[woodsyi]

My wife is adamant about avoiding the evils of bottled water for the environment and I try to avoid drinking bottled water wherever I can help it.  I will fill my own bottles with filtered water whenever possible. 

So why not do the same for distilled water for cleaning? 

Enter the W4000.

Call in price is $60 less then internet price with free shipping.

I figure I can drink the water and use it to get water to rinse my vinyl as well.  It uses electricity but it can't be as bad as all the collateral that goes with bottled water.  Can it?

[S Clark]

Why not just refill your water jugs with de-ionized water?  I've boiled a liter of it down to look for residue and found none.  It is usually available at the nearest chain grocery or Super Walmart.

[Construct]

Bottled water can range from tap water to contaminated with little or no controls.  I have seen plenty of tests (blind and otherwise) that indicate tap water tastes better and is healthier.  Bottled waters markup is insane.  Would you pay $200 million for a $20,000 car?  Same thing.  Water costs something like 49 cents for 200 gallons or more. 
I used distilled water, but that form of filtered water would suffice (being free of minerals and particulates)  A drop of liquid detergent per quart and it worked perfectly for me.

[woodsyi]

Why not just refill your water jugs with de-ionized water?  I've boiled a liter of it down to look for residue and found none.  It is usually available at the nearest chain grocery or Super Walmart.

Precisely.  The amount of "carbon" waste  it takes to produce, bottle and transport to your nearest store is what I am trying to avoid.

[chadh]

Enter the W4000.

It has a detachable, grounded power cord, so you could experiment with upgrades for improved performance.

Chad

[S Clark]

If it is your carbon footprint that you are primarily concerned with, build a small solar still.  There are dozens of designs to choose from.

[chadh]

For the price of this kind of thing, you could get a reverse osmosis unit, or even one with a de-ionizer.  I used to use an RO-DI unit for providing water for my salt water aquarium.  There was a yearly check of the membrane, and a replacement of the filter, but I never had a total dissolved solids reading of anything other that 0 parts per million.

Chad

[woodsyi]

If it is your carbon footprint that you are primarily concerned with, build a small solar still.  There are dozens of designs to choose from.

I am not sure I am the best candidate for solar anything in shaded Mid-Atlantic area and it sounds like too much work to be of practical use.

For the price of this kind of thing, you could get a reverse osmosis unit, or even one with a de-ionizer.

All the reverse osmosis/deionizer filter systems I looked at cost more than $229 even without the future cost of replacing filters.

[Sarmck]

For the price of this kind of thing, you could get a reverse osmosis unit, or even one with a de-ionizer.  I used to use an RO-DI unit for providing water for my salt water aquarium.  There was a yearly check of the membrane, and a replacement of the filter, but I never had a total dissolved solids reading of anything other that 0 parts per million.

Chad

If you go this route for drinking water, I suggest you NOT use the de-ionizer portion.  Acquire your drinking water prior to that portion.  That strips the water down to 0 ppm (if you have a good ro/di system).  I guarantee you will not like the "lack of taste".

Ron

[chadh]

All the reverse osmosis/deionizer filter systems I looked at cost more than $229 even without the future cost of replacing filters.

Try these guys. I think their prices are pretty good.

http://www.airwaterice.com/category/12/

They made the unit I used for my aquarium, and I was really happy with it, and they get a lot of good reviews from the aquarium types.  The units listed on the page I linked are all just RO units - as Sarmck said, you don't want to DI your drinking water.  I suspect that, if you wanted a DI unit as well, an extra DI unit could be fitted that could easily be taken out of the loop for drinking water.

[Barry_NJ]

While I agree that bottled drinking water is a waste of resources, both natural and monetary, I think that with the amount of water you'd use washing records, that distilled bottled water from the local pharmacy or supermarket is a wise use of resources, both natural and monetary. For every gallon of RO water produced, about 3 or 4 go down the drain, so a good deal of drinking water is wasted. RO units aren't inexpensive, and DI units aren't really the most eco-friendly things either if you're looking for really pure H2O. DI units require strong Acids and Bases to recharge, and if the DI resins are not recharged, well they just become more land-fill. Commercially distilled water is produced via evaporation/collection methods and is likely the least environmentally costly way to produce pure H2O. As you aren't going to be going through gallons a week it's also pretty cost effective, as it's not nearly as expensive as bottled drinking water. Just my honest opinion.

[jsaliga]

I'm with you Barry.  I buy distilled water at the local supermarket for $1.00/gallon.  I keep two 16oz spray bottles next to my VPI 16.5 RCM.  One is filled with the cleaning solution that is mixed at a ratio of one 4oz bottle of concentrate to one gallon of distilled water.  The second is filled with distilled water that I use as a rinse.  I buy a lot of records and I go through no more than two gallons of distilled water in a year.

--Jerome

[sts9fan]

We have a fancy water purifier at work. It's a $15k unit called a MilliQ. I swear it wastes more then when we where buying bottles. It is nice to have the >18Mohm on tap though.

Kris

[blakep]

We have a fancy water purifier at work. It's a $15k unit called a MilliQ. I swear it wastes more then when we where buying bottles. It is nice to have the >18Mohm on tap though.

Kris

You're lucky. My wife is a researcher and simply brings home a gallon of ultra pure water whenever I need it to clean records so I'm very fortunate as well.


Ultrapure is the bomb when it comes to really cleaning records. It is an extremely aggressive solvent; the higher the purity of the water the more aggressive it is as a solvent. And that is why the commercial record cleaners sell it for big money. Thing is you can buy it, or a very similar product for much less money from scientific supply houses.

But people should not delude themself: store bought distilled, simple deionized, Aquafina or R/O water is not the same and it will not clean a record the way ultrapure or type 1 reagent grade will. And that is what a $15K water purifier will do.

You still need a great first stage for cleaning and I don't think you'll get it from DIY having experimented a bit. I currently use the Mo Fi Enzyme but I've heard good things about the Audio Intelligent and Disc Doctor first stage cleaners as well. The key, though, is a couple of rinses/vacs with extremely high purity water if you want the records really, really clean.

[sts9fan]

If you look around I bet you could buy it for ~$30 for a four liter jug.

[Barry_NJ]

Hmmm... This could become something like a cable/power-cord discussion...

[woodsyi]

Hmmm... This could become something like a cable/power-cord discussion...

Not really.  It makes sense.  The water will work better as a solvent (rinsing) if it has less solute already in it.  Water can't dissolve past the saturation point.

So a reagent grade water will have more capacity to  dissolve ions and radicals and  thus rinse cleaner.

[jsaliga]

I won't speak for Barry but I think what he is driving at is that it is overkill.  How clean is clean enough?  I see his point.  It's difficult for me to imagine a stray ion or two spoiling the musical purity of an LP.  Are you going to wet clean your records every time you play them?  That's not a criticism; I know several people who do and if it helps them enjoy their records more then more power to them.  Whatever works for you.

--Jerome

[woodsyi]

I won't speak for Barry but I think what he is driving at is that it is overkill.
--Jerome

There is irony in this as we are speaking about overkill within a group of people who are already wet cleaning a lump of vinyl using specially formulated cleaning fluids and vacuum drying it .   

[Wayner]

In nature, there is no such thing as "pure water". I've read that pure water is very caustic and almost a health hazard, because of the same reasons, there are no minerals in it, which our bodies vitally need. Drinking ultra pure water, IMHO, may actually be bad for your health.

Using it as a record cleaner, is fine in my mind, but I can go down to the local grocery store and buy a gallon for about $0.39, so I have no idea what benefit a machine is. I make my own record cleaning fluid with a 3 to 1 mix of the water I get at the store with 99% Isopropyl alcohol. Records are nice and clean, noise free, little cost to do it all.

My 2 cents.

Wayner