic. This implies that the water in them can get dirty, have germs, or even small amounts of metals over time. So, even if everything looks completely clean, it could not be as clean as it looks.
I ran a tiny test at home to back up what I said.
I put two glasses next to each other: one from the kitchen and one from the bathroom. The difference was minor but clear: the water in the kitchen gleamed, whereas the glass in the bathroom seemed a little cloudy.
I tasted the water in the bathroom and it had a slight metallic taste. I obtained a home testing kit because my spouse still didn’t trust me. The results confirmed what I thought: the sample from the bathroom had slightly higher levels of hardness and trace metals. It won’t hurt your health, but it might not be the best thing to eat every day.
Most experts agree that bathroom tap water is safe, but you should only use it to wash your hands or brush your teeth. To get rid of any water that has been sitting about, let it run for a few seconds before you drink it, or put it through a little filter.
In the end, having a water bottle by the bed was the best thing to do. That is what my husband does now, ever since he spit out a mouthful of bathroom water that tasted metallic and finally admitted I was right all along. It seems that convenience doesn’t always make up for the cost.