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Distilled water


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It all depends on how many plants you have. I live in a flat and don't have a huge lot of plants, some on the windowsill, and some in a Nepenthes tank.

I have used a distiller for a number of years now when I can't get rainwater. I just run off a gallon in about four hours when I need one, simple, no mess and no waste water. It looks like a mini dalek when you put tapwater in and distilled water comes out of a spout.

You can Google distiller and see what you get. Mine is an Ecowater distiller, which is an American brand. I got mine from the Holistic Research Centre who used to be near Cambridge but I believe that they are somewhere in Hertfordshire these days, again try Google.

If you need a lot of distilled water, the downside is they can use a lot of electricity. It should be possible to run off three gallons per day which would be enough for a six by ten foot greenhouse to get by on. They are far cheaper, however than buying deionised water commercially. Mine works out about 15 p per gallon, half that if you are on Economy seven.

I have had my distiller for a number of years and mine was £130 new. I understand that they are quite a bit more than that now. To a degree, you get what you pay for.

This conversation does come up on the forum from time to time. Carl (Mobile) always like deionising filter systems and for some reason doesn't like distillers. The downside with deionising systems is that they need to be used otherwise it buggers the filter. They are also very wasteful of water, you get five gallons of waste water for every one gallon of deionised water.

It all depends how much water you need.

Edited by David Ahrens
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Just done a bit of Googling, the supplier that I mentioned is the Holistic Research Company. They are near Royston, they didn't move all that far down the road. They are doing a unit for £198 on special offer at the moment. A bit of money to lay out but they last for years.

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This conversation does come up on the forum from time to time. Carl (Mobile) always like deionising filter systems and for some reason doesn't like distillers.

I have nothing against distilled water, except the running cost of the distiller and have stated that purchasing large quantities of deionised water works out expensive: http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=32139&view=findpost&p=244581

You have to admit though, that for short term emergencies, purchasing deionised or RO water is the far cheaper than buying a distiller, RO unit or deioniser cartridges.

Nowadays I use a reverse osmosis system, which does require a filter change from time to time but the whole system was only £22 and the occasional carbon filter change is cheap enough. In addition, where I live I could get away with using tap water for my plants.

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I think if I had a greenhouse and maybe needed fairly large amounts of water, then the deioniser would be the solution. I must have had the still for 15 years or more, so the cost per year doesn't work out much.

You pays your money and takes your choice, there are a;ways things that you can do.

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I don't have alot of plants. I have one 30cm pot containing 3 VFT, one small 6.5cm pot containing a Drosera and i will be filling just one more 30cm pot of VFT in the next week (maybe) so i don't need an awful lot of water.

As it turns out, the heavens opened yesterday afternoon and more rain is forecast over the next 4 or 5 days so i can start building up my supply of rain water again.

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