Water Question...

<p>Folks, </p><p>Here is a picture of my butt. (sorry) </p><p>230 L capacity, black lid secured by steel clamp, 100 off 2.5 mm holes around periphery.</p><p>Decanting water has not gone green in either bottle or Goodall spray bottle, water hasn't needed filtering or treatment.</p><p>Childproof set-up, except for tap being "accidentally" turned on.</p><p>$0.00 per Gallon.</p><p> <img title="Dave's Butt" height="543" alt="Picture of a Butt" src="http://bouser.fileave.com/DSC02394.JPG" width="480" border="0" /></p><p>All the best,</p><p>Dave.</p>
 
pwilliams642 said:
when i run my 'lady ann' i use distllled water(bp) ordered from my local chemist,dead cheap and advised by roundhouse.
how hornby can charge £5.00 per litre for the same stuff is beyond imagination
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Because people buy it, and for the amount you get a fivers worth in 00 gauge will last ages.

Are you sure you are getting distilled water?? i only ask as i spoke to Boots last year and they ordered some distilled water which on inspection turned out NOT be be, it was de-ionised.
They apologised but i dont think they had any idea on the difference, they were just "counter staff"
 
Hi Ian
Going back to your original question - I have a normal condensing tumble drier that produces a flat container of water every week or so. There is no tap water feed so no contamination from that. I have used this for four years now in 7 1/4" gauge, 5" gauge and a fair number of 16mm locos without any problem at all. I do not filter it and it doesn't go green when stored an a 5 gallon opaque plastic container in the garage. One thing though - we do not use fabric conditioner. When we did, the water has a carry over of the "perfume". It is essentially distilled water - but the easiest thing is to put some in a pint glass and hold it up to the light - if it looks crystal clear and smells of ....water ....use it!
Cheers
Chris
 
Old thread activation.

Just reading this. Trying to decide on water.
I have been using the water from my dehumidifier, but Ive just remembered its not a condensing type, its a rotary desiccant type (much better dehumidifier) but I cant work out if the water is de-mineralised. Since the water is adsorbed not condensed. Distilled water is pure as when water boils it leaves behind any solutes. Condensate is the same since the water must have evapourated in the first place.
So the water in air (humidity) must be solute free, therefore the water being adsorbed (or absorbed) must be solute free and unless the dessicant adds anything it must be pretty pure?
Does this sound correct?
 
I don't know. I'm still busy topping up my engine from the tumble drier 2 years on. I forgot to post this in "full scale orginally" whoops.
 
Save the dry ice from when you defrost the freezer and when it melts you have distilled water. Simples
 
Bram said:
Save the dry ice from when you defrost the freezer and when it melts you have distilled water. Simples
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I've always wondered about that since the freezer water must be a condensate from the water in the air inside the freezer (unless you fill your freezer with water!) of course this wouldn't work with Ice cubes as this is just frozen tap water containing all the stuff we don't need in our steamers.
Just watch out for the odd frozen pea escapee..............................................
 
minimans said:
Bram said:
Save the dry ice from when you defrost the freezer and when it melts you have distilled water. Simples
Click to expand...
I've always wondered about that since the freezer water must be a condensate from the water in the air inside the freezer (unless you fill your freezer with water!) of course this wouldn't work with Ice cubes as this is just frozen tap water containing all the stuff we don't need in our steamers.
Just watch out for the odd frozen pea escapee..............................................
Click to expand...
We use to fill our steam iron and there is no furring/gunging up as a consequence so I think it is pretty well pure water
 
Bob your engineering skills amaze me further. Like the still. I have a solar heater for my splasher pool (its a bit pants). Shove a load of black pipe in yours (fnarr) and youve got one too..mine cost a hundred quid. :(
 
Thanks Ed, but it's no more than simple woodworking techniques can achieve, the basic design came from that other Mother-earth website...............................and a bit of careful scrounging of course.
 
Good question Ian, since getting my Live steam loco i have had problems with what water to use was told to use frozen ice but always wondered what happens to the lime scale in the water i also put it through a Brita filter . But after reading some of the threads i won't be using ice from the ice cubes . Don't like the idea of using rain water and distilled water is very expensive to buy .
 
Water quality in the real world is a big problem, in ocean going marine circles they use evaporators to evaporate the salt water and then condense it to use in the ships boilers, In railways and tramways the water if not soft enough and by soft I mean with a low level of dissolved solids ie, lime, sodium etc. its treated chemically to make it suitable for use. In models with non ferrous boilers a rinse out with vinegar occasionaly should do the trick, the same method is used in steam irons, you can get steam iron cleaner which you will find has citric/ascetic acid as the active ingredient. These acids are not vigorous enough to attack copper or brass to any extent.
 
May I ask what distilled water costs in the UK ? Here in the States we can buy steam distilled water for $ .69 cents for 1 gallon / 3.78 liters . Food markets and convenience stores all carry it.

Charles M
 
That's a good question Charles. I stand to be corrected but the best price I've found after a quick look is 99p/litre, which works out at around - I hope you're sitting down - $6.00/US gallon. It's not something you can readily pick up in a supermarket over here. De-ionised water is more common but it's not recommended for steam locos. Most people over here use water from a de-humidifier, or filtered rain water, or the condensate from a tumble drier (for clothes) though I'm not sure the latter is such a good idea because it may still have impurities in it and your loco's exhaust could end up smelling of fabric conditioner. I'm sure there has been a comprehensive thread on distilled water before. If you could find a cheap way to send distilled water to the UK you could be on your way to making a fortune!
Steve
 
Hi everyone,

I?m new to the forum and have just posted my intro in the general section

I feel I need to post on this subject as there seems to be a lot of confusion regarding deionised water within the live steam community. Firstly, deionised water is perfectly safe to use in a steam boiler, it is chemically no different from steam distilled water and no more corrosive to metals and solder. I am a scientist and our laboratory uses 100s of litres of deionised water every day.

Water purification by deionisation uses ion exchange resins that remove ionic substances such as calcium, magnesium etc and exchanges them for hydroxide and hydronium ions (effectively more water). Deionisation does not remove the non-charged substances that steam distillation does but these are of little consequence.

Deionisation is used in preference to steam distillation in most circumstances as it is much more cost effective and gives near identical results.

Over the years I have read many quotations on forums and web pages that attribute all sorts of false properties to deionised water. The most common is that deionised water contains no ions and will readily strip ions out of metals, leading to weakness.

Firstly it is impossible for water to contain no ions as water will naturally ionise to hydroxide (OH-) and Hydronium (H+) ions. The second part of the statement is also very misleading. All water, including tap water and steam distilled water will dissolve small amounts of metal ions over time but the effect is tiny and will not cause any problems over the lifetime of a locomotive boiler. Deionised water is no more ?ion hungry? than steam distilled water and both deionised water and steam distilled water are only slightly more ?ion hungry? than tap water.

Deionised water and steam distilled water are effectively the same thing, steam distilled water being slightly purer. There are no sinister properties to deionised water and it is even recommended by the manufacturer of maxitrak?s large scale boilers

Please see the following links:

http://www.steam-technology.co.uk/ (Look under Maintenance on the website) - this link does not seem to work if clicked on directly. Just type "steam technology" into google

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purified_water

Regards Dave
 
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