Drinking water from hot water header tank

[muggles]

Presumably as you have a customer you're claiming to be a professional plumber...in which case your questions are concerning, as you should really know the answers, it's basic stuff.

Provided the loft tank is fitted correctly with a Byelaw 30 kit the water will be perfectly safe, it's fluid risk category 2 (2 rather than 1 as hot water will expand into it, changing it's temperature) and therefore, according to the water regulations, presents no health hazard.

If there is a means by which foreign objects/animals could enter the tank then I wouldn't advise drinking it, although if it's only the odd insect it's probably not going to do any more than build up the immune system.

 

[chrism71]

The drinking water supply comes direct from mains via the kitchen tap.

The other cold water outlets come from the cold water storage tank that also acts as the feed to the hot water storage cylinder.
This means that showers can be fitted with equal pressure head on both hot and water supply and that the flow is not affected by mains supply fluctuations.

(I assume you are not saying that the cold water supply comes from the Central Heating water header tank?)

Thanks Tony for your reply,
Cold water doesn't come from CH header tank.
Old mixer shower was fed from this tank too.
Understand all this thanks

 

[chrism71]

All of our upstairs cold water taps, cisterns etc are fed from the h/w header tank, as the pressure and flow from the mains is so poor. There may well be other reasons for this setup that apply to the OP's customer.

I can't say that we drink from the upstairs taps, but we do brush our teeth etc so it's inevitable that we consume some of it, and have been doing for over 20 years. The tank is the usual cylindrical thing with a rather poorly fitting lid and some insulation.

There are header tanks made for water that is to be drunk. As far as I can tell the only difference is that the lid is smaller and fits far better, and more dust-proofly, than the standard thing.

Thanks for your reply Kes,
The tank is the correct one for stored drinking water (else I'd be really worried)
(the 'film' of scum on the bottom of this tank will make me think twice about having a drink from any tap but the kitchen though).

 

[chrism71]

i wouldn`t have thought it it would be good practice to use stored water as drinking water! i certainly havent come across this practice in scotland.
or northern ireland for that matter.

anyway if thats par for the course in England "you live and learn"

They go on holiday sometimes for 3 months at a time & then return to drink this water!

 

[chrism71]

I frequently come across tank fed cold water in older property. Having had the job of pulling dead pigeons from the tank (a few years ago as an apprentice!) I certainly would think twice about drinking the water. However, if a byelaw 30 kit has been fitted there should be no danger. The kit basically is insulation for the tank, an insect mesh for the warning pipe and a vent for the close fitting lid.

Thanks for your reply,
Yes I understand that's why the byelaw kit is fitted.
What happens when the water main along the street is replaced and all that crap makes it's way in to the bottom of everyone's tanks'

 

[chrism71]

Presumably as you have a customer you're claiming to be a professional plumber...in which case your questions are concerning, as you should really know the answers, it's basic stuff.

Provided the loft tank is fitted correctly with a Byelaw 30 kit the water will be perfectly safe, it's fluid risk category 2 (2 rather than 1 as hot water will expand into it, changing it's temperature) and therefore, according to the water regulations, presents no health hazard.

If there is a means by which foreign objects/animals could enter the tank then I wouldn't advise drinking it, although if it's only the odd insect it's probably not going to do any more than build up the immune system.

Thanks for your reply Muggles,
I'm sure you don't make the regulations and are only quoting them to me (as have been taught to me before & I didn't agree with my Lecturer then either especially if left unused for 3 months holiday sometimes).
Yes. I've heard all the stories in College of disgruntled plumbers urinating in tanks etc.
How can it be safe to consume for small children when Gallagers (street contractors) make their way up to their part of the village changing the water main and put sediment and other debris in the bottom of this cat 2 cold water storage tank that's still ok to drink
Won't be giving this water to my 18 month old son either!

Surely it would make more sense to feed just non-consumed supplies (cisterns, washing machine, bath, showers etc) from this tank, leaving the mains to cope with supplying the 4 taps?

 

[chrism71]

you sure the bath cold is off the mains ?

Yes, bath fed off cold mains.
(had main to house off, both bath & sink taps open, bath stopped, sink continued to run until I closed gate valve from tank, then opened valve again and sink ran again)

BTW, this tank gives 4 l/min flow.

Why you ask about bath please?

 

[swbjackson]

The same sediment that sits in the bottom of the storage cistern will also lay in the cold main distribution pipes in the road and in the house. Our water is frequently contaminated with rust particles from old iron pipes. Unless you filter the water there will always be some degree of contamination.

Don't even think about all the ascending spray bidets fitted with inadequate back flow prevention.

It's nasty stuff this water. Either fit a filter or stick to beer.

 

[chrism71]

The same sediment that sits in the bottom of the storage cistern will also lay in the cold main distribution pipes in the road and in the house. Our water is frequently contaminated with rust particles from old iron pipes. Unless you filter the water there will always be some degree of contamination.

Don't even think about all the ascending spray bidets fitted with inadequate back flow prevention.

It's nasty stuff this water. Either fit a filter or stick to beer.

I'll stick to beer and recommend it to their young boys also !

 

[Kev F]

nearly every house where i am is cold mains to kitchen sink and all basins,w/cs etc are tank fed, found a dead mouse skeleton on tuesday, yummy

 

[Kes]

Going back to the original post, what does 'drinking' mean? All of us (statistically) will be washing, showering, bathing, teeth-cleaning and undertaking other intimate activities with water from the hot tap, which has even more opportunity to be contaminated than water from the cold tank. We must ingest some of this. However that's not drinking the stuff. I guress if you needed a glass of water at bedtime for taking pills etc then you could fill it from the upstairs cold tap, and that would be drinking it. But that would be, for most of us, not a regular event. In other words it's nothing like the quantity that is drunk from the kitchen tap every day.

The mains feed to the cold water tank is chlorinated, so with a reasonable turnover, say 25 gallons a day of hot water, the water in the feed tank is being replenished constantly. If the cold fittings upstairs are fed from the tank then it's possibly 100+ gallons a day through the tank.

I don't normally drink water from the cold tank, but I would if I had to, and wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

[75pete]

" Drink ya not from any source of hot"

"Cold is fine if off the main line"

Old Plumbers saying.