Distilled water taste

[linagee]

What does the distilled water you are using in your humidifier taste like? I've been using Walmart's Great Value brand distilled water for at least a year in my CPAP. I tried tasting it recently and found it had a plasticy taste. I am wondering if they dump the hot water right into the bottle after the steam distillation process. (This would be a no-no! Most plastic containers do not like any heat!)
I tried drinking a bit of Mount Olympus distilled water (also found at Walmart) and found it actually has absolutely no taste. I know people are going to say that the humidifier itself acts as sort of a distillation stage and any humidity created is not going to have any particles with it. (Numerous forum posts debunking that.) But what about gases? Is the plasticy taste in Great Value water in gas form? Are they small enough particles that they would be brought up in the humidity?
I'll be switching distilled water brands tonight and I'll post up any average AHI change or perceived sleep quality changes. (It will probably take a lot of days to get a good sampling though.) Of course this will be after a good rinsing of the tub.
I am scared to run my own glass distillation lab setup in my house because someone might think I am making meth or something. (I don't want two through the head, we have no knock search warrants in this state (country?) and innocent neighbors have already DIED this way.) Only in America are you guilty until proven innocent!

[Slartybartfast]

Let's step back a moment. The reason for your wanting to use distilled water in your humidifier is that mineral buildup over time as the result of using tap water will make cleaning the reservoir difficult. And the rough surface left by mineral deposits provide an ideal substrate for the growth of bacteria and fungi. So you have chosen to use distilled water.

Distilled water is water that has been rendered free of dissolved minerals by the process of distillation. Any volatile components in the feed water can be carried over into the distillate, while minerals will be left behind. For use in steam irons, distilled water might be fine. For drinking purposes, maybe it's not the best, though. Mineral-free water can also be produced by reverse osmosis and by ion-exchange, size exclusion and other techniques. It's likely that the 'distilled water" you buy in the store isn't really produced by distillation, because that is a very energy-intensive, and therefore expensive, process. Ion exchange and reverse osmosis are much cheaper processes that result in the same product. Sometimes you'll see bottles labeled "deionized water" or "demineralized water." It's the same thing as distilled water. Only the process whereby the minerals have been removed is different.

That said, I wouldn't drink, or use in my humidifier, any water that had a "plasticy" taste or smell. Find a brand of distilled/deionized/mineral-free water that doesn't have any smell and use it. Better yet, get your deionized water from one of the vending machines or self-service machines that some of the larger grocery stores have, and re-fill your bottle.

[chunkyfrog]

I have used distilled water to swallow my morning pills.
Our home brew tastes OK.
Can't detect any smell--even the generic Wal Mart had no odor.
--They might buy it locally to save on shipping.

[Goofproof]

Distilled water isn't made for drinking, it leaches needed minerials from your body. Use it where you don't want mineral buildup, that's what it's for. Jim

Your sniffer is probably broken, I know mine is from time to time.

[Gazhacks]

'If its just the smell that is bothering you then why not put some eucalyptus oil in it? Over here we put allsorts of oils and other things in our humidifiers water to give it a better taste or smell.

[Hawthorne]

I would never put anything but distilled water in my humidifier - not eucalytus oil - not anything.

I do use "Pursleep Calm" on it's disk behind the filter intake of my machine on occassion and like the smell very much. Of course, I do not taste it.

[archangle]

If smelly chemicals from the plastic have leached into the water, they will probably come out of the humidifier and you will breathe them. The distillation effect of the humidifier only leaves behind certain chemicals. Volatile chemicals may actually be more concentrated in the vapor than in the humidifier water.