Kitchen Faucets: If left is hot and right is cold, what is forward?

Everyone knows the standard convention for plumbing fixtures: left is hot, right is cold. It’s a standard. This applies to two-handle faucets as well as single-handle faucets. But now we have this new crop of single-handle kitchen faucets without a right and left; you just have forward and backward. What’s the standard now?

There’s no longer a standard!

When you find a kitchen faucet with controls that go forward and backward for hot and cold, how are you supposed to know which is which?

Flip a coin. Seriously. About half of them are installed with hot forward, the other half with hot backwards. This is dumb. If you have the handle facing you, hot is left and cold is right. If you rotate the handle 90°, nothing should change! Hot is now towards you, cold is away. So simple, so easy, so logical. So why can’t we all get on board with this?

I’ve heard some well-intentioned home inspectors (bless their hearts) say that hot should be away, because it would lessen the chance of a burn to a small child. To that, I ask, “Do you really believe what you’re saying?”

Water coming out of the faucet shouldn’t be hot enough to scald anyone instantly. And even if it is, the water doesn’t instantly come out hot; it usually takes several seconds, maybe even up to a minute, to reach full temperature. And even if, by some chance, it comes out instantly scalding, any kid big enough to reach the faucet over the sink is big enough to know better. Sorry, this is a dubious argument that doesn’t hold water.

Call to Action

To anyone who installs faucets: put the hot water forward and the cold water backward. If you’re a manufacturer, please label all your faucets this way so we can all be on the same page.

And if you’re a home inspector, you’d better write this up as a serious safety hazard when it’s wrong—no, just kidding. This probably isn’t something that belongs in a home inspection report, except maybe as an FYI comment.

p.s. – is forward toward you or away from you? <insert GASP> I could argue both sides of this. I chose a side and stuck to it, but I’m not sure this was right.