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Post by tael on Feb 14, 2009 5:54:40 GMT -5
Hello all, Just wondering if anyone knows a good place to get a small, reliable water distiller. I don't have much room in my apartment, so I need it to be something relatively small... and anything under 100 dollars is also great! It's hard for me to get rain water since the balcony doesn't allow it, and I don't really feel like hanging buckets from the balcony with the wind that we get here (also it would look sort of...weird...). And I'm sort of sick of buying distilled water, I mean it's not that expensive... but it feels really wasteful with how much I go through now, there's enough plastic in the world I think! Anyway, if anyone knows of anything, it would be greatly appreciated!
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Post by Rick Hillier on Feb 14, 2009 8:00:04 GMT -5
You might be surprised at how much hydro a distiller uses. I used to have one that was designed to fill a secondary tank and then stop. Because I needed a ton of water (and still do) for CP, orchids and a couple of salt water tanks (water changes and topping up), I would run it into a 40-gallon plastic drum from which it was pumped out to various sources by a motorhome pump. Anyway, the distiller normally ran 24/5 or 24/6. My hydro bill was usually in the $300-$350/month range with everything running (plants, aquariums, lights, pumps, heaters, etc.). I couldn't figure out why it was so high, and one day, I shut everything in the house off. When I plugged the distiller back in, my hydro meter ran like crazy. I have since switched to a reverse osmosis unit and cut $80-$100/month from my hydro bill.
I realize that you might not use as much water, but before getting a distiller, I would check its consumption and see how long the payback would be for an RO unit and consider that.
>>> Rick <<<
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Post by tael on Feb 14, 2009 8:08:28 GMT -5
Okay! Do you know a good RO unit that is relatively cheap? I actually don't pay for hydro seperately, it's all inclusive in my rent, but I suppose it's always good to save power. Thanks Rick!
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Post by dvg on Feb 14, 2009 10:19:54 GMT -5
I'm in the market for a RO unit also. Currently going through over 25 gallons of bottled water a week. I'd rather make it at home.
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Post by hal on Feb 14, 2009 10:30:09 GMT -5
Someone posted something about a little device that fits on your tap and gets the TDS down to less than 10 or so, if I remember correctly. It costs about $70 at Aquarium Services.
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Post by tael on Feb 14, 2009 14:06:48 GMT -5
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Post by lloyd on Feb 14, 2009 15:25:41 GMT -5
ecopurehome.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=2&zenid=5b06355dc59ab15bc3a8d7e61fdd0f60I bought a MegaHome water distiller. I got a good deal, it was USD$99 when the dollar was at par with free delivery to the USA where a friend picked it up for me. It uses 36 cents of Toronto electricity for 4 litres of water. Also I'm in an apartment for now where electricity is included. In the winter it really doesn't use any "extra" electricity as it acts as a accessory heater for the apartment. In the summer, ideally it should be used outside so you won't have to pay twice for the air-conditioning.
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Post by lenynero on Feb 14, 2009 19:36:30 GMT -5
Hi Tael,
I bought one of those from Big Al's and it works great.
Depending on the flow of the water I have been getting between 0ppm to 10ppm TDS. The CP's all seem to be very happy with it.
I have so far done about 120 litres without any quality concerns.
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Post by tael on Feb 14, 2009 19:37:40 GMT -5
Great! I'll be getting one in the summer then. Thanks for all the help guys!
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Post by lloyd on Aug 2, 2009 9:56:52 GMT -5
We've discussed TDS before and the general consensus is to use water (RO or distilled or precipitation) with TDS<50ppm. My microbogs were all swamped last week due to the downpours so I drained and kept the water. The TDS of the peaty mixture was ~ 115! There has never been anything in the containers except clean peat, perlite, LFS, plants, distilled and rain water. So clearly TDS has to be qualified as well as quantified: presumably a TDS of 125 from Toronto tapwater (mostly carbonates) would be much worse than my peaty-rainwater mixture with the ~ same TDS. (Toronto rainwater directly caught has a TDS of ~ 7).
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Post by blokeman on Aug 9, 2009 6:17:04 GMT -5
You really need to weigh how much you spend in a year, to really see where you stand in the race for water. I was spending about 5$(october)-10$(april) a week, and getting my RO filter at 300$ was saving myself a lot of money in a year. 250-500$ is how much I would have spent in a year, closer to the latter, due to my ever increasing consumption. Even with the replacement filters needed eventually, I am saving on many things, trips to the pharmacy (gas), plastic in the garbage (well, recycling), I even made a small venture out of it and sell I water at 3$ for 10L instead of the 5$ they charge at the pharmacy... The initial investment hurt, but I really appreciate that I no longer have a burden of lugging 50L+ of water a week (my current consumption) up to my second floor appartment! I just fill a giganto rubbermaid container, and I'm good to go. LOL I almost had a booboo and left it running while I went out to do errands, thank god it's super slow output saved my butt (and insurance rates for the next 7 years)!
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Post by Rug on Aug 9, 2009 10:18:02 GMT -5
Blokeman if I were you I would put the container you are filling into the bath tub. That way you won't have that problem again.
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Post by blokeman on Aug 9, 2009 23:05:44 GMT -5
See, my washer and dryer are in a closet in my kitchen, and running a hose all the way over there is possible, but I'm very happy with my huge rubbermaid container being hidden in my closet, it would be quite the inconvience to have to take a shower with a 35 gallon tub in my tub avoiding getting soap in the water... nah, i learned my lesson, without any consequences thankfully
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