Since when do we.....

[Cozzer]

...open taps by turning clockwise?!

I had a new kitchen sink tap - one of those 'dual' something-or-other, 2 taps, one spout - installed by our plumber yesterday evening, and I've already soaked my shirt twice by turning the tap off (but not!)

 

[Adam W.]

I blame the EU.

 

[Spectric]

Maybe they are Australian or some other place in the southern hemisphere because in relation to us they will be upside down, so we are actually feet to feet and the sink waste water spirals the other way as well.

 

[Daniel2]

Metrication

 

[D_W]

...open taps by turning clockwise?!

I had a new kitchen sink tap - one of those 'dual' something-or-other, 2 taps, one spout - installed by our plumber yesterday evening, and I've already soaked my shirt twice by turning the tap off (but not!)

Not sure where this started, but one faucet in the upstairs of our older house was set up that way. If we had guests, they would try to mangle the faucet until it turned left (which one finally found out would work if you turned it hard enough to break it off).

Fortunately, the faucet was in a shower that drained well as the access cover to the shutoff was two floors above the basement (where the tools are) and held on by screws.

When I installed my kitchen a few year ago, I got one of the new type faucets that you can pull the end out on and use restaurant style. For whatever reason, it is cold left and hot right on the control lever. No matter how you orient it, it's backwards from american faucets, so I turned it to the side (even then, one would think forward would be cold and to the rear, warm, but it's still backwards from that - somehow less confusing if the whole apparatus is turned so that you can't use your "regular thoughts" to determine that left is cold and right is hot (because it isn't).

 

[Inspector]

Pretty much all our taps are cold on the right side, clockwise to open and hot on the left side, counter clockwise to open.

Pete

 

[Cozzer]

I blame the EU.

Or perhaps the UE....

 

[Cozzer]

Maybe they are Australian or some other place in the southern hemisphere because in relation to us they will be upside down, so we are actually feet to feet and the sink waste water spirals the outer way as well.

If you've nothing better to do - hoovering, ironing, cleaning the kitchen floor and all those other things that I haven't time to do either - the following is an interesting read.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/nov/13/research.science
Stay well.....

 

[Cozzer]

Pretty much all our taps are cold on the right side, clockwise to open and hot on the left side, counter clockwise to open.

Pete

Yes, that layout - hot left, cold right - is (I think) the norm over here in the UK.
But clockwise to open?!
You colonials and your new fangled ideas!

Stay safe.

 

[AES]

Taps (faucets) don't bother me, but my Peugeot 308, about 2 years old now, is, IMO, overall a lovely car - it satisfies me anyway. But after all this time I STILL cannot get used to the idea that the selector (it's an auto box) needs to be moved FORWARDS to select reverse gear, and vice-versa to move forwards.

WEIRD? Or not? My wife says lots of cars are like that, but I can't remember ever having driven one like that, and I've driven plenty, especially if you include hire cars around the world.

Anyway, even after the above 2 years, this (to my mind "wrong way round") gear selector business has nearly led to some embarrassing car parking incidents - 3 times now.

So am I, as my wife believes, just an old fogey who's finally lost it entirely, or does anyone else have the same idea as me?

For our transatlantic friends, I should perhaps add that Peugeot is a French make (I don't think they import them to the US & Canada).

 

[D_W]

It just occurred to me that the left and right bits now on the lever type faucets here are backwards from the turn faucets (as described in canada, right is cold, left is hot on the turn faucets.

If the faucets have levers, then they turn in opposite directions. If they have handwheels, then counterclockwise.

(unless someone creates mixes and matches internals and handles, which may be what happened- our faucets (mentioned above) turned in opposite directions despite having knobs).

We regarded the female relative who turned the faucets into a broken status as a brute from then on.

 

[Ozi]

I'm adding this to the "Things I didn't know I needed to worry about before I joined this forum folder". It's a much smaller folder often hidden behind the "THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW I NEEDED TO BUY before I got married folder" and dwarfed by "why did I ever think that was a good idea?" a small book available in 16 volumes.

 

[Cabinetman]

Taps (faucets) don't bother me, but my Peugeot 308, about 2 years old now, is, IMO, overall a lovely car - it satisfies me anyway. But after all this time I STILL cannot get used to the idea that the selector (it's an auto box) needs to be moved FORWARDS to select reverse gear, and vice-versa to move forwards.

WEIRD? Or not? My wife says lots of cars are like that, but I can't remember ever having driven one like that, and I've driven plenty, especially if you include hire cars around the world.

Anyway, even after the above 2 years, this (to my mind "wrong way round") gear selector business has nearly led to some embarrassing car parking incidents - 3 times now.

So am I, as my wife believes, just an old fogey who's finally lost it entirely, or does anyone else have the same idea as me?

For our transatlantic friends, I should perhaps add that Peugeot is a French make (I don't think they import them to the US & Canada).

And there you have it, summed up perfectly – it’s French, if there is an awkward way to do it they will certainly try and do it that way. I remember my ex-wife’s Renault five. That had the gearbox in front of the engine with a long rod that went all the way from the front of the car across the engine and through the dashboard. Why!!
I was pretty handy at doing points and things in those days but it took me three hours on that car!
I think you’ll find that putting cold/ blue on the right and red on the left is in the regulations as an aid to blind people. Easy to remember it’s the same as politics. Ian

 

[Cozzer]

And there you have it, summed up perfectly – it’s French, if there is an awkward way to do it they will certainly try and do it that way. I remember my ex-wife’s Renault five. That had the gearbox in front of the engine with a long rod that went all the way from the front of the car across the engine and through the dashboard. Why!!
I was pretty handy at doing points and things in those days but it took me three hours on that car!
I think you’ll find that putting cold/ blue on the right and red on the left is in the regulations as an aid to blind people. Easy to remember it’s the same as politics. Ian

Yes, I had a 5 for a while.
The engine mountings kept shearing with annoying regularity!
One of 'em was more prone to failure than the other, and just "happened" to be three times the price of the other!

 

[John Brown]

Politics in the UK. In the US they swap the colours over to confuse the issue further. Democrats blue, republicans red.

 

[Ollie78]

Has he put the cartridges in opposite sides. My parents have a tap that goes the wrong way because my Dad bought the wrong handed cartridge, gets me every time.

Ollie

 

[John Brown]

Some cartridges are reversible.

 

[Spectric]

That had the gearbox in front of the engine with a long rod that went all the way from the front of the car across the engine and through the dashboard.

If you thought that was bad then you should have tried to fit a new clutch, not a simple job of dropping the box as both drive shafts had to come out and engine moved back, no wonder the french motors got such a reputation for being nightmares to repair.

 

[treeturner123]

It's not just taps, what about door handles! 2 of our doors open when you turn the handle towards the immediate door frame (clockwise), the rest when you turn the other way which is more logical as it is anti-clockwise!!

Work that one out!

Phil

 

[Richard_C]

And there you have it, summed up perfectly – it’s French, if there is an awkward way to do it they will certainly try and do it that way. I remember my ex-wife’s Renault five. That had the gearbox in front of the engine with a long rod that went all the way from the front of the car across the engine and through the dashboard. Why!!

Easy. The R5 started out as a styling exercise which was quickly put into production. For speed of development they used R4 engine and gearbox in the base model and R12 engines for the bigger ones. Remember that cast iron 4 pot engines were loads heavier back then, compared with modern alloy ones. The R4 was a light car, it was designed a bit back to front so the engine sat within the wheelbase and the gearbox in front of the axle line. Made it far less likely to understeer when pressed hard. The R4 had a big engine compartment, plenty of room to run the gear change mechanism over the engine not in the way of anything much. The R5 was a much smaller affair and the engine compartment was tight for space.

I had an early R5 Gordini, frighteningly fast in its day. Odd cross flow hemi head but no overhead cam, pushrods angled in and strange rocker assembly.