Heavy water habit impeded

One of the features of UK office life I really like is the boiling water taps. Instant hot drinks! Best thing. And many office buildings have one, including mine. It even  has two! But I always use the one on my floor. And many others do too. 

When I get into the office in the morning, the first thing I do after logging in is filling up a flask. That gets me all the coffees I need for a while. And after lunch I just keep filling it up for my considerable thirst for hot water. 

One day, something looked off with the appliance. It has a little drain that drips condensation water. That was now draining a lot more than that. 

Some days later something else was amiss. It only produced a trickle! It took forever to get a mug full, let alone a flask. I found myself answering emails while waiting for my flask to fill up. 

This takes forever 

It got worse! A while later it stopped giving boiling water altogether. Now what? Estates had long been notified, but they are notoriously slow to react. Our head technician said that if he’d put a kettle in that little kitchen, they would surely not bother with repairing the tap. 

There was another tap there, right? Yes! Down two flights of stairs. And it works. But there is an issue. Normally, nobody uses it. That floor has no offices, and the student space there is barely used. On my floor, there are 10 offices, and a well-used student space. That means that tap gets flushed through a lot. The one downstairs doesn’t. The water in it has been there forever! It’s like drinking mercury. It tasted bad, but it also makes me worry about potential health effects. Is it harmful to drink such metally water?

If we now all use this tap that problem will solve itself, of course. But you seem to need to get through a LOT of water before you get rid of the taste. It really makes for awful coffee! And throwing boiling water away hurts one’s environmental conscience. 

I’m sure we’ll get there one day, one way or the other, but for now I find it very annoying I don’t have access to palatable hot water in my building. With my 5+ flask habit, that’s a nuisance!