Why replace the humidifier water everyday?

sl33py wrote:This may be a silly question but... Why did the person instructing on the proper use say that the distilled water to be used in the humidifier must be replaced each day and that it should be filled all the way to the max line each day. Last night was the first night using it and it barely used any of the water. It seems a waste to dump it everyday.. Am I being way too frugal?

My DME's instruction to REFILL the distilled water was to save MONEY.

But

I am using plain faucet water which is clean and balanced in my area. Distilled water bought in stores is too acidic, imo, for our bodies. The one bought in pharmacies and which the pharmacists use themselves might have the right PH.

Every evening I empty the humidifier chamber and rinse it twice with the faucet water. No soap at this time.

Once a week I place a few drops of liquid soap in the chamber with the faucet water and shake it vigorously. Next, I rinse it three times, same as our dish washer does.

Once a month I take the humidifier chamber apart and wash it together with the other machine parts.

BrandonB wrote: I also use 3/4 of the tank each night so far. DME told me to wash it each week. But I am doing distilled and will see what it's like if I don't. Only worry is what will happen in the winter if I'm already using 3/4 of the tank!

With winter and air that is less humid (furnaces and such) I wondered about this myself when I first started and I found that the amount of water used wasn't that much more unless I really slept in and got more than usual hours of sleep.
Should you find that you are using all your water (you will know the plastic stinks something awful) you might just drop your setting a notch and get by. With the S9 heated hose you may have more wiggle room between comfort and amount of water used.

Distilled water at Walmart where I live is $.83 a gallon so it is cheap and works for me since I am lazy When I travel I use tap water and just dump it each day so no chance of mineral deposits. Where I live we have well water with a very high limestone and iron content. So I limit the mineral build up with distilled water. It is a visual thing. The build up doesn't hurt anything but I just like a clear tank.

Now if I was one of those people whose settings didn't use up a lot of water (like need to fill once a week) I probably would just use less water in the tank so that it doesn't sit for a prolonged period of time. Not that it would probably hurt anything. I just would want to limit the opportunity for anything to multiply in the tank. I have dogs and cats and lots of stuff flying around in the air. I do change my filters regularly though which also would limit anything getting into the water tank.

Everyone has their own preference on how they clean and take care of their gear. I was much more rigid with my cleaning schedule when I first started therapy. Dump tank every morning. Wash hose once a week. Wash nasal pillows daily. Now I can't remember when I washed the long hose and I found out the nasal pillows do just fine if I go several days. Lazy works for me. I do use the barrel cozy year round now (like the way it feels) so that is going to protect most of the nasal pillow. I was it every couple of weeks or so.

Each person has to decide what schedule they are comfortable with. I personally don't like the smell of vinegar. Tried it. No amount of rinsing gets it gone so I don't use it. Others like it and use it often. Each to their own.

In 2 1/2 years of therapy I have had 2 colds, courtesy of my husband. Both were short lived. For other people with other health issues and a weakened immune system then by all means be a little more aggressive with cleaning if you wish. Whatever helps a person sleep better and night and not worry...that is what they should do. Not what I do or someone else does unless it happens to suit you also.

Thanks Pugsy!

I am sure I will notice when it runs out and begin to adjust accordingly. Right now I'm at 80 degrees, the default I believe. It was like that when I got it and I am NOT waking up any more stuffy, dry, etc than normal. In fact, while I still need to blow out my nose to morning and clear it up, it is SIGNIFICANTLY less clogged up than before I was using the CPAP machine. Haven't tried any other setting because of the mantra "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"! LOL

I've used xPAP therapy for more than 20 years. I use distilled water. I probably only wash my humidifier once a quarter or so. If you have a good filter in place and use distilled water there should not be any nutrients to allow anything to flourish.

But having said that, I have twice (in 20 years) had to clean my hose and humidifier due to a 'dirty sock' smell. Apparently something found enough nutrients to live. A little bit of dish soap cleared it right up.

So, you might need to clean the unit. But normally I do not. And it's not a big deal.

I run at 86 degrees on my Climatline Hose and 5.5 on the humidity. After a full nights sleep, I'm almost empty. I just refill and clean the tank once a week. I have the new take a part tank, so that makes the cleaning easier.

archangle wrote:

HoseCrusher wrote:The problem comes when you have a warm moist area that can concentrate them and encourage them to multiply. This can give you exposure to a concentration of them.

If you use distilled water, there's nothing for the bacteria to feed on in the water. They won't necessarily die, but they'll be unable to multiply.

If you don't ever dump the water and clean the tank, you might eventually accumulate enough dust from the air for the bugs to have something to feed on.

It seems you haven't read your science books...

From this source we have

http://books.google.com/books?id=R3rnW8 ... &q&f=false

"The ability of some micro organisms to grow in distilled water has long been recognized..."

and from this source we have...

http://textbookofbacteriology.net/pseudomonas.html

"Pseudomonas aeruginosa has very simple nutritional requirements. It is often observed "growing in distilled water", which is evidence of its minimal nutritional needs."

It seems that the optimum temperature to grow "things" in water is when the water is a around 99 F. If I remember correctly, humidifiers run close to that temperature.

What is even more interesting is that if you add a little salt to the water, it makes it much more resistant to growing micro organisms...

At any rate, I think the best advice is to let your immune system be your guide. If you don't experience any issues, just continue what you are doing. If you experience issues, cleaning more often may help.

I fill my tank well above the max fill line every night, and since I use the highest heat setting, it uses up every drop. So, I'm just refilling it each night with distilled water.

About once every 2 or 3 weeks I soak the tank with 1 part vinegar, 2 parts tap, then I rinse with tap and then rinse with distilled.

No problems yet.

HoseCrusher wrote: It seems you haven't read your science books...

From this source we have

http://books.google.com/books?id=R3rnW8 ... &q&f=false

"The ability of some micro organisms to grow in distilled water has long been recognized..."

and from this source we have...

http://textbookofbacteriology.net/pseudomonas.html

"Pseudomonas aeruginosa has very simple nutritional requirements. It is often observed "growing in distilled water", which is evidence of its minimal nutritional needs."

It seems that the optimum temperature to grow "things" in water is when the water is a around 99 F. If I remember correctly, humidifiers run close to that temperature.

What is even more interesting is that if you add a little salt to the water, it makes it much more resistant to growing micro organisms...

At any rate, I think the best advice is to let your immune system be your guide. If you don't experience any issues, just continue what you are doing. If you experience issues, cleaning more often may help.

Interesting info, thanks. Apparently, ONE particular bacteria may be able to grow a little bit in distilled water, limited by the amount of ammonia in the air. It seems that even the people writing about it are surprised by this because most other organisms can't grow in distilled water.

It sounds like the growth rate is pretty small, and only a very limited number of bugs can do this trick.

I guess this shouldn't be too surprising. It seems we keep finding organisms that can live in almost any environment. I've heard recently about organisms that eat iron, can live off of a difference in salinity as an energy source, bacteria and other bugs that can survive being boiled, prions that can survive 280F, live in the scalding hot toxic water at hydrothermal vents, etc.

A few bugs here or there wont kill you.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the flow rate through the humidifier is somewhere around 30 liters per minute. Let's see now, 60 minutes in an hour, and a typical nights sleep is something like 6 hours, so we end up with 10800 liters of air flowing through the humidifier each night. That is close to half the volume of air in a typical bedroom. How long do you think distilled water remains pure with that much "dusty" air flowing...?

I do not fill my humidifier all the way. In the morning, I look at how much is left & then dump it. If there was alot of water left, I put less in at night. Since I upped the setting on the humi, I put a little more water in. Maybe, with winter coming on & the house getting drier, I will eventually need to fill it all the way.

As far as leaving the water in the humi for more that a day, better safe than sorry.

I use distilled water, after reading about the man killed by a brain-eating amoeba apparently coming from his tap water--don't want any of those trying to climb up the hose!

As for replacing water, I try to use the minimum possible, in the first place, seeing no reason to fill to the top. I keep the humidifier on a low setting, heat-wise, as that seems to work best for me in terms of stuffiness. Knowing from experience how much will be used, I put about 3/8" of water in the tank each night. If any is left, I pour it out in the morning. I then connect the tank and hose to an old Cpap machine turned up high, that I use as a blower to dry things out--don't manage this every morning, but I try. My philosophy is that with the hose and tank dry, things are less likely to grow. At infrequent intervals (a few months), I wash the tank, hose and mask parts with detergent and/or replace the hose/mask.

I drink rain water from my tank. In the morning I use the water in my cup next to the bed that I havent drunk because I've got this stupid mask on (I'm thinking about trying out a straw, now that summer is coming up) - to top up the humidifier, I clean it with 5% vinegar once a week, mask, hose, coarse filter. that is clean with dam water, rinse with rain water.

Without scaremongering (brain eating bacteria - yegads), I wonder if legionaires could inhabit a neglected humdifier? wouldnt it be lovely if one person died like this a whole menagerie of regulations came in , including compulsory servicing and log books. have to go the the blackmarket gun dealer types to buy an underround PAP machine.

HoseCrusher wrote:How long do you think distilled water remains pure with that much "dusty" air flowing...?

That's why you have a filter or two on the back. Look at how much dust collects on the foam filter. Then look at how much escapes the foam filter and ends up in the ultrafine filter in 6 months. Then consider that only a fraction of that makes it through the second filter and that only a fraction of the dust goes through the machine ends up in the water instead of going out the hose. Then if there is bacteria in the water, only a small fraction of that will end up somehow getting picked up and blown out the hose.

I top mine to the max line every other day with distilled water.
I found out the hard way, not to over fill it (rain out).
I don't like to waste anything (and I'm cheap ), so when I clean it, once a week, I dump whatever is left in a glass, and pour it back in after cleaning the tub. I've never seen the water be anything but crystal clear.
When I wash it, I put a bit of dawn dish washing detergent and about a cap full of vinegar in it for extra measure. Add water, and swish it around. Then dump it, fill it with tap water and swish it around to rinse it out. After repeating the rinsing procedure about 5 times, I refill it with distilled water and it's ready to go. I've never noticed a vinegar or detergent order.