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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From what I've read you should be getting adequate minerals from your diet anyways. Ive been drinking RO water for like 2 years now, but I take a multivitamin daily as well.
ELI5: Your body runs on slightly salty water, aka saline. By drinking "pure" /demineralized water, you reduce the concentration. If you only drink distilled water with no other mineral intake, you will start bursting/killing your cells due to osmosis. However, most everyone has plenty of salt/minerals in their diet anyways from food, so it's not a problem for most people. TLDR: don't go on an all distilled water diet, and you'll be fine.
For your cells it does not matter if it is distilled or normal water, the concentration of salts is way too low in either case. Hence drinking 15 liters in one go will kill you. Other than that you will have a hard time getting in trouble from drinking to little salts, unless you live at an ocean and only consume that water for salt while also being extremely careful not to take in any salts... perhaps.
I recently got a waterdrop brand RO filter, which I think will help reduce scale a lot in my espresso machine and probably make descaling faster / easier. I also love basically having no scale build up in my humidifier. My TDS goes from about 100 to 3 or 4 according to the readout on the faucet and my handheld meter. I'm biased though because they accidentally refunded me so I basically got it for free.
I got a "refurbished" G3P800 which looked identical to new and was significantly cheaper than MSRP, so I would check out what they have refurbished on their site or sold through their official store on eBay. They're also on Amazon I'm sure, but I avoid Amazon.
If you choose their cheaper models like the G2 and get a refurbished one they go pretty cheap like just under $200
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.