Dehumidifier Water

[mb75]

Just a thought I was having as I was emptying the dehumidifier bucket this morning.

I'm kinda Green, and it seems like a waste to dump this water every time. I don't have the money to purchase an RO/DI unit right now, so I was thinking what would it take to make this water usable for my tank?

The condensate from the dehumidifier should be pretty clean. With the exception of some mold, microbes, and dust. A regular water filter should be sufficient to remove these impurities.

Any thoughts?

 

[Aquadiva]

I water my plants with it....

 

[Jennifer]

IMO I think it would be fine to use. Tho maybe run through some carbon before introducing it to the tank.

I read somewhere here that "Scott" runs the output of his dehumidifier directly to his sump. I am unsure if he runs it through carbon or not. Also I am unsure if he has noticed any problems as a result of doing so.

 

[Greg Hiller]

The only problem with it might be some metals from the coil that it condensed on. You could probably run it over a bed of DI resin and it would be okay to use. Since there would not be a very high ion content, running it straight over DI would not likely exhaust the DI very much.

 

[mb75]

Number 17 on the Linked Page

http://www.simplifiedreefkeeping.com/n/bill_k.htm

It does seem possible. I guess I'll just take a sample, and test it. That should let me know how much I need to do prior to using it.

 

[jgiannini]

I had the same idea. I picked up a delivery pump from airwaterice and was going to use a rubbermaid container to use as the dehimdifier holding tank. airwaterice also sells bulkheads for rodi tube, so pick that up, some tube for the pump, and a valve and you got yourself a good setup to use with your regular rodi filter.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree that without post treating it with DI, I wouldn't use it out of concern for the metals that may be in it. Copper would be the biggest concern.

 

[rjdudek]

I would expect the condensate to have every impurity that was originally in the air exported to the water dripping through the forced air stream across the wet coils, plus anything leaching from the coils themselves. It seems like a perfect wet air filter for collecting spore, molds, bacteria, tars, nicotine, air fresheners, CO2, airborne greases and oils, cleaning supplies, soot, ash and every other nasty that makes your furnace filter look funky after a few months. One way to tell if you’re committed to the idea, you could try drinking it. I will drink my top off water, will you drink your dehumidifier drippings?

 

[mb75]

My brother in law does professional water testing. I'm sending a sample to him first before I do anything.

My original thoughts were that it would be pretty close to distilled water, however, I forgot the fact that the dehumidifier is an open system, and condenses based on dew point, so it will in fact bring along any impurities that happen to be in the air.

Seemed like a good idea at the time

 

[Jennifer]

My brother in law does professional water testing. I'm sending a sample to him first before I do anything.

My original thoughts were that it would be pretty close to distilled water, however, I forgot the fact that the dehumidifier is an open system, and condenses based on dew point, so it will in fact bring along any impurities that happen to be in the air.

Seemed like a good idea at the time

That is the reason why I originally recommended running it through carbon. What I did not think about was if any copper or other metals could have leached into the water.

LMK what the test results show when you get them back.

 

[bigdog]

wood this work the same on a portabal ac it collects about 4 gallon every day

 

[mikenjo]

i just checked my water in the dehumidifier with a tds meter 12ppm
which is alot better than kingston tap water which is 122ppm
does your dehumidifier have copper coils that would be bad.
ro/di is the way to go but is expensive to buy but worth the investment

 

[wsonner]

Wow, I think you just gave me a killer idea for my sump pump!

Wes

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

i just checked my water in the dehumidifier with a tds meter 12ppm
which is alot better than kingston tap water which is 122ppm


I'd be careful about concluding that it is better. Most of what is measured by a TDS meter is just sodium, chloride, magnesium, calcium, etc. None of those are any concern.

But dehumidifier water will have little of those except from salt spray. What is the concern is dissolved metals, and if you had just copper in DI water, even 1 ppm TDS is way too much.

 

[rjdudek]

Also remember that although the TDS reading may be around 12 that only shows some of what is in the water. TDS readings are not absolute. A good many things do not show up.