Distilled Water for Humidifier

esel wrote:

palerider wrote:

krl wrote:Curious - when I was getting fitted for my new mask, the cpap guy said I should be emptying out my reservoir everyday to replenish with "fresh" distilled water. I basically fill from the previous use. I know it's inexpensive but seems a bit over the top. I clean weekly, but how much germ-warfare can occur within the water reservoir in one day. I'm not bubble-boy, and my wife laughs at how infrequently I look at dates on food...but this seems extreme to me. K

when you notice pink slime growing in the humidifier tank, you know you've gone a bit too far between cleanings.

Wauu, pink ? I only get it yellow or green...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serratia_marcescens

esel wrote:Great Guess, go back to school . Bacteria need some source of energy, sulfur and iron by them self will not do it.

a little late to the party but welcome none the less. if you cant read maybe you need to have someone read this to you and then do some research for you

esel wrote:Guest wrote:
for those who have the capacity to understand this is from microbeworld dot org

"They "eat" everything from sugar and starch to sunlight, sulfur and iron."

i could be wrong but i thought "sulfur and iron" are minerals found in tap, well, drinking, and/or spring water but not in distilled water or it is NOT distilled water

i guess both you and paprt lack the capacity
same person different alter egoes?

I'm going to admit defeat on this subject and thank Guest for prompting me to do more research and learn something new. After all, that's why I came to this forum. Thanks, Guest!

Serratia marcescens is the bacteria that causes pink slime in wet places. It feeds off of phosphorus (a mineral) and fatty substances such as soap scum. Here is an entertaining as well as informative article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ues-bleed/

Guest wrote: i guess both you and paprt lack the capacity
same person different alter egoes?

No.

I just top off the water that is left over (saves me another trip to the sink in bathroom) and then once a week I give the tank a dish-soap and hot water scrubbing, plus an air dry... just takes a few minutes. Once a month I'll use Control III instead and give it a long soaking in that solution then rinse thoroughly. The Phillips Respironic tanks have a lot of hard-to-clean baffles and corners and I've noticed that a Control III soaking keeps those areas clean. Never any problems.

paprt wrote:I'm going to admit defeat on this subject and thank Guest for prompting me to do more research and learn something new. After all, that's why I came to this forum. Thanks, Guest!

Fair enuff. Isn't that what forums are for? Sharing of wisdom and experiences to better mankind - not just for rude comments, bitter insults, and arguments.

paprt wrote:Serratia marcescens is the bacteria that causes pink slime in wet places. It feeds off of phosphorus (a mineral) and fatty substances such as soap scum. Here is an entertaining as well as informative article: <link removed>

That would explain why it is so often found in sinks but would mean to clean the humidifier chamber with any soap (or even tap water) is counterintuitive.

Yet it does not explain why DMEs tell people to dump their distilled water daily and to clean the chamber weekly, but never mention not to even rinse with tap water.

And to the earlier comment about mineral scale build up being the reason DMEs tell people to use distilled and dump it daily, I would think that DMEs would want you to ruin your chamber so you would buy more and more often. So that is not it.

The reason for this elusive advise from DMEs I suspect is in case anyone gets ill they can say you didn't follow their instructions. Bottom line they don't want to be sued but who does?

My humidifier cleanliness test is to try and write something on the bottom of my humidifiers stainless steel surface with my finger before it even gets green pink or purple. Normally it can go a slight shade of white and i can make out my finger track. That is a sign for an overdue cleaning & disinfection (two separate processes).

I am in Phoenix Arizona and the tap water here is very hard and can be as hard as 22 gpg depending on where the water is sourced from during various times of the year. I do have a hard water softener system installed so the hardness is not an issue. What is an issue in Phoenix is water odor, which is not subject to water quality standards. Basically it can get pretty stinky here, due to the algae that grows in the Valleywide canal system during the late summer.

89¢ for a gallon of distilled is a dooer for me, especially when my grocery store is less than a mile away.

I use the RestedGal top it off method and maybe do a complete clean and disinfect maybe about once a month.

But if you're new to CPAP therapy and cleaning and draining etc etc keeps you happy then it can't do you any harm

I dip a finger in the water, and rub that finger on another.
If it feels a bit too slippery, it's bath time.

Pap-Daddy wrote:

paprt wrote:Serratia marcescens is the bacteria that causes pink slime in wet places. It feeds off of phosphorus (a mineral) and fatty substances such as soap scum. Here is an entertaining as well as informative article: <link removed>

That would explain why it is so often found in sinks but would mean to clean the humidifier chamber with any soap (or even tap water) is counterintuitive.

Yet it does not explain why DMEs tell people to dump their distilled water daily and to clean the chamber weekly, but never mention not to even rinse with tap water.

And to the earlier comment about mineral scale build up being the reason DMEs tell people to use distilled and dump it daily, I would think that DMEs would want you to ruin your chamber so you would buy more and more often. So that is not it.

The reason for this elusive advise from DMEs I suspect is in case anyone gets ill they can say you didn't follow their instructions. Bottom line they don't want to be sued but who does?

My DME's standard recommendation is distilled water in the humidifier, every-other-day vinegar/water soak, and daily dishsoap-and-water cleaning. That's a LOT of vinegar. Perhaps it would be better to recommend the daily cleaning to be done with distilled water?

I've been using my humidifier for a few months and I only use distilled water. I top it off once then I dump it out and let it air dry. No weekly cleaning and so far I can't detect any residue or film in the tank.

Maybe I'm missing something, but if you have distilled water in the closed tank, and no sign of pink anything, why dump it out just to replace it with more distilled water? The time you have the tank open to do that can introduce trouble you otherwise would not have had.

Julie wrote:Maybe I'm missing something, but if you have distilled water in the closed tank, and no sign of pink anything, why dump it out just to replace it with more distilled water? The time you have the tank open to do that can introduce trouble you otherwise would not have had.

It is a good idea to do just that as there are particles that will make it past the filter and get trapped in the water. Some people may not use a fine filter. That's why its a good idea to always use water even if only passover.

You don't get it - the air that goes into the blower does not go into the tank!

Pap-Daddy wrote:

Julie wrote:Maybe I'm missing something, but if you have distilled water in the closed tank, and no sign of pink anything, why dump it out just to replace it with more distilled water? The time you have the tank open to do that can introduce trouble you otherwise would not have had.

It is a good idea to do just that as there are particles that will make it past the filter and get trapped in the water. Some people may not use a fine filter. That's why its a good idea to always use water even if only passover.

The "particles" you are referring to are in the air that you breath every day without any filters.

Julie wrote:You don't get it - the air that goes into the blower does not go into the tank!

it does blow over the surface, and theoretically some tiny amount of the dust that makes it past the air filter just might, possibly maybe by some slim chance land in the water. but if any, only a tiny fraction.

Julie wrote:Maybe I'm missing something, but if you have distilled water in the closed tank, and no sign of pink anything, why dump it out just to replace it with more distilled water? The time you have the tank open to do that can introduce trouble you otherwise would not have had.

Since it's not a closed system contaminates are constantly being introduced by the air blowing across it. Those contaminates include organic materials floating in the air. I know, small amounts.

Usually there usually isn't much left and I want the tank to dry out periodically. Distilled water isn't really all that pure, it still contains small amounts of minerals and other compounds. Once it's removed from a sterile environment things can grow in it especially when mildly heated, although it takes longer than with tap water. Drying it out completely helps with that.

We used to produce purified water for reactor coolant and distillation was only the first step of many. If we had used just distilled water we would have ended up with a lot of low level radioactive water. Neutron flux tends to activate any contaminates in the coolant over time. The stuff we used was interesting, you could look down into 20 feet of it in a reactor vessel and it was basically invisible unless you saw motion. It also tasted horrible, like drinking dryness.