It is said that hot water from the tap is harmful and you can’t drink it, unlike cold. We checked whether this is so.

Many Believethat hot water, which comes from the tap in the kitchen and in the bathroom, is technical, unlike cold, that is, unsuitable for drinking and cooking. The Internet is full articlesexplaining why hot water is unsafe for drinking: they write that deposits on the walls of the pipes are dissolved in hot water, and Also that chemical reagents are added to it, which are not in cold water.

Reagents in hot tap water are really added. According to SanPin, operating in Russia until 2021, this is done to protect water pipelines from corrosion, and protect the pipes from scale. However, these additives do not make water technical, unsuitable for drinking. The same document states that the share of reagents should not exceed the standards for drinking water. And this is logical: the streets are watered with technical water and cars are cleaned, but they do not bathe children and do not wash the dishes. Water for household needs should be safe for humans.

“In our laboratory, we are extremely rarely encountered that the content of substances and elements in water samples from hot and cold crane differs significantly,” said Igor Buzin, Technical Director of the Moscow State University testing center. Without analyzing specific hot water, the expert did not dare to say whether it was safe to brew tea with it. “But we can say that it is very likely that if it is unsafe to pour hot, it will be unsafe to pour cold, that is, pollution will be there and there,” the expert added.

In the regions of Russia, it happens that hot water goes straight from the power plant: this is the same water that flows into the batteries. This is called the "open heat supply system", it is also hot water supply. Hot water - according to the law - should still remain drinking. But the open system is less reliable from a sanitary point of view. From January 1, 2022 it should were banned. But this item was deleted from the law. For some cities, it turned out to be too much to rebuild the entire system expensive.

Actually, there are additives in cold tap water too. But this does not mean that such water is dangerous, even vice versa: it is Required For safety. For disinfection there Add Sodium hypochlorite with the presence of ammonia -containing reagent. This prevents outbreaks of infectious diseases that can spread through water - cholera, viral hepatitis, fungus, etc.

By data MSU testing center, only in 8.45% of cases in Moscow, water supply did not correspond to SanPiN. Almost 95% of Russian cities are provided with high -quality drinking water, claims Rospotrebnadzor.

But there is another reason why hot water from the tap is afraid to drink and pour into a kettle. The point is not in the water itself and not in chemical additives, but just in the pipes and boilers through which it passes.

In the USA afraid First of all, lead, which is washed out of brass cranes (there is lead in the brass), from some types of paint and is in pipes. Old pipes can be made of lead or lead details at all: in 1986 they were banned in use in the United States, but in some places such pipes are still working.

Lead is dangerous for health, especially childish: accumulating in the body for years, it can slow down the development of the child, influence the adult brain, damage the kidneys and red blood cells. The boiling of such water in a teapot or pan will not help get rid of hazardous substances.

In New York in 2010, they even held Campaign “Open the crane”: residents were taught not to immediately take water into a kettle or a pan, but let it spill. “In water in the pipes for several hours or more, leads. To reduce the effect of lead in drinking water is simple and inexpensive: open the crane by at least 30 seconds, until the water becomes noticeably colder before drinking, cooking or doing baby food, ”said the then Commissioner for the Environmental Environment, KAS Holloway. Especially the inhabitants warned Do not use hot water from the tap for drinking and cooking, because it is able to dissolve more lead from pipes in itself.

In Canada, they also advise residents to take water for drinking and cooking only from a cold crane. They are afraid of not only lead, but also any contaminants that hot water dissolves better in itself. “Hot water systems (tanks, boilers, pipes, etc.) contain metal parts, which over time can be corroded, which, in turn, can lead to water pollution by rust or other particles,” - warns University of British Colombia.

“Hot water is really easier and faster destroys the material of non -reprimand pipes of the pipeline,” agrees Igor Buzin. “But in order to minimize this process, water can be additionally prepared, for example, remove the dissolved oxygen, reduce hardness and so on.”

But in Russia, there is, apparently, problems with lead in pipes. The MSU testing center has carried out water in Moscow many times, but never found lead in it.

“As far as we know, now the alloys from which water pipes are made do not contain, for example, heavy metals and will produce iron more likely than something else,” said Buzin.

And the very reagents that are allowed to add to hot water in Russia are precisely necessary to reduce pipe corrosion and the release of foreign substances into the water.