Some Like It Hot

Go to the restroom. Wash your hands. Go on. I'll wait until you come back.

OK, I know you didn't do that because shame and laziness prevented you from doing this. But imagine you had gone. Are there two faucets at the sink at the restroom? I never see one with this single handle that you see in a kitchen. I suspect the reason is that they don't look classy enough. If you're a ritzy place, it's better to have two classy knobs than one.

What do the knobs do? The left one is hot. The right one is cold. Tell me, why do you need both? The hot one is really hot. Why do you need really hot water in the restrooms? The only reason to have really hot water is to wash things or to get stuff to dissolve. You might need hot water in the kitchen, but you really don't need it in the restroom. And yet, there it is.

How many people feel that they really need hot water? The common case is lukewarm water, perhaps a little warmer than room temperature, but not much warmer. You probably don't even need cold water unless you like the way cold water feels. The question is why bother having both hot and cold water. It should be mildly warm water, and that's it. Now some places do have mildly warm water using a sensor.

This is one of those design decisions that seem to baffle. Sure, the building needs hot and cold water, but people in restrooms generally don't. OK, so you might argue that someone in that rarest of occasion needs hot water. Fine. Have a special location with a single faucet for that hot water, a little bit like the kind you find at a 7-11 near the coffee, with the red spigot. See how often that's used. It can be there for the once in a blue moon when someone is, say, washing out there lunch tupperware. I know. Those people do exist. But they aren't the common case, and having a special location for that would make it that much easier.

Say no to hot water in restrooms! Some like it hot. But all you all's weird.