Rain water for distilled water in car & iron at home?

[micky]

It's time for me to go to bed, so I haven't rad your whole thing.

The EPA definitely reduced acid rain. I'm not on their mailing list so I don't know how much.

the answers you are getting are abot if they are the same?, which iirc was your question. But what I think you're interested in, and your subject line (and I hate when a subject line includes something that's not in the bodytext) seems to be about, Can I use rain water in the iron and the battery without doing damage?

Those are two different questions.

[micky]

When media change the terms they use, it's generally because their sources change what terms they use. I guess you know this and that's what you meant by "learned", learned from their sources, the people working in each given field, but I wanted to make it clear.

[micky]

I don't object at all to hypothetical discussions here, but I still wonder, Why not buy distilled water. My car battery only needs water ever 2 or 3 years, and I barely do ironing anymore but if I did Wegman's has a gallon of "distilled" water for $1.29. That would last me 5 years.

I'm a little suprrised they can call it distilled, especially Wegman's which I think is a more expensive than average grocery and which pushes quality instead of price (afaik). I'm surprised at Wegmans even if the the FDA has liberalized a rule to allow it, and I'm surprised at the FDA too. Distilled and distillation** have a long-term accepted meaning, and their Details makes clear this is not it: "Our Distilled Water has been filtered to remove all minerals and impurities. What remains is clear and pure water. Distilled water is a wonderful multi-purpose water, great for drinking, [except it has no taste] use in cooking, or even in your steam Iron! Processed by: Micron Filtration, Ozonation, Ultraviolet Light & Steam Distillation. ..."

I just noticed at the end they bring up steam distillation. If they do that, why do they have to do the other things? Doesn't steam distillation do everything filtering, ozone, and UV could do?

**Try making moonshine without a real still, with only a filter, ozone, and UV.

They also sell purified water, a gallon for $1.29

Purified Water has been filtered to remove all minerals and impurities. What remains is clean and pure drinking water. Processed by: Micron Filtration, Ultraviolet Light, Reverse Osmosis, Ozonation.

And finally they have, under a fancier name, SmartWater Distilled Water, Vapor, for $2.89 for 1.5 liters. Now no one knows how many liters it takes to make a gallon, but it's more than 1.5 and the price is twice as much so the price is more than 4 times as much

Details "Vapor distilled water and electrolytes for taste purely balanced pH. Purity you can taste. [That must mean that there is no taste, because it's the minerals that give good tap water and spring water their taste.] Hydration you can feel. [Give me a break. Even dirty, muddy water will hydrate you, and if you're bad off, you'll feel the improvement.] Clouds might throw some shade, but they give us nature's purest source of water. We think that's pretty smart, so we took inspiration from our puffy white friends and created [as though they thought of this, when distilled water has been made for hundreds of years!!] pure, vapor-distilled [So this is NewSpeak. It used to be all distilled water had been turned into vapor first, and the other stuff was called filtered water, but now they are trying to convince people that vaporization is just one kind of distillation. Bullox (did I use that right?)] Smartwater with a purely balanced pH. Then we one-up'd nature and added electrolytes for a crisp, clean taste. [Oh, so it does have taste, but now it's no longer distilled, and they don't say what it will do to your iron and car battery!]

how2recycle.info. SmartLabel: Scan for info. For water quality and information, please contact Glaceau: 1-877-Glaceau or visit Recycle me. See you again soon!"

If I were any of you, including me, I'd buy a gallow of real steam distilled water now before it's harder to find. The first two chains I looked at didn't seem to have it.

The last time I bought it at Walmart, only because I was there for some other reason. I hate to admit that, and I hate to push walmart, but I think they don't have it either:

$64.99/gallon Sold and shipped by Pharmapack, [Pharmpack, a pharmacy?]

3.5 stars on 296 seller reviews This is incredible. Only 5 years ago it was about a dollar a gallon.

I was going to cross post to sci.chem or even sci.physics, but there are nothing but trolls there now. Why is it that when normal people leave a ng, trolls show up, when there are no normal people to read what the trolls want read? And why don't they post much before others leave?

[trader_4]

Whether it's called acid rain because it's lower because of air pollution or just lower naturally, it's still probably not the same PH as distilled water, which should higher. It's probably alright for what he's using it for though. Me, I've always just put tap water into vehicle cooling systems, never had anything bad happen. Batteries rarely need to be topped off, if you even can, but for that I have used distilled water. A gallon lasts forever. The problem with collecting rain water is how to do it without getting bird poop, dirt, leaves, etc in it.

Only thing there that I would use it for would be batteries and the iron.

[micky]

I agree with you about dirt and leaves and cetera, but bird poop actually makes car batteries better. It mixes with the sulfuric acid and makes the acid stronger. I have a friend who has a cousin whose husband worked for Sears and he said that was the secret ingredient in Sears Die-Hard Batteries that made them better than Die-Easy batteries.

You can improve other batteries or any brand by adding bird poop, but only from certain birds, and the Sears research is still secret.

Me too. I use tap water for the radiator and windshield washer. The cooling system is much bigger than the mineral deposits will be, especially since most of the minerals will stay in solution, and I've never heard of a windshield washer pump clogging. (And my cars are usually 7 years old when I get them and 14 when I abandon them. Newer cars have even less time to get clogged. (Not counting the GM cars from the 60's etc. that had valves that got stiff, not clogged, but could be replaced.)

[micky]

That brings up another point. Though I'm not saying how big a problem acid rain is these days, someone distinguished between city and rural, and that's not valid. The acid in acid rain can come from 100's of miles away and as the wind blows, it can rain on every place in between.

The acid in acid rain is generated from a broad area and that area doesn't suffer from it anymore than the places downwind.

In the NE USA, the wind is mostly from the west. Weather comes mostly from the west. For some reason I think I remember that acid rain in NY and New England comes from West Virginia, or maybe Kentucky, but I can't remember why that would be. For one thing, those are not W but SW of New England.

[micky]

Somehow rec.autos.tech got deleted, from the dist list.

If you have a choice, better to reply to this post, or to both, so they will see it too, than the similar post just before this >>>

I don't object at all to hypothetical discussions here, but I still wonder, Why not buy distilled water. My car battery only needs water ever 2 or 3 years, and I barely do ironing anymore but if I did Wegman's has a gallon of "distilled" water for $1.29. That would last me 5 years.

I'm a little suprrised they can call it distilled, especially Wegman's which I think is a more expensive than average grocery and which pushes quality instead of price (afaik). I'm surprised at Wegmans even if the the FDA has liberalized a rule to allow it, and I'm surprised at the FDA too. Distilled and distillation** have a long-term accepted meaning, and their Details makes clear this is not it: "Our Distilled Water has been filtered to remove all minerals and impurities. What remains is clear and pure water. Distilled water is a wonderful multi-purpose water, great for drinking, [except it has no taste] use in cooking, or even in your steam Iron! Processed by: Micron Filtration, Ozonation, Ultraviolet Light & Steam Distillation. ..."

I just noticed at the end they bring up steam distillation. If they do that, why do they have to do the other things? Doesn't steam distillation do everything filtering, ozone, and UV could do?

**Try making moonshine without a real still, with only a filter, ozone, and UV.

They also sell purified water, a gallon for $1.29

Purified Water has been filtered to remove all minerals and impurities. What remains is clean and pure drinking water. Processed by: Micron Filtration, Ultraviolet Light, Reverse Osmosis, Ozonation.

And finally they have, under a fancier name, SmartWater Distilled Water, Vapor, for $2.89 for 1.5 liters. Now no one knows how many liters it takes to make a gallon, but it's more than 1.5 and the price is twice as much so the price is more than 4 times as much

Details "Vapor distilled water and electrolytes for taste purely balanced pH. Purity you can taste. [That must mean that there is no taste, because it's the minerals that give good tap water and spring water their taste.] Hydration you can feel. [Give me a break. Even dirty, muddy water will hydrate you, and if you're bad off, you'll feel the improvement.] Clouds might throw some shade, but they give us nature's purest source of water. We think that's pretty smart, so we took inspiration from our puffy white friends and created [as though they thought of this, when distilled water has been made for hundreds of years!!] pure, vapor-distilled [So this is NewSpeak. It used to be all distilled water had been turned into vapor first, and the other stuff was called filtered water, but now they are trying to convince people that vaporization is just one kind of distillation. Bullox (did I use that right?)] Smartwater with a purely balanced pH. Then we one-up'd nature and added electrolytes for a crisp, clean taste. [Oh, so it does have taste, but now it's no longer distilled, and they don't say what it will do to your iron and car battery!]

how2recycle.info. SmartLabel: Scan for info. For water quality and information, please contact Glaceau: 1-877-Glaceau or visit Recycle me. See you again soon!"

If I were any of you, including me, I'd buy a gallow of real steam distilled water now before it's harder to find. The first two chains I looked at didn't seem to have it.

The last time I bought it at Walmart, only because I was there for some other reason. I hate to admit that, and I hate to push walmart, but I think they don't have it either:

$64.99/gallon Sold and shipped by Pharmapack, [Pharmpack, a pharmacy?]

3.5 stars on 296 seller reviews This is incredible. Only 5 years ago it was about a dollar a gallon.

I was going to cross post to sci.chem or even sci.physics, but there are nothing but trolls there now. Why is it that when normal people leave a ng, trolls show up, when there are no normal people to read what the trolls want read? And why don't they post much before others leave?

[micky]

I agree with you about dirt and leaves and cetera, but bird poop actually makes car batteries better. It mixes with the sulfuric acid and makes the acid stronger. I have a friend who has a cousin whose husband worked for Sears and he said that was the secret ingredient in Sears Die-Hard Batteries that made them better than Die-Easy batteries.

You can improve other batteries or any brand by adding bird poop, but only from certain birds, and the Sears research is still secret.

Me too. I use tap water for the radiator and windshield washer. The cooling system is much bigger than the mineral deposits will be, especially since most of the minerals will stay in solution, and I've never heard of a windshield washer pump clogging. (And my cars are usually 7 years old when I get them and 14 when I abandon them. Newer cars have even less time to get clogged. (Not counting the GM cars from the 60's etc. that had valves that got stiff, not clogged, but could be replaced.)

[Cindy Hamilton]

Filtration removes stuff that they don't want in their distillation equipment. Ozonation and UV kill microorganisms in the water, preventing them from infecting the distillation equipment.

[micky]

Makes sense, but those are reasons it helps the producer. It keeps his equipment good. What the customer would care about is the distilling and that gets listed last. I almost didn't notice it. The short description, before you click on "Read more" and go to the bottom of the page says

Our Distilled Water has been filtered to remove all minerals and impurities. What remains is clear and pure water. Distilled water is.... Read more.

That sounds like it's just filtered, and indeed some stores sell filtered water in gallon plastic bottles similar to distilled water. But filtering water does NOT remove all the minerals and impurites so that what remains is pure water, so it's not even true. If it were true, there would be no point to distilling it. It will be clear but not pure.

Even at the bottom it's the 3rd line out of 4.

Copy written by an advertising guy who doesn't really know what distillation does.

[Michael Trew]

In theory, it would be, if not for contaminates.

My father as a cistern which collects rain water for his house (in lieu of a well or city water). The water is held in a concrete tank under the side porch. It's not pretty, and you do *not* want to drink that water.

[TimR]

If you want to see "not pretty," look at what comes out of a fire sprinkler system or building standpipes for the hoses. Black biological crud that stains everything.