The Zip Water Collection

Zip Water learned its trade in commercial kitchens, not domestic ones. Offices, hospitals and busy canteens are where the HydroTap earned its reputation, filtering and dispensing water to hundreds of people a day without missing a beat, so what lands on your worktop is workplace-grade equipment scaled down to fit a home. HydroTap is the name that covers the whole range, and there's enough variation inside it that the real question isn't whether to buy one, it's which one.

What Zip is known for

Filtration comes before anything else happens to the water, and that ordering is the whole argument for the brand in one sentence. Every drop is cleaned before it's heated, chilled or carbonated, so what fills your cup has been through a cartridge, not just a boiler.

Duty is the second reason people choose Zip. A HydroTap built for a staff kitchen has to serve all day without flinching, and the version that reaches a home kitchen runs on the same platform rather than a scaled-down imitation of it. Ask less of a machine built for more, and it tends to last a long time.

The third is how Zip treats its own history. The G5 succeeded the G4, and it did so as an evolution rather than a clean break, so a kitchen running the earlier platform isn't stranded, and a newer installation isn't a gamble on something untested. Equipment that stays put in a kitchen for years benefits from a maker who thinks the same way.

Choosing the right Zip range

Start with what you want out of the spout. If the kettle's the target, boiling water taps are where most people begin, because that's the function that clears the worktop and cuts the wait for a cup of tea. Want the fridge jug gone instead? Chilled water taps do that job, holding cold water on tap rather than in the door. Get through bottled sparkling most weeks, and sparkling water taps turn that habit into a twist of the handle, no crate involved. Most HydroTaps combine more than one of these at once, so treat the three as ingredients you're mixing together, not separate products to choose between.

The tap's shape matters too. A pull-out HydroTap puts a hose in the spout, so one fitting rinses a pan, fills a stockpot and pours boiling water, which is the version worth choosing if this tap is replacing your only one rather than sharing the sink with a second mixer.

Where the tap's going narrows things further. Kitting out a home? The home range is finished to sit alongside ordinary kitchen hardware rather than look like it wandered in from an office. Specifying for a workplace instead? The workplace range is built for throughput and easy servicing over good looks, and a specified project should also check the WRAS approved models, since that's the assurance a plumber or a spec sheet will usually ask for on anything fed straight from the mains.

Two more collections sit alongside the taps rather than in competition with them, and both are worth a look before you commit to anything. Zip filters and cartridges are the consumable every HydroTap asks for on a schedule, and Zip accessories cover the fonts, drains, cylinders and fittings that finish an install. Between them, they show what owning one actually involves, which a spec sheet never quite manages.

Living with a Zip tap

A Zip is something you keep, not just something you install, and almost everything it asks of you afterwards is upkeep rather than surprise. Filters are the main one: the system counts water through the cartridge rather than counting days, so a hard water area reaches a change sooner than a soft one, and the tap tells you when it's due. Sparkling models add a CO2 cylinder to the same rhythm, and both are simpler to manage bought from wherever you bought the tap.

Servicing is the real difference between a Zip and an ordinary tap. The heating and chilling side rewards a periodic look from an engineer rather than a plumber, and Zip runs a service network built for exactly that, which is a fair trade for equipment designed to run all day without complaint.

Still weighing Zip against other makers rather than deciding between Zip's own ranges? Whichever water brought you here has a cross-brand home to compare against first, whether that's boiling water taps, chilled water kitchen taps or sparkling water kitchen taps. For a hose in the spout across every brand we carry, see pull-out taps.

Why shop with The Tap Collection

Every order includes free mainland UK delivery and the full manufacturer warranty, and you can spread the cost with Klarna or PayPal Pay in 3 at checkout. Our UK based team is happy to help with finish matching advice and compatibility questions: call 0330 133 2247, email info@thetapcollection.co.uk or send us a message through our contact form. We are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and aim to reply within 24 hours on working days.