My wife made a remark the other day about how her dad always told her not to drink cold water from the bathroom tap. My first thought was that this was a throwback to the days of lead pipework. However, I had a look at diagrams for domestic water systems and saw some where the downstairs cold taps came directly off the cold water main and the upstairs (bathroom) taps were fed from the main cold water tank. Why would this be? Is this the reason for the advice on not drinking the upstairs cold water?

