Distilled Water vs Boiled Water - Humidifier

Reverse Osmosis seems to cover all bases, even the morning coffee. I have often thought of installing a tap filter just because, but just put it off. I'll have one installed before this time tomorrow night. Thanks to all for the replies on this! I never thought of RO for the humifidier. All the wiser now

NightTrain wrote:Reverse Osmosis seems to cover all bases, even the morning coffee. I have often thought of installing a tap filter just because, but just put it off. I'll have one installed before this time tomorrow night. Thanks to all for the replies on this! I never thought of RO for the humifidier. All the wiser now

a tap filter isn't reverse osmosis, a good Reverse Osmosis system costs over $400.00 and takes up a lot of space under the sink, but they are nice, and the water is great to drink.

A poor man's water filter is a Brita Pitcher, but it doesn't remove desolved line. But being a poor man's it's what I use, but I use distilled water in the HH.

Some notes on the topic of RO..

I have yet to see an RO unit that gets 99.9% pure water as stated earlier in this thread. Most RO membranes are rated at 96% average Rejection. Some are rated up to 98% or 99% under very specific pressures which are unlikely to be met in home use and vary by contaminant.
To get "Pure" water, you need a deionization stage after the RO membrane.
Even then the water is rarely pure, but the minuscule contaminants are usually below 1 TDS (Total Dissolved Solids in Parts per Million) on a meter and will register as zero.

It is very important to sterilize a home RO/DI system at least once a year. Bacteria does grow in the system and does get past the membrane. While this bacteria is harmless to animal digestive systems, I have no clue of the respiratory impacts.

RO/DI systems are actually very inexpensive. I purchased my system on Ebay for less than $100. Mine is a six stage system: sediment - 5 micron carbon - 1 micron carbon - Dow Membrane - DI - carbon polish (post storage tank)

My system produces water that reads a TDS of zero to three depending on input water quality

Here is some good info on RO systems:
http://origin.www.fda.gov/ora/inspect_r ... itg36.html

Here is an Ebay system example:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?G193238CC

Stating the 99+% rejection is best case and purely advertising at work..

I use my RO/DI system primarily for a saltwater reef tank. But it is VERY handy to have water this pure at hand anytime. It is great for cleaning electronics that have had cola accidents..

When I finally get my system up and going, I plan on using the water from it in my humi too..

RO is NOT the purist water known to mankind. its just probably the purist drinking water known to mankind. Ultra pure is defined as ASTM D5127 "Standard Guide for Ultra-Pure Water Used in the Electronics and Semiconductor Industries"[1] and SEMI F63 "Guide for ultrapure water used in semiconductor processing"

i knew this because a local business in my area was a ultra pure delivery service.

ultrapure has no minerals in it what so ever. it is so pure, that you can get sick drinking it. its not healthy to drink water that has no known minerals in it.
thats what they told me.

filtered water is only good if your filters are clean. if there is any bacteria growing in your water filters, your water is being contaminated. we changed our drinking water filters ( for post mix ) once a year.

i also heard somewhere that 90 or 99 % of the water used to make RO water goes down the drain. i heard its the most wasteful way to make clean water.
but i would have to goolle that!

Did you realize that you just responded to a post that was made over nine years ago?!

Nine years, and people still can't follow manufacturers directions to use distilled water in their HH's. There is slow, and really slow, then there are some that won't do what they are told at all costs. Jim

I was told by the RT at the DME I could use distilled or boiled water. Once I saw I could get a gallon of distilled water for about a dollar and it lasts over two weeks -- kinda made the decision easy. I'd much rather spend the dollar rather than spend the time.

Since this discussion keeps coming up in various forms, I'm guessing not everyone can get distilled water that inexpensively.

A Brita filter is mostly good for improving the flavor of cheap hootch.
The filters need to be replaced fairly often to avoid microbe growth in your drinking water.
Yeah, you can get sick.
I know this is an old thread, but my two cents were just bustin' loose!

Happy Friday:
While we're at it...

rigorkrad wrote:i also heard somewhere that 90 or 99 % of the water used to make RO water goes down the drain.

That's about right if you're starting with sea water; RO reject water from a home system is about 30-50%.


Now an economic analysis. IF the only problem with using tap water in your humidifier were salt buildup in the tank:

A humidifier reservoir with heating plate for my machine costs $22.50 from CPAP.com
A gallon of distilled water costs about $1.
So if the humidifier tank becomes unusable after evaporating 22 gallons of tap water and you have to buy another one, that's the break even point.
I go through a gallon every three weeks, so that'd be well over a year. And my insurance pays for a new humidifier every 6-months anyway.

There are other reasons not to use tap water - such as bacterial and mold contamination; that could probably be minimized to acceptable levels with proper sanitation... the risk isn't zero though even with distilled water.

chunkyfrog wrote:A Brita filter is mostly good for improving the flavor of cheap hootch.
The filters need to be replaced fairly often to avoid microbe growth in your drinking water.
Yeah, you can get sick.
I know this is an old thread, but my two cents were just bustin' loose!

on a keurig forum, I saw something that said that brita actually softened the water, and resulted in less buildup in the coffee makers heating tank, as well as references to how, though I don't remember the details. might help with cpaps.