Why is"demineralized" water not safe? How is it demineralized?
Have you thought about getting a water filter for your water supply? Reverse osmosis or ion exchange.
this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2024
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Honestly, no idea. It's written on the jugs that it's improper for human consumption and destined to be used in appliances. It might just be that it's not been certified, or maybe the general processing chain is not food grade. I dunno. Or maybe because it's been demineralized it lacks the chemicals considered "essential" for drinking water.
There are no essential ingredients in water. There is usually so little in water that you can compare a liter water to a small piece of beard. Also note that in some areas the water is naturally extremely soft.
Yeah, well the water here is so hard that using a boiler once is enough to have it all scaled up. Like opaque white in a single use.
In college I discovered the physics department's distilled-water tap and started filling my water bottles from that because the regular drinking fountain on that floor was nasty. A classmate tried to tell me distilled water would make me die from dissolving all my minerals away or something, which I poo-poohed and kept drinking it for the taste. In hindsight I should probably have avoided it for the same reason as the big sign on the physics department ice maker, also accessible anonymously from the hallway: "No maintenance is performed to deter bacterial growth". Oops. Well I turned out ~~just fine~~ ~~pretty good~~ okay so all's well as ends without food poisoning.
This water will end up in my espresso machine's boiler, I doubt anything really harmful would survive several hours a day at 95C.
i don't know about the ice maker, but wouldn't they test the distilled-water tap? or is that just something you do in clean facilities.
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Not specifically RO, but even better IMO: https://www.megahomedistiller.com/
Also, it's Made in Taiwan, so not supporting China.
I've been using this one for over ten years and it's amazing. Don't need to buy any filters at all, it's very simple and has just one button. Distilling is supposed to be even better than RO, too.
I've been drinking mainly distilled water the whole time and I'm totally fine. The stuff about it being bad for you is nonsense.
Oh nice, this should be what I'm looking for. Bigger energy costs but much less waste water. And available in Europe!
How do you descale it if your water is hard?
As someone who lives in an extremely hard water area, citric acid is your friend. It looks like a giant kettle after all.
You just put a bit of citric acid in it with some water and boil.
$400 for a kettle with a condensation coil? No thanks. Wastes a ton of electricity boiling the water too, so the long term costs are way higher as well.
I use a 7 stage 3M set up. No idea whether this is affordable or not in your region. Here in SE Asia it was a reasonable price.
The RO system is dependent on the membrane. Theres a level of standardization for membranes and pre-filters. This is an example: https://www.freshwatersystems.com/products/axeon-5-stage-ro-system-50-75-gpd Conversely, there’s a lot of branded systems that require special format filters and membranes (https://www.premierh2o.com/ro-pure-plus-voc-system), which can naturally only be sourced from the manufacturer. A good 4-stage system can be sourced for about $200 give or take.
RO was developed to desalinate water. Therefore, if you use a salt-based ion exchange water softener (the standard water softener) and then run that through an RO, it’ll be a pretty straightforward process. The more pressure you can provide up front (within the specs of the system), the more efficient the system will be. (Actually, it’s the pressure differential that really makes a difference, so if you’re pulling out one cup at a time, it’s less efficient than pulling out a litre). If your water is very hard, there will be more brine produced. There are ways to minimize that waste (effectively by injecting it into the hot water supply), if that’s important to you.
A distiller will have the same problems any boiler will have.
I’ve got a softener and a RO. It comes in between 450 and 550ppm and leaves around 30-70ppm. You typically want to see a >90% reduction; less than that and the membrane needs replacing or you may have pressure issues.