Distilled water

[JHZR2]

It depends upon where you live, but your pocket will likely not miss the extra $3 for the water.

Why not ensure it is done perfectly right???

JMH

 

[John K]

Actually, that sounds like soft water, if you have trouble rinsing off soap. With hard water the calcium and magnesium tie up the soap and it is easier to rinse soap off with hard water than it is using soft water..... With hard water it is difficult to get up much lather.

 

[Indy500]

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Actually, that sounds like soft water, if you have trouble rinsing off soap. With hard water the calcium and magnesium tie up the soap and it is easier to rinse soap off with hard water than it is using soft water..... With hard water it is difficult to get up much lather.

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What does this have to do with radiators?

 

[GearGuy]

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distilled, distilled, distilled. Reverse osmosis however is better than tap.

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What, would you say, is left in RO water that is not in distilled water?

 

[JustinH]

Honestly, when your buying antifreeze, just pickup a few jugs of distilled water.

Its 68 cents a gallon.

 

[John K]

Indy500 - I was responding to ekpolk's comment about the water in a motel being so hard he couldn't rinse off the soap.

GearGuy - What is left in RO water depends on the water being treated, the type of RO, and the specs of the RO. RO rejects a certain % of contaminants in the feedwater, and not all perform the same. It does greatly reduce the amount of contaminants.

 

[sxg6]

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What does this have to do with radiators?

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They're discussing tap water quality, which is relevant because some people use tap water in their cooling system.

 

[JakeR22]

Just buy the 50/50 pre-mix.

 

[Falcon]

This is something of a pet peeve of mine. People think water that won't allow soap to be rinsed off is "soft," I suppose because its slippery. The exact opposite is true. Hard water contains a lot of minerals which will not allow the soap to dissolve adequately in the water which means that the soap sticks to your skin. Soft water (with few minerals) allows the soap to dissolve and rinse off. I was a water chemist so I should know something about this. Anyway, deionized water would be the best water for radiators because it neutralizes the ions and is essentially neutral. Distilled water is not deionized. I use tap water.

 

[John K]

Falcon - I guess we disagree about hard vs soft water. The calcium and magnesium tie up the soap and thus rinse it off easier. This is simply an observation I've had before and after installation of water softeners, I understand the water chemistry too. Why do you say the slipperiness is a result of the soft water and not residual soap? I was a ChE of a power plant lab for supercritical boilers, where I supervised the lab. I ask this respectfully, do not want to start any big debate.... Seems there is sometimes a natural, what to call it, rivalry(?) between chemists and ChEs, there is definitely a difference in mind set.

 

[Big Jim]

For what it is worth the house I grew up in had a water softener. It was long enough ago that it had to be manually flushed and recharged from time to time. When it was freshly recharged, your skin felt like it still had soap on it after rinsing in the shower.

I occasionally notice the same thing at some hotels when I travel.

 

[Big Jim]

I'm not sure that softened water is preferable in cooling systems. Naturally soft is probably fine, but the softening systems basically substitute salt for calcium.

One of customers a few years ago owned several water dispenser vending machines that you sometimes see outside grocery stores. We got to talking about how his systems worked. He pointed out that it varied depending on the water supply and that he did a water analysis before setting up a machine. He would also take another analysis from time to time to make sure the proper equipment was selected. The main components were an activated carbon filter and reverse osmosis filter. Other filters were also used depending on the results of the water sample. The most significant thing though was that he used a water softener when dealing with hard water because if he didn't, the RO filter would not last very long. It would quickly clog with calcium. The RO filter dealt with the added salt from the softener much easier.

 

[RB Shannon]

We have deionized water at the plant in the QC lab and battery room. We were told to to change the resin tanks because no one was sure when they were changed last. We just checked the conductivity of the water in several units and found they had about 1 megaohm of resistance. Common tap water and bottled spring water was about 20 or 30k ohms using a common fluke multimeter. I think the use of deionized or distilled water helps to minimize corrosion because it's less electrically conductive than tap water.

 

[Al]

You would be crazy not to use distilled or Reverse osmosis water. RO water is really just as good. For the cost its a no-brainer.

 

[John K]

Water softeners are regenerated with salt but in operation they exchange the calcium and magnesium ions with sodium, thus they only increase the salt in the water to the degree that there are free chloride ions in the water, the ones previously associated with calcium and magnesium. After the softener is regenerated it is rinsed until any residual salt is gone.

 

[1sttruck]

For cleaning tissue culture glassware we used triple distilled deionized water. Surely that's what you want.

Want something less expensive than water suitable for tissue culture, but less likely to cause problems with todays more finicky coolants, so distilled water it is. And quit calling me Shirley.

 

[Titan]

Frankly, I think Shirley is a better name than Frankly. Oh, and I just bought 4 gallons of distilled water for my 30000 mile antifreeze change...gotta stay on topic.

 

[Highroller]

Im a newb to the coolant draining world. Would my Aquafina bottled water with the label "purified drinking water" work?

 

[Titan]

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Im a newb to the coolant draining world. Would my Aquafina bottled water with the label "purified drinking water" work?

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Sure, it will work. Just drink a quart every half-hour that you are exercising, and supplement with some sort of electrolytes if you sweat heavily and if you are exercising for more than an hour. Oh, BTW, don't use it in your radiator except in case of emergency.

 

[doitmyself]

My bottled water supplier told me that after they "purify" their water, the taste is too bland, so they add back some chemicals (potassium, maybe?) to give it better taste.

I understand some people have really good well water and that others have really bad (high minerals) water not suitable for coolant use.

Just follow the coolant directions and spend less than ten dollars on distilled water for your $20,000 dollar vehicle. Then, be happy, don't worry,