I need a very small water softener to produce a few litres of soft water a day - for a humidifier. I can only find large appliances to soften an entire house's supply. Any suggestions?
- posted
13 years ago
I need a very small water softener to produce a few litres of soft water a day - for a humidifier. I can only find large appliances to soften an entire house's supply. Any suggestions?
Would it be sufficient to just boil the water first ?
Tim W
A small fridge with the door left open. That will dehumidify the room nicely - and you can then humidify it again....
Ah.
Maybe. How long would you need to keep it boiling for to precipitate out all the limescale?
I don't know.
Would one of those Brita water filtering jugs work? They may soften the water as well as filtering it, because they claim to "reduce limescale".
We use one with our kettle for exactly this reason: we have very hard water and the kettle scales up quickly if we don't filter the water first.
Don't know how much you use? but you can buy 25 Litres of deionised water for £20 on ebay. and smaller quantities pro rata. The problem is the weight for carriage. Might be worth doing a search for De-ionised or De-mineralised water. Google? Don
We collect the water from our self defrost fridge - this provides 2-3 time what we need for the steam iron.
Bob
You would need to re-condense the steam coming off it. Boiling would concentrate it.
I would suggest you get a water softener for the whole house. The savings in cleaning time and products are amazing.
You can get 25L of reverse osmosis water from Maidenhead Aquatics (and probably any other large aquarist) for £2 or so. You have to collect it yourself of course.
No. Some minerals are precipitated out by heating to form scale in the kettle.
Tim W
Or could you collect some rain water?
Tim W
I spoke to Brita. They reckon when the filter is new it will take out 75% of limescale, and repeating the process takes out 75% of what's left. That should do me. They don't recommend doing that if you plan to drink the water though.
Brita water filter or an Elga deioniser
Well, I use a Brita filter jug with the kettle in a very hard water area, and never get any scale in the kettle at all (just checked and it's bright and shiney inside, and about 10 years old).
I also use the filter much longer (6 months) than you are supposed to (1 month), but all the water gets boiled afterwards. (It wouldn't be safe to do this if you use the jug water directlys.)
Get a commercial water filter housing and a water softener filter cartridge. You could probably regenerate the cartridge by running brine through it and then flushing with clean water.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.