never trust a British plumber

I don't know how they manage it, but but the British must be the worst plumbers since the invention of the outhouse. Everything about their water and waste management systems are...well, annoying. I shall enregister examples thus:
1. Where I come from, Hot + Cold = Warm. Here, however, Hot + Cold = Hot and Cold. More often than not, the taps are separate and on opposing sides of the wash basin. In order to get warm water, you have to plug the sink and let it fill with both. Sounds like it makes sense until you take into account GERMS. Filling the sink to wash your hands is the same as or worse than not washing your hands at all. The glossy porcelain harbors millions upon millions of germs that were washed off of hands, teeth, underwear, shoes, and every other thing that has been in that sink since the last time someone went over it with an acetylene torch. Its just not clean. Rinsing your hands or dishes in the same sitting water that was used to wash them puts the same bacteria and little bits of crud Right back on them. Tap water, as provided by the city, is legally required to meet certain cleanliness criteria. Provided that the water is not allowed to come in contact with anything else after it leaves the pipes, that cleanliness remains constant. Clean water is running water. Whenever harmful microbes manage to get into pipe water it makes huge news and you have to boil your water before you drink it.
My kitchen sink has one nozzle, but still manages to have two separate pipes in it for hot and cold until its on your hands. If you look up into it, you can see a line where hot comes out the front, and cold comes through the back. The result? any handwashing experience is going to be an unpleasant blend of scorching and freezing your hands simultaneously.
2. In a country that seems highly concerned about conservation and the environment, it would only make sense that water-consuming appliances such as toilets should be efficient and do their best to conserve water. In practical applications, however, this is rarely the case. The toilet tanks here are enormous and each downward flush takes at good deal of time, accompanied by water activity that is reminescent of opening the floodgates on the Hoover Dam. Interestingly, the tank refills at a snail's pace--you can hear the trickle of water out of a tiny pipe into it for a good ten minutes. What's more, on bigger, after-dinner type jobs, one flush isn't going to do the trick.
3. British architecture is pretty n'all, but piping fitters seem intent on not marring walls at all by punching holes through them to run tubing. The insides of houses--old and new--are all littered with an inordinate number of pipes, held to the walls with little brackets. They run up the corners, in the middle of walls, and along baseboards, visible everywhere. If aesthetics aren't a big deal to you, there's also the question of the pipes themselves. They run in pairs, with a hot pipe and a cold pipe side-by-side. And if you dare walk around the house in bare feet you'll learn which pipe is hot rather quickly. Its not just a bit of warmth that connects with your unsuspecting tootsie--these puppies could melt lead.
4. I never really appreciated central heating until I no longer had it. Radiators function on the principle that if you heat water over a large surface area, the heat of the water will dissipate through the room and heat it by activating air molecules and making them bump into each other faster and more often. So that explains why rooms heated with radiators are always ice cold save for a five-inch area around the radiator itself. If you ever question whether a radiator is on or not, you would do well to not touch it. Its just like the pipes, only bigger. Its a better idea to instead wave your hand in front of it, then wave the other on the opposite side of your body. They are, however, effective at drying laundry, if you pile it all on top of it, which it says somewhere in the manufacturer's instructions that you shouldn't do. Oh well.
Yeah, plumbing in the UK is due for an overhaul. Lets find a way to make it unintrusive, safe, convenient, clean, and ecologically friendly. Ask your friends in South Carolina, if you need help.