What kind of water can I use in humidifier?

[thesleepermustawake]

Thanks to Pugsy, I'm the proud owner of an h5i humidifier for the resmed s9.
I was wondering if I can use tap water or bottled water in it? on the tank, it says distilled water only.

Believe it or not, distilled water is not that easy to find here...

thanks

[Pugsy]

The distilled recommendation is mainly to help prevent unwanted mineral build up inside the plastic water tank.
People use tap water and bottled water.
Where I live our water is "hard" meaning has a lot of various minerals in it which seems to be mainly iron and limestone. I have used tap water in a pinch when I was out of distilled water and after several days the inside of the water tank starts getting cloudy from the mineral build up.

Should you use tap water and start getting a mineral build up a solution of vinegar will clean it up nicely. Just let it sit for a while and slosh it around a bit and rinse really well.

You can limit the build up by dumping the tank each morning and letting it air dry.
If your water where you live isn't particularly "hard" it may not be much of an issue. I never tried the bottled water but the same would go for it...if it doesn't have a high mineral content it may not be much of an issue.

So you can use whatever water you have available. Distilled water means less cleaning in terms of the potential mineral build up. If worst comes to worst the plastic tanks are replaceable but given where you are ....might be pricey.

I don't know about how micro organisms might fair in the mineral build up as using it for a food source but the yucky white mineral build up is enough that I try to limit it as much as possible...that and I hate the smell of vinegar so I don't routinely like to use it.

Bottom line...it isn't the end of the world if you have to use tap or bottled water. You might have to do a little more cleaning though. Dumping the water each morning and letting the tank air dry will help minimize the build up though.
I am lazy and don't dump mine every day but I use distilled water. If I didn't I would dump every morning and air dry and refill at night.

[Sheriff Buford]

You can use "regular" water. It will leave deposits, but regular tap water will be fine.

Sheriff

[The Latinist]

Use the purest water you can find -- with the least minerals in it. The concern with using non-distilled water is merely that minerals from the water will build up on the humidifier tank. If that happens, use a dilute solution of vinegar to dissolve them.

You could, of course, distill your own water. It's not that hard to make a homemade water still. All you need is something to boil the water in, a container to collect the condensation in, and some pipe to connect them.

[thesleepermustawake]

thanks! I'll probably use bottled water then

[chunkyfrog]

An advantage of this build-up is that it is visible, and you might clean the tank more often,
Something I need to do . . .

[bavinck]

Using distilled water should mean there is nothing left on the tank to clean. I have not cleaned mine in 5 month, only top it up every morning with distilled and it looks brand new still!

[JDS74]

One slight change to pugsy's recommendation.
If you are not using distilled water, then refill the tank, swish it around, and then dump it out and let it air dry before refilling it for the next night.

The partially used water left in the tank has concentrated minerals in it and just dumping and letting it dry will increase the rate that the deposits build up. Rinse those out and the rate of build up will be slowed dramatically.

If I recall correctly, the H5i tank holds about 11 oz of water. If you are using all but 1 oz overnight, the the mineral content of the remaining water is about 10 times higher than when you started.

[Pugsy]

One slight change to pugsy's recommendation.
If you are not using distilled water, then refill the tank, swish it around, and then dump it out and let it air dry before refilling it for the next night.

The partially used water left in the tank has concentrated minerals in it and just dumping and letting it dry will increase the rate that the deposits build up. Rinse those out and the rate of build up will be slowed dramatically.

Good point. I thought it but didn't say it. What? You guys can't read my mind? Tsk, tsk.

Here's what I do when I visit my daughter and don't want to bother with buying distilled water for 3 or 4 days or I run out of distilled and don't want to go to town just yet (I live out in the country and town trip requires burning gas in truck and I am not going to do it just for distilled water).
I dump the water tank (usually gets sloshed around in transit) and I rinse with hot water and dump and then let air dry on the counter...then refill at bedtime. I don't know that the hot water rinse is necessarily any better than a cold water rinse but I just feel better doing it.

[JDS74]

Pugsy,

The hot water increases the solubility of the minerals that have been deposited and remove some of them.
So the hot water rinse is good practice.
Have a nice day.

[physicsbob]

I have one suggestion to those using tap water, if you are using from a municipal water system or if using well water in a known Radon area. I would recommend boiling your water for five minutes and then letting it cool. to remove the dissolved gases in the water. Most city water systems add chlorine and sometimes fluoride to their water.

[archangle]

Thanks to Pugsy, I'm the proud owner of an h5i humidifier for the resmed s9.
I was wondering if I can use tap water or bottled water in it? on the tank, it says distilled water only.

Believe it or not, distilled water is not that easy to find here...

thanks

Get the dishwashable tank. You can buy them from CPAP.com or other online suppliers. It does not require distilled water, although distilled water is still a better idea if you can get it.

[Pugsy]

Get the dishwashable tank. You can buy them from CPAP.com or other online suppliers.

I am pretty sure I sent him the dishwashable tank.

https://www.cpap.com/productpage/resmed ... amber.html

Can't remember for sure though. I had one dishwashable and one of the old regular tanks that are hard to disassemble and I think I sent the dishwashable one.

OP lives in Brazil...impart taxes were awful on just what I sent.

[Goofproof]

I used to use tap water in mine, every month I'd drop the chamber on the floor, to break up the lime scale and remove it. I'd recycle it by building limestone fireplaces with it, after I built three, I switched to the recommended distilled water, I ran out of rooms that needed fireplaces, I couldn't cut the wood fast enough to feed all of them. Jim