The Level 3 central kitchen in G12 got a new tap, and some people lost their minds. Fair enough: it has one handle, two touch pads and a boiling-water lock nobody warned us about. Here's the help you need.
Workday module coming soon
A scale model of the actual tap, built from Zip's own drawings: 387 mm tall, handle on the left at 82 mm, spout reaching over the drip-tray font. It runs a demo on its own. Use the buttons to take over. Nothing here is hot.
Everything happens on the one handle on the left side of the tap. Its end face has three parts. You touch the pads, and you roll the whole handle to pour.
Tea, coffee, noodles. Locked until you double-tap SAFETY.
Filtered and cold. No lock, no drama.
Not on this model. That's the BCS, one rung up. We have the BC. No amount of rolling the handle will change this.
Same handle, three recipes. The order matters most for boiling. Every flow starts with the cup on the drip tray, not in your hand.
Difficulty: 1 of 5. Looking for sparkling? This is as fizzy as it gets.
Nothing came out? You missed the flash window. Back to step 3.
The timer doesn't know how big your cup is. A mug is not a bottle.
Two ways to pour, two waters. If in doubt, use manual: it only runs while your hand is on the handle.
| Mode | Move | Runs for | Use it for | Goes wrong when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manual | Roll toward you and hold | Exactly as long as you hold it | Mugs, glasses, top-ups, anything you're watching | Rarely. You let go, it stops. |
| Bottle fill | Roll away once and release | 15 s by default. Adjustable 5–15 s per water type | Bottles and jugs that hold at least 15 s of water | You walk off, or the container is smaller than the timer |
| Water | Pad | Temperature | Lock | Good to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boiling | Red | 98 °C default, held within 1–2 °C. Range 68–100 °C | SAFETY ×2, then roll while it flashes | If "Hot isolation" is switched on, it's 3 slow SAFETY taps instead |
| Chilled | Blue | 6–10 °C default, adjustable on the Command Centre | None | Filtered to 0.2 µm, same as boiling |
Each of these is a thing that has happened, or will. They range from a real burn to mild embarrassment. They're ranked by how much they hurt.
At 98 °C, a serious burn takes well under a second. Even the sleep-mode temperature of 68 °C can cause a deep burn in about a second. Treat red as hot every time, including when the tap looks asleep.
You wanted chilled. The last person picked boiling. The tap remembers. The pad was red, and you didn't look.
FixLook at the pad colour before every pour. Red is 98 °C. The safety lock is your second chance, not your first.
Holding the mug "to be quick". Boiling water splashes off the bottom of a mug, and your fingers are the nearest thing.
FixMug on the drip tray, every time. Hands back until the stream stops.
Steadying the spout, or wiping the outlet, right after a boiling pour. 98 °C water has just run through that metal.
FixDon't touch the outlet after a boiling pour. Wipe it later.
A boiling pour can spit and steam for a moment as it starts. During boiling calibration (start-up, about 10 minutes) Zip warns that steam may vent from the spout.
FixFace and hands out of the space under the spout. If someone has just switched it on, give it 10 minutes.
If sleep mode is on, the tap naps after 2 hours unused or when the room goes dark. Asleep, it still keeps the boiling water at 68 °C by default. Its lights may be off.
FixDark lights don't mean cold water. Same flow, same care.
Bottle fill under a mug, then off to check Slack. The timer runs its full 15 s regardless. A mug holds less than that.
FixBottle fill is for bottles. Stay with it. For mugs, roll toward you and hold.
Tapping SELECT over and over, waiting for a sparkling light. It goes red, blue, red, blue. It will keep doing that.
FixAccept chilled. For bubbles, bring your own bottle.
Someone opens the under-sink Command Centre and "just turns off" the boiling safety lock because it was annoying. Now nobody knows.
FixSettings belong to one nominated person. Zip lets them set a 4-digit passcode. Leave the safety lock on.
Filling the kettle from the boiling tap so the kettle "has less to do". It's harmless, and it confuses everyone who watches.
FixYou already have boiling water. That was the whole point.
Bad practice, illustrated. Every silhouette here is hypothetical. Any resemblance to a colleague is a coincidence you should not bring up at stand-up.
Standing well back and holding the mug out under the spout, as if the tap might bite. The stream catches the rim, the mug tilts, and the water goes everywhere except the mug.
Mouth straight under the spout. It's a shared tap, it sits one roll away from 98 °C, and everyone saw.
InsteadUse a glass. There are glasses.
Rinsing hands, then the lunch container, under the filtered tap. That filter is rated for 4,000 litres of drinking water, not your curry tub.
InsteadWashing up goes to the ordinary sink tap.
Filling a stockpot with 98 °C water, then carrying it past three desks to the microwave. That's several litres of scald on legs.
InsteadBoiling goes into a mug on the tray. Big jobs go in the kettle, at the kettle.
Leaning in to supervise the boiling pour from 10 cm away. Steam rises, and Zip's own guide warns it can vent from the spout.
InsteadStep back while it pours. It doesn't need watching that closely.
Watering the office fiddle-leaf fig with whatever the pad was last set to. It was set to red. The fig did not recover.
InsteadPlants get chilled. Check the colour, as always.
Elbow parked on the handle mid-conversation. The handle rolls, and chilled water quietly runs into the drip tray for the rest of the story.
InsteadThe tap is not an armrest.
The tap is only the faucet. The machine is the Command Centre in the cupboard below: it boils, chills and filters, and it has a colour touch screen. Look, don't fiddle.
Lightly paraphrased. No names.
You're on boiling and the lock is doing its job. Tap SAFETY twice so it flashes, then roll toward you while it's still flashing. If even that does nothing, someone may have switched on Hot isolation, which wants three slow SAFETY taps first.
The water isn't at its set temperature yet. It happens after a long boiling pour, after the tap wakes from sleep, or when it's first switched on. Wait a minute and try again.
There isn't any. This is the BC model: boiling and chilled. Sparkling is the BCS, a step up, which also needs CO₂ cylinders under the sink. Tapping SELECT only ever gives you red or blue.
Boiling can be set from 68 to 100 °C. It ships at 98 °C, which Zip says uses up to 6 % less standby energy than 100 °C, and higher settings slow the flow. Chilled ships at 6–10 °C and has other settings on the Command Centre. Either way, it's a job for the nominated person, not a group vote.
There's an optional setting that pulses the pump just before a boiling pour to keep the flow smooth. It adds a 150 millisecond pause. You're not imagining it.
Probably not. The tap turns its lights off 30 seconds after the room goes dark, and it can sleep after 2 hours unused. Roll the handle: any pour attempt wakes it. Give it time to reach temperature.
Every 12 months or 4,000 litres, whichever comes first. When it's due, all the tap's lights flash every 10 seconds.