Always be in the mood. English traditions - two separate taps instead of a mixer Reasons for using two taps for water

Tourists and visitors often have a question: why do an English sink have 2 taps?

The question arises: how to wash your hands or wash with warm water? Ice water flows from one tap, and boiling water from the other. I wonder why the British came up with such a strange method?

And it turned out that many people were interested in this issue. I had to talk to the British and ask questions.

Answer number 1: compliance with plumbing laws

In England there is a drinking water law. There is a ban on mixing cold drinking water and warm water. Previously, a mandatory part of the boiler was a special tank where water was stored. The water could become stagnant, the legionella bacteria could appear (mortality from it reaches 30% of those infected), and the tank could rust. For this reason, cold and warm water were served separately, so as not to drink “dangerous” water.

Answer number 2: habit or tradition + saving water

A friend of mine married an Englishman. And his traditional parents, who live near Oxford, provided the answer to this mystery-shrouded question. It so happened that for some time a young married couple lived with their parents until they found separate housing. So, both in this family and in the families of other Englishmen, she noticed the same ritual of washing dishes. The sink is filled with water (cold and hot water are mixed in the sink until warm), detergent is poured, the dishes are washed, and without even rinsing off the foam with running water, they are wiped with a towel, that’s all. No matter how she tried to explain to them that it would be better to wash off the foam under running water, they didn’t listen to her at all, that’s what their grandmothers did. In addition, in England it is customary to save on water and electricity bills, so the English method of washing dishes is also economical.

And here are some quick methods of “mixers” found, invented by immigrants:

Let me start with the fact that not only in England, it’s the same in Australia. Why is that?

Almost the same texts are circulating on the Internet, carefully copied from each other on hundreds of resources.

But everything there is so distorted by illiterate scribes who call their creations rewrites that discovering the truth is very problematic for most people who do not have special knowledge in the field of water supply.

That's why I decided to write this article in order to clarify this funny fact.

Indeed, installing two taps instead of a mixer is a very common occurrence in homes in England and Australia.

What are some of the reasons for this strangeness?

It is said that in England there is, or was, a law prohibiting the combination of hot and cold water supply systems. They do not have centralized hot water supply systems, but individual gas heaters had very rusty tanks, and the people of Aglitsa toiled with their stomachs, drinking such water inside. That’s why legislators became concerned by banning faucets.

But this is a mixer, although there are two valves:

Perhaps there is some historical truth in this, but then what about the classic English-style faucets, of which there are countless numbers:

Take a close look at these faucets. These are excellent faucets that operate from two pipes - hot and cold water. The water supply to such a mixer is ensured by a full cross-section of pipes, without modern flexible connections, which “eat up” the pressure in the pipes with terrible force:

And this is a very important point for old housing stock with low pressure in the network, which does not allow the use of mixers with flexible connections. And old housing predominates in England. A standard faucet with clyster tubes for liners simply will not work there, which is why the “English style of faucets” appeared.

In my country house I myself was forced to build an “English-style faucet” on the collective farm, since I have a gravity water supply system, and it was impossible to buy real English faucets in Russia at the time of the renovation:

There are ready-made factory mixers available for purchase in Russia, which work perfectly with low pressure in the water supply network.

But let’s return to the writers’ “arguments” about two taps in England:

Making renovations in the UK is quite a big problem, especially when it comes to redevelopment, changing the water supply system, and so on. Much of Britain's housing stock dates back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, meaning these houses were built before modern faucets appeared.

Classic English faucets do not require any redevelopment. It is enough to connect a second pipe with hot water to the bathtub or washbasin, and connecting the mixer is no problem:

If there were problems specifically with redevelopment and reconstruction, then the cold water tap would be in the center, and the additional hot water tap would be shoved into the free space. But no, the taps are initially symmetrical:

So what is the reason for having two taps?

It is in historical traditions associated with saving in a country that was quite poor at that time. Having hot water in the house at the time when traditions were born was a luxury; it was saved.

It's expensive in England even now. Therefore, most Englishmen wash their hands and wash themselves not under running water from a faucet, but with water from a stoppered sink. And it is not customary to rinse soapy hands under running clean water, because it is expensive. Rinse in soapy water in the sink.

The same is true in the bathroom and with dishes in the kitchen. We poured water into the bathroom, washed ourselves as if in a bathtub, rinsed in the same place, and dried ourselves with a towel. The dishes were washed in a sink turned into a basin with warm water by plugging the drain with a stopper, rinsed in this water, and dried.

And even in modern public toilet buildings, where there is no need for reconstruction, two taps can be found everywhere. We're used to it, tradition, sir:

But the world is global. Not only English people live in England, but also people from other countries. So if you see photos like these:

This is not the ingenuity of poor Russians in Russia, and not photos from collections of plumbing jokes, this is foreigners in England adapting to local realities.

15:12, Monday, February 25, 2013-25, 15:12

The other day I was drinking beer in one of the bars in the center of St. Petersburg with Masha, my colleague from Bonch University, where we both teach English. Unlike most other teachers, she, like me, is 20-something years old, and we have many common interests.

Masha said that she had been to the UK several times, including Scotland, and I am always curious to know what foreigners think about my homeland.

But the main topic of our conversation was not culture, education or living standards. Although Masha was shocked by my confessions that I don’t drink tea and consider The Beatles just an ordinary pop group, but that’s a different story.

The main question was about taps: why are there still often two of them on sinks and bathrooms in the UK, one for hot water and one for cold water? So right away I didn’t know what to answer. I never thought about this before.

I understand her reasoning, but it's not that warm water is completely out of reach for Britons. This is wrong. When you open a hot tap, cold water first begins to flow, which gradually heats up, and for a few seconds you can catch the moment when it is no longer icy, but not yet boiling water.

Of course, this is difficult, and in general, in my opinion, a complete waste of time and effort. But in principle, if you come across a sink without a faucet (and they are very common), know that this option is possible. Although I personally prefer to just wash my hands with cold water, what's the problem?

Laughter and laughter, but the question remains: why are there two taps when there are mixers? This may be partly due to the fact that some not-so-new British homes have a heating system that only heats a fixed amount of water over a given period of time. When you use this water completely, you have to wait several hours for a new portion to heat up.

So, if you want to run a bath, but are not sure how much hot water is left, it makes sense to first open only the hot tap, wait until the hot water runs out, and then add cold water to taste. But, on the other hand, separate taps are still installed in new houses... Apparently, according to tradition.

In addition, Masha heard somewhere that in the UK some parents wash all their children in one bath - one at a time, without changing the water.

This actually happened in the past, particularly in my family when I was little. I have a brother and sister, both younger, and the three of us shared one bath. Fortunately, in terms of seniority, I was first. It’s not that we were poor, it’s just that my mother knew that there was not enough hot water, and we had to wash ourselves that way.

Masha was practically horrified when I told her this; this washing option seemed almost disgusting to her, but I explained to her that many families simply had no other choice.

I, in turn, found it strange when my friend told me that grandmothers in Russia use very strong, unpleasant-smelling beer (for example, Stepan Razin) as a means to curl their hair.

I didn’t believe it, suspecting that this was another joke on a stupid foreigner (as in my post). But it turned out that everything was serious, and several people confirmed this.

As they explained to me, in Soviet times, there were very few hair products, and women had to invent them themselves.

I, of course, did not live in the Soviet Union, and I don’t know what it was like, but when I first heard about the alternative use of strong beer, I had the same reaction as Masha had to the story he told about the bath in Scotland. Like, "Oh my God, this is disgusting."

But in the end, what's the big deal? Every country has its own eccentric traditions, invented out of necessity.

• Add a link to the entry in:

Guys, we put our soul into the site. Thank you for that
that you are discovering this beauty. Thanks for the inspiration and goosebumps.
Join us on Facebook And In contact with

The world is full of traditions that seem strange and sometimes even wild to other cultures.

Today we are in website We decided to figure out why sinks in England have 2 taps.

Reason No. 1. Historical

Much of Britain's housing stock dates back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, before the advent of mixers and modern valves. Some of the homes are much older - one of the consequences of living in a part of the world where there are few earthquakes.

When indoor plumbing was introduced, it started with a simple system running cold water directly from the mains into the kitchen. Later, hot water was added separately, hence a double system was created.

Reason #2: Compliance with the law

In England there is a law according to which It is prohibited to mix cold water and hot water from the boiler. The fact is that there is no central heating in the country, and every house has a gas water heater (which the British call central heating).

Previously, a special tank was a mandatory part of the boiler. The water could become stagnant and the tank could rust, making the water undrinkable.. Apparently, this did not stop many people, and a law had to be introduced prohibiting the mixing of cold potable water and hot water from a container.

Reason No. 3. Following traditions

The British do not wash their hands under running water. To begin with they plug the sink drain with a stopper, draw water and wash your hands with soap. Then remove the stopper and dry your hands with a towel. However, they do not rinse their hands. Using the same principle, they wash themselves and wash dishes, without rinsing, but immediately sending them to dry.