Distilled water, how many of you distill your own?

[diversey]

I use dH2O for mixing chemicals and last 2 washes. It was 88 cents a gallon before pandemic and now is $1.20 a gallon in Walmart. There are a lot of minerals in our tap water.

[tundra]

I have a Corning Mega-Pure MP-1. It does a great job, but I only use distilled water for select purposes -- for example, photo developers & other non-photographic uses. All other darkroom water is simply filtered. For a normal darkroom, small amounts of distilled water for developers, and filtered water for everything else should be adequate.

I wonder what the cost operating that is compared to buying distilled water at $1.05/gal? I've looked into distilling my own water but the $3000 initial cost plus electricity to operate it, kind of put me off the idea.

[revdoc]

Vaughn is right. You just need a dehumidifier.

I use one for drying laundry here in Sydney. I collect the condensate for clearing VDB prints, amongst other things. It produces more than I need; depending on ambient humidity, up to 4 litres in a day.

[rfesk]

I have had a distiller for over 25 years. Does a gallon at a time. For photographic needs-
distilled water is used for all but the wash water.

Have been using a Berkey filter system for drinking/cooking etc. water needs for several years.

[grey-lensman]

I use a 6L countertop distiller. It's dirt simple to use, and doesn't need water flow for the condenser. That said, I don't go through much for photography, mostly just for mixing chemistry.

[peter k.]

Yep we also just use distilled water for chemical mixing, and ours is very similar to one grey-lensman has.

Very handy and easy to use, but because of our hard water, it needs to be cleaned after each use.
So we distill about 5 gallons, doing a gallon a day, with a quick clean, and then at the end of the batch of five, do a thorough clean, using vinegar to get all calcium off and out.

[Willie]

Dehumidifier are not that great in dry/desert climates and many places during winter cold/extreme cold.

Driving to and back from WalMart costs in fuel. Rural locations can add a fair amount to the cost as well as a few hours driving time.

Tap water in some areas isn't that good and filtration is needed - but not always results in water clean enough for chemistry and rinsing negatives. Then you have the 'flushing the system' problems with a lot of particulate matter in the pipes. Not to mention brown water at various times, water which no filter removes.

Home and small unit distillers can be worth it for many. Good friend has three, one a 5 gallon and two 1 gallon size. None bought new as he picked them up at Rummage sales for nearly nothing. Same way he has picked up a number of pyrex glass trays for his sheet film development.

We go to a lot of trouble to get our images. Why chance problems with sub standard water for processing?

[Alan Townsend]

Barry, I know you already have the distiller, so that has to work okay, be careful to not boil away all the water to make it easier to keep clean.
I installed a new water softener and then an RO filter in our home we bought two years ago using city well water, fairly high calcium content. As other have said, the reverse osmosis filter will give water quality almost as good as distilled but at much lower cost. For most, a water softener is also needed to condition the water for the RO filter as well as to soften water for laundry and bathing. The RO filter membrane will have a much shorter lifetime with calcium in the water. The water softener exchanges calcium ions for sodium chloride, which is easily handled by the RO filter.

I purchased the RO filter specifically for my photography hobby and also for drinking water. If in doubt on water quality, have it tested. Certain photographic processes will require fewer of certain contaminants, like calcium. This is particularly true for blue prints, vandykes, kalitypes, and other iron based printing processes.

Alan Townsend

[barryjyoung]

Thank you Paul, I did not know that was an option. I will look into RO. Why would that be better than distilling?

Barry, I live on a well and we have a lot of iron in the water, so we set up a Reverse Osmosis unit years ago to tame our water supply. for household use, the water gets Calcium put back into it, but I have a bypass in the system that lets me take out RO water which has only 5 ppm TDS. I've never had reason to buy distilled water for film/darkroom chemistry when 5 ppm RO water is more than satisfactory. These days you can buy an inexpensive RO unit to install under the sink.

[barryjyoung]

Missouri is very interested in having free citizens. It is one of the major reasons why I moved here a couple years back.

Curious what you need so much distilled water for? I use it for mixing chemistry as a "just in case" to maintain consistency, and for a quick final rinse of prints or plates (I do a lot more wet plate collodion than film), but that's about it. A couple gallons lasts me quite a while.

Water with minerals in it actually works better as rinse/wash than distilled, the extra ions pull fix molecules off the film/paper better. In WW2, USN photogs used seawater when underway.

In many jurisdictions, owning a still that large isn't legal. Authorities are generally not kicking in doors looking for them (even from those who do spirits/moonshine), unless you start trying to sell it though.

edit: nm, saw you're in Missouri. You and New Zealand are about the only places that don't care!