Question: distilled water storage

I have my own water distiller and I put the finished water into a plastic jug which originally held distilled water I'd bought from the store. After a while it began to smell funny, like plastic. Does anyone have any suggestions for different storage containers that won't do this? Glass perhaps? The distiller makes 1 gallon at a time. It is very expensive (and hot) to run so I don't like dumping the water out and making more if I can avoid it.

i would think that glass or stainless steel would be the best.

Glass would be the most inert container to use.

Where are you storing the plastic container? The plastic may degas/expel certain volatiles if the storage temperatrure is too warm. You could also try a hard plastic container as they are less likely to degas.

DreamStalker wrote:...hard plastic container...

BPA is used to harden plastics...not a good choice unless you are sure it is BPA free. When the water is cool (less likely to leach plastiziers into the water), pour into Deerpark Distilled Water containers -- Deerpark says they are not mfg-ed with BPA.

Nalgene bottles aka Nalgene canteens from the camping supply store. The have a wide mouth so they can be cleaned.
Milk/water jugs will degrade with time, generally in less than a year & begin to leak.

I just buy a gallon at a time and keep it on top the refrigerator.
I made a filler with some clear 1/4" plastic tubing from Home Depot that is labeled for ice makers so I figure it is good for potable water and thus inhalable water.
They have a neat little valve too and I set the water container on the counter and fill it like filling the gas tank on a car.
Very very handy.
A gallon last almost two weeks it seems, although I never counted the days. Hmmm, maybe I will do that.
But being on the fridge hasn't seemed to hurt it at all. And it gives a nice gravity flow.

I use the collection bottle that came with my water distiller to store my distilled water. I got an extra collection bottle, to help keep me from running out at inconvenient times.....

I also have a (filled) papFlask somewhere...

The Dreamer.

Is the top of your fridge warm?

When I open up a new gallon of distilled water, I fill up 6 - 7 plastic pop bottles (20 oz.) that I keep for this purpose. One gallon is 128 oz., so it will fill 6 and a little more in the 7th, unless there's room in my humidifier tank.
Then, I store them in a shelf in the lower part of the refrigerator door and add to my tank as needed.

Been using this method for 4+ years.


Den

Paul56 ... no the top of the fridge is cool. Just went and put my hand on it and it wasn't warm at all.
Might get a bit warm when it's running, dunno.
Hasn't seemed to bother the water at all though. Been doing that for about a year.

Maybe you could run that tubing all the way to the bedroom.

This is the first time I've heard of home water distillation. What brand of distiller do you use? Where do you get them? How long does it take to make a batch? Do you have to clean it out frequently?

Thanks very much for info!

The best prices I've seen are at http://www.a1-water-distiller.com/. I haven't bought one though, as I can buy an awful lot of distilled water before I'd recoup the cost of a distiller.

Good point. If I do some quick math I could buy distilled for a good couple years before recovering the cost of a cheap unit. And storebought means I don't have to do a bunch of work to get it.

That answers that question!

nobody wrote:I have my own water distiller and I put the finished water into a plastic jug which originally held distilled water I'd bought from the store. After a while it began to smell funny, like plastic. Does anyone have any suggestions for different storage containers that won't do this? Glass perhaps? The distiller makes 1 gallon at a time. It is very expensive (and hot) to run so I don't like dumping the water out and making more if I can avoid it.

The air born bacteria is getting into your water....
JUST note couple drops 2-3 of Chlorine / Bleach will KILL off all the CRITTERS.... Don't Panic it the same stuff the city's use to disinfect all the water they send out... 3 drops per Gal. is so LOW after a couple hours you will NOT be able o smell it!

BERT