Do I need to start with cold water when boiling a pan of it?!

I think the reason we are taught to start with cold water is that cold water is likely to be fresher as it has not been sitting in a tank. These days most homes use hot water up quickly so I cannot imagine that the hot water is very 'old'. That being said my neighbor found a dead rat in the hot water tank, so I always use cold.

I guess I'm getting an education here with all the people saying starting with hot water is fine. The only thing I know for sure is that your hot water tank accumulates a lot of sediment, just grains of whatever, in the bottom of the tank, How much of that gets run thru the pipes to your pot is unknown to me. Maybe I'll try hot water next time I make pasta and see what happens.

I never start with cold water, and my pasta seems to be fine. It may be my imagination, but with an electric stove, it seems faster when I turn the stove on and let it be heating while I run my tap water to get the hottest possible. When I put cold water on a cold stove, it seems to take forever!

If you'd seen the gunk that can settle into the bottom of a hot water heater that I've seen, you'd never drink or cook with hot tap water either.

Keep using the cold water.

Doc Hudson

The Diva, it doesn't matter, just boil your water and enjoy your pasta.

I use hot water boiled from the kettle.

Hot tap water is just fine. Makes no difference