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Thanks Paul for allaying my fears. I get nervous about things like that. It has been suggested here many times that no harm would come from topping off the distilled water as necessary,(hubby uses passover) and every 2wks or so, empty, rinse and air dry. So all is well. Dori

I buy reversely-osmosed water from the local healthfood store. It's cheaper than buying and maintaining a filter system for me. I guess, technically that's filtering, but it's only a tiny step less pure than distilled water.

Nothing but distilled water -- ever......topped off nightly.....
cheers
goose

I wish I could afford to fill it with Grey Goose! Of course, if I could - i wouldn't use it for the humidifier!

BleepingBeauty wrote:Distilled water only here, topped off as needed.

Top it off for me too.

Jan

I have been using tap water for quite a while and had no problems with deposits or contamination. I see that puts me squarely in the minority here as far as the poll. Even if you are worried about calcium build-up a weak solution of citric acid or vinegar will clean it out. Water quality varies a lot, so your results may vary.

I started on distilled but am now on tap water via my water softener with no problems.

A new chamber is $36 and if it lasts just 10 months it's still cheaper to replace rather than buying distilled water every week.

Sleeprider wrote:I have been using tap water for quite a while and had no problems with deposits or contamination. I see that puts me squarely in the minority here as far as the poll. Even if you are worried about calcium build-up a weak solution of citric acid or vinegar will clean it out. Water quality varies a lot, so your results may vary.

...but how do you plan to clean those deposits out of your throat and lungs?

Paul56 wrote: ...but how do you plan to clean those deposits out of your throat and lungs?

I thought the minerals in tap water are considered to be beneficial to your health?

The water evaporates leaving the minerals behind in the water chamber.

The mineral do not make it to your lungs. (However volatile organic compounds in the water might.)

If you feel safe drinking the water, it should be safe in your humidifier.

I use distilled water, and change it every night. I use the distilled water to avoid mineral buildup. Additionally, the water in the tank acts like a filter, pulling water soluble stuff out of the air. Even though I have a high grade air filter on the machine's input, nonparticulates (like chemicals from automobile exhaust-- I live close to a freeway) easily make it through the filter. I rinse the filter after emptying. I either leave it to dry if I do this in the morning, or immediately refill with distilled water if I do it in the evening. Distilled water is cheap enough that it isn't a big deal-- less than a $1 a week. And as I get the feel for how much is really needed, I think this will stretch out to $1 every 10 days or 2 weeks.

Deionized, filtered or softened water still all contain minerals. I have naturally soft water from my well, but it is still chick full of minerals. Water softeners simply trade one dissolved mineral for another. Deionized water simply has all minerals that carry an electric charge removed. Filtered-- has everything except the particulates. Reverse osmosis does a better job but it still contains a lot of minerals.

If the buildup wasn't an issue, any water that is free of volatile organic chemicals and bacteria/viruses would be OK. And I would use most tap waters when I travel. But for short car trips, I will take a small bottle of distilled water.

Wish I could get the cooling water from the TV transmitter at the station I used to work for in Rochester, NY. It was retired last week as part of the 'analog shutoff'. 50 gallons of extremely clean distilled water.....

Most water softeners replace minerals like calcium with sodium, which is much more soluble in water and will not leave deposits.

But sodium is bad for blood pressure. In some houses, the kitchen sink supply bypasses the water softener.

Canadian Lung Association's take on xPAP, humidity and water...

http://preview.tinyurl.com/nnwbhs

An excerpt:

"Use distilled water rather than tap water to reduce the amount of minerals released into humidified air."

Since we are talking about breathing humidified air, from the US Environmental Protection Agency ...

http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/humidif.htm ... Humidifier

Like many other people I spend 8 hours at work a day breathing air from a HVAC system with humidifier that uses tap water, so i hope its OK.

I use distilled water ,after reading this thread ,I noticed that some of you have purchased a distiller ,hmmmm I wonder how pure the water would be if you ran it thru an ro/di unit first ,then distilled it? that would be some high quality H2O right there!