Where do you get your distilled water?

[SolaresLarrave]

Filtering devices don't give you true distilled water. As with JeffGreene, I pay about $0.89/gallon at a local discount pharmacy. It's a trivial costs, compared to the rest of the photo-related expenses.

I know, but he wants water to rinse negatives. How about a Brita pitcher?

 

[ampguy]

this is correct

this is correct

but it does knock the TDS down quite a bit depending on the source water contents, and the type of purifier. A fresh PUR or Brita filter will knock down the TDS 30% or more. Distilled water is a TDS of 3ppm or less.

Sometimes Aquafina meets that criteria. Mineral water is the opposite.

Filtering devices don't give you true distilled water. As with JeffGreene, I pay about $0.89/gallon at a local discount pharmacy. It's a trivial costs, compared to the rest of the photo-related expenses.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Incidentally, to answer the OP, distilled or even deionized water is absurdly more expensive in the UK than in the USA, and rather more than in most of Europe.

Cheers,

R.

 

[NickTrop]

God. The things we take for granted in the US. Distilled water - supermarket. Gallons and gallons, cheap. $0.89 cents? Are you sure you can't get it at a supermarket in the UK? Sorry if I'm sounding too "American" - don't mean to... I say it only because when I first started developing film a few years ago, I read distilled water works best... Where do I get that? Someone said, the supermarket. I said, "oh...". Sure enough...

 

[eli griggs]

Wal-Mart and local supermarkets supply me, it really doesn't take so much as I don't wash film or prints in the stuff. Everything else and a final rinse gets distilled.

I've thought about building a solar 'distiller' at some point but where I live now, I don't have a good enough exposure, in a protected area, to make it worthwhile.

The design I have in mind is a simple long, black painted metal 'tray', sealed with a glass or plexi cover, supported at an angle. There are troughs on the top and bottom ends, the upper is a reserve, feed by a low flow or on/off source. The bottom trough is the collector and feeds into bottles by-way-of tubing.

Sunlight heats the metal and causes the reserve water to evaporate and 'dew' accumulates on the glass. Gravity lets the dew flow down the glass to the collector where it is removed from the system to drip through a simple activated carbon filter and be bottled.

Having never built one of these I've no idea how well it would work but hopefully one day I'll have a chance to find out for myself. Until then it's a cart full of bottled water for me several times a year.

Cheers

 

[Niall Bell]

In UK, you can get it off the shelf in Tesco- stored in the car accessory section. Around 1.50/litre.

No comment re the ethiics of shopping at Tesco.

Niall.

 

[snowblink]

Thanks all. It sounds like the best option for UK is to use de-ionised water meant for cars. I had a look at water for irons, but they are putting all sorts of rubbish into it.

 

[Trius]

Fungus spores, dust, pollen, ... 😡

I use dehumidifier water that I filter through a Brita, then through a paper coffee filter. Consistent and my processing is just FINE, thank you very much. Empirical data over theory. Really, since when is opinion based on ... nothing ... better than trying something and seeing if it works?

 

[snowblink]

Developed a roll with the 50p/litre de-ionised water for cars from Tesco for the final rinse. Worked a treat. 🙂

 

[feenej]

Also dehumidifier water, straight.

 

[novum]

Deionized and reverse osmosis water does not equal distilled water. And connecting a cheap RO unit to your faucet will not give you decent water after a very short time; in fact the filter will release the overload of sediments and chemicals right back into your water. I use an RO/DI unit made primarily for marine aquariums, with a total dissolved solids meter to check on when the filters need to be changed. For occasional chemistry mixing, your local pharmacy's distilled water might be more economical. A good RO/DI unit will still not make double-distilled grade water, but it's good enough for us hobbyists.

I bought mine here.

 

[Chyn]

Here in Germany you can get cheap distilled water from shops that sell household and hygienic products (i.e. DM). As long as there are people who have to iron their clothing, supply will always be plentiful.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Are you actually having a problem with your tap water? Two possible concerns might be the ph of the water. My water is sightly alkaline which increases the activity of the developer very slightly, easily compensated by adjusting the developing time by about 30 seconds. At one point maybe twenty five years ago I had a problem with very fine particles in the water. I used a water filter for a few years just for film, not prints. I bought in-line filters at the auto parts store designed to make sure clean gasoline was getting to the carburator. The water company said they were actually putting some crap iin the water "to clean the lines". At some point they stopped doing it. I knew when that happened when the filters stopped getting clogged. A call to the water company confirmed that. Since then I've been using unfiltered tap water.