Cleaning heated hose

[shirleymcain]

What is the best way to clean a heated hose? Can it be soaked in vinager water?

[GettingBetter]

Hi Shirley -

I clean my heated hose with plain dish soap and warm water and a bottle brush, rinsing by pouring water in one end and letting it drain out the other. I'm careful not to get the electrical connections on the plug in side with a bit of tape and a piece of plastic. I also have a handheld steamer that I use on the mask end once I've finished washing. I don't clean it every day as some dme have suggested. I do try and clean it once a month or if I've been ill. I haven't had lung rot, so I must be doing something right.

Hope this helps! Happy Snoozing
GB

[Oltremare]

Maybe I'm wrong but I wash my heated hose once a week.
Squeeze the juice of one lemon, dilute with a little water and I do it slide along the hose.
Then, rinsing thoroughly under running water.
I hang the hose to drain it until the evening.
Before using, if necessary, I dry the electrical contacts with a paper towel.
Iwould like to know from forum friends if all this is wrong.
Thank you

[OkyDoky]

Maybe I'm wrong but I wash my heated hose once a week.
Squeeze the juice of one lemon, dilute with a little water and I do it slide along the hose.
Then, rinsing thoroughly under running water.
I hang the hose to drain it until the evening.
Before using, if necessary, I dry the electrical contacts with a paper towel.
Iwould like to know from forum friends if all this is wrong.
Thank you

Sounds like it would smell fresh and clean. ResMed Airsense 10 ClimateLine hoses say you can get the electral end wet but I still try to keep it dry. Respironics cautions you to not get their electral connections wet.

[ChicagoGranny]

What is the best way to clean a heated hose? Can it be soaked in vinager water?

Why does it need cleaning?

[RobertS975]

I run warm tap water through my ResMed hose a few (3-5) times a month. Never a worry about getting the electrical end wet. Have used the same hose for exactly two years now. In fact, I just switched it out to a new hose today, simply because I have now accumulated three new hoses over the two year period (my DME "churning" the system!).

[Sir NoddinOff]

Once a month I pour in about a cup of diluted Control III (read the directions) and swish it around for a minute then let it set half an hour, finally I swish again and let it set for another half hour. I like to rinse with water because it helps knock back the smell. The active ingredients of Control III (in solution) are widely used in hospitals, hospices, health care centers and in barber shops all over the world. I never have hose problems. Get it from our hosts at CPAP.com.
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/Contro ... eaner.html

I try not to get any Control III solution in the electrical contacts but if I do I just dry them off with a Q-tip.

It's pretty simple really: If cleaning gives you peace of mind then do it... if you don't give a crap about cleaning your gear, then don't do it.

[Brinybay]

What is the best way to clean a heated hose? Can it be soaked in vinager water?

Why does it need cleaning?

CG - If you don't keep the mask and hoses clean and sanitized, some really nasty bugs can build up and make you very miserable. See my post here: viewtopic/t110305/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7 ... 3#p1218523

[ChicagoGranny]

CG - If you don't keep the mask and hoses clean and sanitized

I did not ask about the mask. I asked about the hose. The hose stays clean. I use a hose for two or three years without cleaning. (The connector ends get oils from hands, so occasionally they get wiped down. The inside of the hose - I can look into either end and it stays clean.

Sorry that you did not know that masks should be cleaned and had that health problem.

[LSAT]

I have never cleaned my hose. The only thing that goes through it is the filtered room air that you breath everyday, run over distilled water. It's a one way trip. Nothing from your breath can go back into the hose because of the air pressure. If there are germs in your hose, it's because there are germs in your room air.

[mesenteria]

If you have problems with controlling the humidity, and have condensation left inside your hose after you arise each use, there is some potential for pathogen growth, especially molds. The risk is not high, but there is some risk. In that case, it would be smart, I think, to occasionally at least let the hose drain and to air dry it to ensure no growth of molds and exposure to spores that might get lodged in the alveoli of lungs belonging to a person with health issues, including reduced immune response.

I rinse all my apparatus that can be removed and dried/cleaned with a solution of water mixed with potassium metabisulfite. It's the very inexpensive white powder one uses mixed with water to sterilize wine and beer bottles and the rest of the gear if one makes one's own beer and wine. It is lethal to pathogens even in dilute solutions...every effective. Also, you don't need to 'soak' or to let it 'sit'. The sulfites are highly radical and will destroy pathogens on contact.

I am not in a position to claim definitively that what I do is correct and necessary. What I can say is that I have confidence in this cheap insurance that takes up about four minutes of my entire week.

One last comment: I do this because in the PNW where I live, it is humid most of the year, especially during the winter months. Things don't dry out well, even indoors unless using electrical or pyro means. So, hoses don't dry out during the day. I feel it helpful to use the mbs to cut my risks.

[Wulfman...]

If you have problems with controlling the humidity, and have condensation left inside your hose after you arise each use, there is some potential for pathogen growth, especially molds. The risk is not high, but there is some risk. In that case, it would be smart, I think, to occasionally at least let the hose drain and to air dry it to ensure no growth of molds and exposure to spores that might get lodged in the alveoli of lungs belonging to a person with health issues, including reduced immune response.

I rinse all my apparatus that can be removed and dried/cleaned with a solution of water mixed with potassium metabisulfite. It's the very inexpensive white powder one uses mixed with water to sterilize wine and beer bottles and the rest of the gear if one makes one's own beer and wine. It is lethal to pathogens even in dilute solutions...every effective. Also, you don't need to 'soak' or to let it 'sit'. The sulfites are highly radical and will destroy pathogens on contact.

I am not in a position to claim definitively that what I do is correct and necessary. What I can say is that I have confidence in this cheap insurance that takes up about four minutes of my entire week.

One last comment: I do this because in the PNW where I live, it is humid most of the year, especially during the winter months. Things don't dry out well, even indoors unless using electrical or pyro means. So, hoses don't dry out during the day. I feel it helpful to use the mbs to cut my risks.

Sooooooo........clean them before bedtime and you won't have to dry them out (which is absolute nonsense to begin with). The residual moisture in the hose will be added to the humidity from the HH tank as you sleep. No "drying" necessary.
You're making more work for yourself than is necessary.
I suppose you hang them in the bathroom to dry, too?????? Or, the air you're using to dry them out is NOT FILTERED.
If you have any "mold" growth, the mold spores are already in your house and you're breathing them during the rest of the day when you're not sleeping. Mold doesn't magically grow from nothing. Your filters in the machine should keep them out of the inside of the machine and tank.


Den

.

[chunkyfrog]

OMG! Should I be cleaning it?
Oopsy!
As long as it looks OK, and smells OK, doing nothing is enough for me.

[mesenteria]

Sooooooo........clean them before bedtime and you won't have to dry them out (which is absolute nonsense to begin with). The residual moisture in the hose will be added to the humidity from the HH tank as you sleep. No "drying" necessary.
You're making more work for yourself than is necessary.

Which is more work, cleaning upon rising or cleaning them prior to bed?

I suppose you hang them in the bathroom to dry, too??????

Yes, I do. They don't dry with pooled water nearly as quickly or effectively as they do when hung so that gravity does at least half the work.

...
If you have any "mold" growth, the mold spores are already in your house and you're breathing them during the rest of the day when you're not sleeping. Mold doesn't magically grow from nothing. Your filters in the machine should keep them out of the inside of the machine and tank.


Den

.

Possibly, not certainly. As you say, 'should', which is what I call qualifying language. And, while I do breath some mold spores, a concentration from mold in the tubing would be thousands of times the exposure to spores. There is a persistent problem with mold growth in lungs (Cryptococcus Gattii) on Vancouver Island where I live, and its attributable to all the decaying wood in the region coupled with the high relative humidity. Hence my tempering my comment with the mentioning of humidity where I live.

[Wulfman...]

Sooooooo........clean them before bedtime and you won't have to dry them out (which is absolute nonsense to begin with). The residual moisture in the hose will be added to the humidity from the HH tank as you sleep. No "drying" necessary.
You're making more work for yourself than is necessary.

Which is more work, cleaning upon rising or cleaning them prior to bed?

I suppose you hang them in the bathroom to dry, too??????

Yes, I do. They don't dry with pooled water nearly as quickly or effectively as they do when hung so that gravity does at least half the work.

...
If you have any "mold" growth, the mold spores are already in your house and you're breathing them during the rest of the day when you're not sleeping. Mold doesn't magically grow from nothing. Your filters in the machine should keep them out of the inside of the machine and tank.


Den

.

Possibly, not certainly. As you say, 'should', which is what I call qualifying language. And, while I do breath some mold spores, a concentration from mold in the tubing would be thousands of times the exposure to spores. There is a persistent problem with mold growth in lungs (Cryptococcus Gattii) on Vancouver Island where I live, and its attributable to all the decaying wood in the region coupled with the high relative humidity. Hence my tempering my comment with the mentioning of humidity where I live.

Which is more work?
The way you're doing it
Any residual moisture in the hose after cleaning just before bedtime would be added to the humidity from the humidifier and therefore "drying" would be unnecessary.

You're negating the "cleaning" by hanging your equipment in the bathroom.


Den

.