Water Distillers

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It's rainwater time!
 
I'm on my 3rd gallon of distilled water in a week. At $1.99 a gallon, I'm already looking forward to the snow coming this week.
I didn't know ro systems were so wasteful...are they all like that?
 
Yeah I think most ro systems are pretty wasteful.
I just go to the store and fill up (3) 5 gallon jugs. It costs me three bucks a jug.
I use about 1 jug a week.
I was filling up at Sobeys and they had a TDS of around 10-15 , but I now go to Save-On-Foods and the water reads 0 every time.
 
If you buy a 5 or 6 stage RO , it will be read 0.
You need to change.membrane and filters off course as duely needed.
It helps.if you reuse the waste portion of water for gardening especially for those who pay for water unlike here in BC, it is all you can use.
 
Yeah I think most ro systems are pretty wasteful.
I just go to the store and fill up (3) 5 gallon jugs. It costs me three bucks a jug.
I use about 1 jug a week.
I was filling up at Sobeys and they had a TDS of around 10-15 , but I now go to Save-On-Foods and the water reads 0 every time.
RO is definitely wasteful but I really doubt that you're saving by buying distilled water from the store. The price of tap water might be a bit different depending on where you are but for me its $4.6171/m^3. Most RO systems are 2:1 - 3:1 (waste : product) and 1 m^3 ~= 264 gals so for $4.62 I'm getting ~66-88 gallons of RO water.
If you use 5gal a week then you're spending ~$150 a year on distilled water, the cost of water to run a RO system for that much water would only cost ~$20 and you can find a budget RO system for ~$70-80 (look for the ones made for aquarium systems rather than drinking). Imo, it's definitely a worthwhile investment, especially if you plan on keeping carnivorous plants in the long term.

And also, while producing distilled water doesn't waste much water, it uses a huge amount of energy to boil the water.
 
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I'm sure RO is reasonable especially if you save the waste water.
I use to have a distiller and at night in Toronto, the energy use and depreciation on the distiller was much cheaper than $1.99 for 4 liters, the local cheap price at the time.
Rain is best if you have a little space outside, maybe 1 m**2.
 
This whole conversation is very helpful. I had no idea a water filter like the ZeroWater one could be used. I hate running to the store to fill up my distilled jugs and they take up a lot of space in my small place since I fill 4 at a time. Rainwater is not an option (in an apartment with a covered balcony), and the past few summers we haven't been getting rain anyway.
 
This whole conversation is very helpful. I had no idea a water filter like the ZeroWater one could be used. I hate running to the store to fill up my distilled jugs and they take up a lot of space in my small place since I fill 4 at a time. Rainwater is not an option (in an apartment with a covered balcony), and the past few summers we haven't been getting rain anyway.

I have been using a ZeroWater for about two years for all my plants and it has been great. My tap water is about 150-200ppm and the ZeroWater will produce about 2 liters a day for 4-6 weeks no problems before it registers 1ppm.
 
I distilled four 3.7 litre 0-TDS jugs yesterday. In winter, I typically distill 16 - 18 jugs per week (humidifier, watering and drinking). Not as inexpensive as rainwater but much cheaper than buying it. Also, no accumulation of extra bottles supposedly going to recycling. Distilled water prices have gone up over 14 months at Wallymart. It was 97 cents, then $1.17, and now $1.27 (that's about a 26% increase .. for water). Like Lloyd, I collect (and filter) FREE rainwater all summer for the CPs. Also, use water from the dehumidifier for plants.
 
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I water my plants with tap water (typically 35 to 60 PPM) but have been using a 4 liter canister of mixed bed deionization resin to produce 0 TDS water for my misting system to avoid clogged misting heads and to prevent water spots from building up on my plants. I picked this over an RO/DI system since my tap water is already relatively low TDS, and this avoids producing waste water. It was around $200 on sale and is basically an oversized Zero Water filter sold as a spotless car wash rinse system. So far I've produced about 200 liters of water (~5 liters per day).

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It should be able to produce around 3000 to 5000 liters of 0 TDS water before the resin is exhausted, at which point I'd either have to pay around $80 for a fresh load of mixed bed resin or regenerate the used resin.

I'd estimate that the initial cost for producing water, including the upfront cost of purchasing the canister, is somewhere between $0.05 and $0.12 per liter, depending on how long the resin lasts.
Once I start reloading or regenerating resin the cost decreases to something like <$0.01 to $0.02 per liter.
 
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