What's wrong with using tap water?

archangle · Post by **archangle** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 2:29 pm

tyroneshoes2 wrote:
gasp wrote:Boiling water does not purify water. Heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, and pharmaceuticals among other things may still remain. I'm with those who endorse erring on the side of being safe and using distilled - plus I don't like to deal with deposits in my humidification chamber.
Boiling it does not purify it, but evaporating it does, and that is exactly what the humidifier module does. For any contaminant in the water to make it into the evaporative vapor would violate the physical laws of the universe. So, that does not happen.

Boiling kills many of the germs.

Distilling changes the proportion of various chemicals. Things like salt will be almost entirely left behind. Other chemicals will go through the distillation process and come out in the distillate (distilled water) in various concentrations. It's even possible that certain volatile compounds will be more concentrated in the distillate than in the original water. For instance, at the right temperature, a liquor still removes most of the water and concentrates the alcohol and other volatile compounds in the distillate.

Fun fact, you can't distill alcohol higher than about 95% with simple distilation, there will always be about 5% water in the final product.

The more carefully you control the distillation process, especially the temperature profiles, the more pure you can make the distillate.

PlinkerCraig · Post by **PlinkerCraig** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 3:09 pm

I've decided to keep my life simple. Portland Oregon's tap water is so good I swear I could quit my job and buy a milk truck to haul Oregon tap water to California and sell it for a dollar per pint.

A simple morning routine of dumping out the water from the chamber and letting air dry is all that I need. A new chamber costs about $20 if I ever need to replace it. I'm more likely to drop and break it than I am to have it gum up with calcium deposits.

I do admit that if I lived in Santa Barbara California then I'd quit using tap water because of hard water.

Sheffey · Post by **Sheffey** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 6:59 pm

PlinkerCraig wrote: Portland Oregon's tap water is so good I swear I could quit my job and buy a milk truck to haul Oregon tap water to California and sell it for a dollar per pint.

Don't quit your job yet. I don't think a dollar per pint would cover all the licensing, permits, regulatory and liability insurance costs.

palerider · Post by **palerider** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 7:47 pm

plus, it doesn't have flouride, so native portlanders have far worse teeth than most folks.

I've got a friend who lives in, and loves portland, but she's not a native, ... back when there was that big stupidity about adding flouride to the water recently, she told me the story of her first visit to a portland dentist.

she sat down, opened her mouth, the dentist took a look inside and his first were were:

"You didn't grow up around here, did you?"

RicaLynn · Post by **RicaLynn** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 8:19 pm

palerider wrote:plus, it doesn't have flouride, so native portlanders have far worse teeth than most folks.

I've got a friend who lives in, and loves portland, but she's not a native, ... back when there was that big stupidity about adding flouride to the water recently, she told me the story of her first visit to a portland dentist.

she sat down, opened her mouth, the dentist took a look inside and his first were were:

"You didn't grow up around here, did you?"

I've lived in the country, on well or spring water, all my life. I recall a *few* monthly fluoride treatments in primary school, but no supplements or anything of that nature, and I was, shall we say, less than diligent about my oral hygiene. I got my first cavity at 17, have had a total of six all in my deep molars, and no chips or cracks of any kind.

palerider · Post by **palerider** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 8:38 pm

RicaLynn wrote:I've lived in the country, on well or spring water, all my life. I recall a *few* monthly fluoride treatments in primary school, but no supplements or anything of that nature, and I was, shall we say, less than diligent about my oral hygiene. I got my first cavity at 17, have had a total of six all in my deep molars, and no chips or cracks of any kind.

I too grew up outisde the city, we got our water from a deep well, it had a LOT of minerals in it.... (we didn't quite get gravel out of the tap, but close)... and I too ended up with pretty strong teeth.

fun fact, almost all groundwater has some level of flouride in it

BobEMiller · Post by **BobEMiller** » Sun Aug 19, 2018 4:02 am

Warning!"DO NOT" use tap water! After 15 years of using a CPAP, I believe I have damaged the circulatory system to my heart with tap water. I am a non-smoker, yet I have complete blockage build up that wasn't there ten years ago. Ten years ago I had a heart catheter (& stent placement), for blockage in an unrelated area of my heart. The doctor that placed the stents then, made note yesterday that the artery that is now 100% blocked, was completely clean ten years ago. I had another heart catheter about 5 years ago, different Doctor, and that artery was at 60% blockage but he decided not to stent. I believe it quite plausible, that in this new area of my heart, to build up blockage in such a short time, the only thing that has changed in my life was adding a dirty CPAP machine due to tap water.
These are my thoughts right now, and I will be discussing this with my Doctor next time I see him in a month.

Pugsy · Post by **Pugsy** » Sun Aug 19, 2018 4:38 am

Zombie thread alert.
Old dead thread resurrected by a newbie.

Julie · Post by **Julie** » Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:34 am

The only part of a machine that could be 'dirty' is the outside, and possibly the mask if you never clean it, but plain tap water, even if it's 'hard' (many minerals) is not responsible for your cardiac problems... pure nonsense. Far more likely reasons would be genetics, bad diet, anxiety/stress, lack of exercise and just plain age.

palerider · Post by **palerider** » Sun Aug 19, 2018 8:05 am

BobEMiller wrote: ↑
Sun Aug 19, 2018 4:02 am
Warning!"DO NOT" use tap water! After 15 years of using a CPAP, I believe I have damaged the circulatory system to my heart with tap water. I am a non-smoker, yet I have complete blockage build up that wasn't there ten years ago. Ten years ago I had a heart catheter (& stent placement), for blockage in an unrelated area of my heart. The doctor that placed the stents then, made note yesterday that the artery that is now 100% blocked, was completely clean ten years ago. I had another heart catheter about 5 years ago, different Doctor, and that artery was at 60% blockage but he decided not to stent. I believe it quite plausible, that in this new area of my heart, to build up blockage in such a short time, the only thing that has changed in my life was adding a dirty CPAP machine due to tap water.
These are my thoughts right now, and I will be discussing this with my Doctor next time I see him in a month.

This is a perfect example of a post that should not have been allowed on the forum.

Some troll spreading terrible misinformation, nothing but garbage.

mlk18 · Post by **mlk18** » Sun Aug 19, 2018 8:14 am

I did not read this whole thread, and am not an expert on this subject, but a few years ago a number of people died from using tap water in their neti pots (a pot used to pour water into one's nasal passages to clear out nasty stuff). Apparently there was some kind of amoeba called naegleria fowleri that got into the water supply and caused a serious infection. I checked with the local water treatment plant and they advised that they had some of the cleanest water in the nation, but that municipal water is never going to get out every contaminant. That was enough to convince me that using distilled water was the way to go. I will also report that since making the switch to distilled only I have seen a definite improvement in my respiratory health (less cough & colds, less congestion, less allergies symptoms, etc.). Just my two cents.

palerider · Post by **palerider** » Sun Aug 19, 2018 8:25 am

mlk18 wrote: ↑
Sun Aug 19, 2018 8:14 am
I did not read this whole thread, and am not an expert on this subject, but a few years ago a number of people died from using tap water in their neti pots (a pot used to pour water into one's nasal passages to clear out nasty stuff). Apparently there was some kind of amoeba called naegleria fowleri that got into the water supply and caused a serious infection.

This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with cpap usage, you're breathing low temperature steam vapor, not snorting the water up your nose.

mlk18 wrote: ↑
Sun Aug 19, 2018 8:14 am
I checked with the local water treatment plant and they advised that they had some of the cleanest water in the nation, but that municipal water is never going to get out every contaminant. That was enough to convince me that using distilled water was the way to go. I will also report that since making the switch to distilled only I have seen a definite improvement in my respiratory health (less cough & colds, less congestion, less allergies symptoms, etc.). Just my two cents.

Your two cents are worth nothing.

Distilled water is nothing but a *convenience* so that you don't have to descale the water tank.

In other countries, where distilled water is not as easy to get, the cpap manuals say "Use water", not "use distilled water".

D.H. · Post by **D.H.** » Sun Aug 19, 2018 8:34 am

If the water is safe to drink, it's safe to put in the humidifier. Of course, that does not include favored, colored, or carbonated water!

However, distilled water is batter, as it doesn't leave a residue.

ChicagoGranny · Post by **ChicagoGranny** » Sun Aug 19, 2018 12:05 pm

BobEMiller wrote: ↑
Sun Aug 19, 2018 4:02 am
I believe it quite plausible, that in this new area of my heart, to build up blockage in such a short time, the only thing that has changed in my life was adding a dirty CPAP machine due to tap water.
These are my thoughts right now, and I will be discussing this with my Doctor next time I see him in a month.

Good. The doctor should get a good laugh out of this and hopefully set you straight.

HoseCrusher · Post by **HoseCrusher** » Sun Aug 19, 2018 3:15 pm

I am big on finding the root cause. In this case the symptom should first show up in the lungs and then spread out from there. In addition there are a set of circumstances that have to be met to aerosolize water from the humidifier and most of these machines are designed to minimize that.

Perhaps he went walking in the rain and breathed in some rain mist. This is a much higher potential hazard to the lungs than using tap water in the humidifier. Now how do you get from a lung infection to coronary blockage...

Still working on that one.

What's wrong with using tap water?

Re: What's wrong with using tap water?