Distilled Water

[Deborah K.]

HairyReasoner, do you have hard or soft water in your house?  I'm wondering if the Zero Water filter would work for me, but we have extremely hard water here.

[mesenteria]

There is absolutely no reason NOT TO USE local water intended for consumption, for brushing one's teeth, or for ablutions.  If it's safe to shower in, it's safe for your machine.

If the local water is hard, rinse and refill your machine's reservoir daily.

Distilling water at home is rather costly, unless you have a reverse osmosis system hooked directly into your water supply, say under your kitchen sink, that provides clean drinking water.  Use that, or bottled water of the kind for drinking.  Using heat to distill water that isn't solar powered will cost most of us a bundle each month, maybe as much as $30.  If that isn't a problem, just purchase large cases of bottled water.

Do you have a dehumidifier that you need to empty about once a week or more often?  Sterilize and clean the receptacle for the condensate and then use what collects there.  It's very clean and pure, just not entirely hygienic from the point of view of being sterile.

[Sleeprider]

HairyReasoner, do you have hard or soft water in your house?  I'm wondering if the Zero Water filter would work for me, but we have extremely hard water here.

I routinely treat well water at our cottage with very hard water over 270 ppm and the Zero Water filter reduces that to between 2.0 and 8.0 ppm.  I have even opened the cottage and had orange rust-stained water and treated it to crystal clear and acceptable for the humidifier.  Many Zero Water pitchers include a hardness PPM meter.  It will work great for you. Zero is unlike any other filter you can buy.

[HairyReasoner]

HairyReasoner, do you have hard or soft water in your house?  I'm wondering if the Zero Water filter would work for me, but we have extremely hard water here.

It's from a city municipal water supply.  According to Zero Water's website, the water in this municipality has a somewhat high total dissolved solids rating.  I think they estimate I'd get about 15 - 25 gallons before I'd have to change the filter.  However, I drink the water straight from the tap, and it doesn't have any bad taste to it.  With extremely hard water the filter will certainly need to be replaced more often (website indicates some really hard water may get 8 gallons or less per filter), but it still may be more convenient,  but maybe not as cost effective, than distilled water.  If you go to their web site they have a section that gives you an idea how long a filter will last given your water conditions.

[Big Guy]

We have very hard water in our area. We don't drink it or cook with it. We have two water purification pitchers that we use. One is a Zero Water. 

It's not uncommon for us to have to soak the shower heads and such in vinegar from time to time. 

We've thought about a whole house water treatment system, but the industry is about as questionable as anything else these days.