[Health] Distilled water storage

[cathyf]

Also another obvious thing is that as soon as the 1 gallon jug of distilled water gets opened it's going to start collecting contaminants.

Getting too OCD about this is silly. Every time I deal with an A10 humidifier tank I chuckle at how it is impossible to get it really clean because you can't even empty all of the water out of all of those stupid nooks and crannies.

Now I have really hard tap water. When I moved into my house I had to replace virtually every faucet within the first year. A water heater lasts about 7 years. I lost my first washer to mineral buildup in the solenoid. I buy distilled water in the gallon jugs because otherwise I'm going to grow stalagmites and stalactites in my water tank, but I have no illusions of sterility...

[Melman]

yes those in stores are there for ages - but they are kept close so no contamination. I think I will just try to make water more often if I store it. But tempted to use just the ZeroWater filter otherwise. I already clean the tank daily more or less.

Your assuming the distilled water in the bottles in the stores is sterile. As explained in the quote from me posted earlier in this thread by Sleeprider, that is not the case. The steam is condensed in a non-sterile condenser, collected in a non-sterile tank, and filled into non-sterile plastic bottles in a non-sterile environment. It is contaminated with environmental bacteria and bacteria shed from the workers before the bottle are capped. The caps themselves do not meet the sealing criteria to assure sterility. To provide assurance of sterility requires a rigorous process that is too costly for mass marketed distilled water selling for around $1/gal.

[Melman]

I found this information helpful from sleepapnea.org.

1)"Is it possible for a patient to catch an infection from a humidifier? Research says, “no”. In fact, the environment in the heated humidifier chamber under most operating conditions is such that the majority of pathogens are rapidly killed.


2) Distilled water is cleaner and lengthens the life of the humidifier; there is no medium for the growth of anything in distilled water. All manufacturers recommend it. Depending on the quality, tap water is not necessarily harmful for use in humidifiers, but well water can be harmful to the chamber if there are a lot of deposits in it."

I agree that it is extremely unlikely that one could be infected by a humidifier but....

1) I don't know who did this research but it wasn't a competent microbiologist. Actually the optimal growth temperature for most pathogens is 30-35 degrees centigrade which is the temperature range at which humidifiers operate. The temperature would need to reach over 150 deg F before any pathogens would begin to die. Fortunately most pathogens will not grow in water alone.

2) There are quite a few microorganisms that grow well in distilled water. Fortunately, all but a very few are not pathogenic. Many have reported slimy colored biofilm in humidifiers. This results from the growth of those organisms.

[upsman]

I agree that it is extremely unlikely that one could be infected by a humidifier but....

1) I don't know who did this research but it wasn't a competent microbiologist. Actually the optimal growth temperature for most pathogens is 30-35 degrees centigrade which is the temperature range at which humidifiers operate. The temperature would need to reach over 150 deg F before any pathogens would begin to die. Fortunately most pathogens will not grow in water alone.

2) There are quite a few microorganisms that grow well in distilled water. Fortunately, all but a very few are not pathogenic. Many have reported slimy colored biofilm in humidifiers. This results from the growth of those organisms.

But you DO agree that most pathogens that would be found in this environment would be too large to be transported by the water vapor produced by CPAP humidification. 
If this is accurate, then the concern about the water being sanitized or sterilized would be moot, right?

I often have a discussion with people who think it's necessary to boil the water they're using first. My response is that this would make the mineral content more concentrated due to evaporation, and is completely unnecessary.

[Melman]

Yuo, bacteria and viruses will not be carried in water vapor.