These three pictures show the taps I have in my flat in Glasgow. Can you see what is different with them? They have separate taps for cold and hot water! I found this very weird at first time because I had never seen a tap designed like this before. And, yes, this gives me hard times every time I need to use them. The hot tap gives really hot water and the cold tap gives very cold water (especially in the winter). So, washing dishes can be a really torturing job this way. Rubber gloves manufacturers should be very thankful for this anyway. Haha..
The next question is why they make the taps like this? I did not know the answer until I browsed a little bit about it. I am still not sure about the answer though, but it is probably because the hot water is not very safe to be consumed. The hot water might have been contaminated with metal from the heater (CMMIW). FYI, you can drink immediately water from the taps here. Therefore, they have to separate hot water from the cold water, so that people can drink directly from the cold tap.
In Japan and Israel, people can also drink water directly from the taps. But, they did not separate the hot from the cold. So, people can adjust the temperature as they want. Probably, they have different heating process there that is safer for health. The picture on the side is a Japanese tap picture that I took a couple years ago.
Fortunately, they do not design the same way for our shower! I cannot imagine taking a shower with extremely hot/cold water.
