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The other week I went on a bit of a rant about bathroom fixtures that just don’t work right. Well, I need to add something that really gets on my nerves: hot and cold taps being switched around. You know, when the cold tap marked “C” gives you hot water and the hot tap marked “H” gives you cold. It’s incredibly frustrating, and you wouldn’t believe how many sinks have this issue.
Why does this happen? How tough can it be to connect the cold tap to the cold pipe and the hot tap to the hot one? Any plumbers reading this, feel free to correct me, but it seems like one of the simpler tasks. Even if you guessed, you’d have a 50/50 shot at getting it right. It seems like people installing sinks sometimes just take a wild guess. Maybe it’s DIY enthusiasts making these mistakes—just saying.
It’s not like it’s a huge deal (it’s not making the country come to a halt), but I’ve visited three houses recently with taps that are all mixed up. They have fancy labels saying “Cold” and “Hot,” yet they spew the opposite. So, I end up brushing my teeth with hot water, washing my face with cold, and waiting forever for drinkable cool water. Just set the taps the right way, please. It’s not rocket science!
The worst part is when it’s your own house with the wrong taps. You have to give every visitor the “Wrong Tap Speech” when they want a glass of water. Trust me, I’ve experienced this in two houses.
Again, I hate to nag, but connecting taps to the right pipes should be a basic skill for a plumber. It’s one of those simple but crucial tasks, like making sure a toilet flushes well and doesn’t sound like Niagara Falls for days after flushing. (And don’t get me started on toilets with those stiff little metal flush buttons.)
Imagine if people in other professions messed up basic parts of their job. Like a surgeon constantly operating on the wrong body part. Or, in a garage—“Brian, you serviced that Jeep, and put engine oil in the washer fluid tank again!”
My friend Tasha had a car in sixth form where the horn was wired to the indicators, so it beeped every time we turned. It was funny, but definitely made us question the mechanic’s skills.
Anyway, I’m veering off into a tangent, so I’ll stop. I’m trying to rant less for my own sanity.