This is the picture of our new temporary distiller.
I had quite the distilled weekend because I was working on our distiller
When my wife and I lived in Morgan Hill, California, 13 years ago, she was pregnant with our first child. I remember getting a postcard from the local water district suggesting that pregnant women should not be drinking the water since it showed high levels of phosphates in the water. Immediately, my wife started to call around for a water cooler, which should would put bottled water on the stand to drink. In those days, bottled water was just starting its push. Water coolers were not that available. We bought ours second hand.
It was very expensive to get the water delivered so to get our water, we would go to one of two water stores in Morgan Hill. Morgan Hill is a small place, so having two stores shows the massive interest in purified water. Both stores sold distilled water, which I determined was the absolute best stuff.
When we moved with IBM to Research Triangle Park, we were in North Carolina. To be honest, California is more about health fads. There was no local water stores. So, I ordered a Water Distiller–I think for a little over $1000.
Since that time, we have taken the distiller everywhere we have gone. On average, I think we distill about 15 gallons per week. Ten years times 15 gallons times 50 weeks yield 7500 gallons of water. It cost about 35 cent per gallon, so we’ve spent a litte over $2600 on electricity. With a few repairs, this works out to $400 of water per year or $8 per week.
It is worth it.
Pure distilled water really tastes very good. I’ve heard some people say that distilled water tastes flat, but this is absolutely not true. I remember my Mom tasting the water for the first time and absolutely loving it.
We’ve carted our distiller around to three houses. Distilled water is very easy to make. You place the raw water is a boiling chamber that has a heating element. The element boils the water, and the steam travels through a coil that has a fan blowing on it. The vapor turns back into water, pure water.
What is left over is all the minerals and junk in the water. In our model, at the end of boiling 5 gallons, it flushes out the stuff with all the junk in it through a special discharge valve.
Only it my case, the valve stuck close. I’m not sure for how many weeks it was like this, but probably for hundreds of gallons. So when I opened up the distiller top the other night, it was heavily crusted with mineral deposits.
Here is a picture of some of the deposits that I was able to pull out.
I took it off line. I needed to order parts. Descale the inside through many days.
We have been so spoilt by our distiller, that I didn’t know where to buy water. I tried to start to descale the insides with vinegar and final sulfamic acid, but here is what it looks like even after I’ve dragged a bunch of deposits out. (The liquid is sulfamic acid.) This was going to take days, if not weeks to descale. Plus the outlet valve was not working, so I needed to mail order new parts.
On a fluke, I Googled Craigslist, and somebody in a neighbor town was selling a distiller.
Now, if you are familiar with distillers, this is a unique item. Not many are sold, and to have one just 15 miles away is amazing. With the distiller out for weeks, I decided that I would go over and see it. The distiller was in beautiful shape. The daughter of an older mother was getting rid of it. I explained that I only needed it for a few weeks, and we bargained over the price.
We settled on $700, which was about $1100 less than a new one.
So the wife washed and cleaned it when I got home, and I hooked up the plumbing. We’re back in business, however, sooner or later I’ll need to figure out what to do with the spare one. Maybe it’ll go back on Craig’s list when I’m done.
