idea for watermaking

[northerncat]

i asked this question becuase i have heard of people making watermakers via distilling saltwater with heat so i just figured that this was fairly similar to an aircon except that an aircon pulls the water out of the air, interesting about the uvc so if your water had no metal contaminants you could probably drink after running it through a uv filter
sean

[GordMay]

Some bacteria produce endotoxins, that remain active after the bacteria (itself) is dead. Antibacterial sterilization does not remove these toxins.
Condensate should not be substituted where potable water would normally be used.
Condensate is not equivalent to distillate.
Condensate can be rendered safe, but the costs of treating condensate is higher than the cost of commercial water.
I wish all you naysayers well - you have better than 95% chance of thriving on free condensate.

[LtBrett]

Assuming you are able to clean/ sanitize your coils and subesquently treat the condensate with bromine or chlorine, you would be left with pretty clean water. You will have a harder time eliminating any heavy metal content picked up from, for example, solder (lead). None of the surfaces of your a/c are rated for contact with food or potable water. Lots of folks pre-wash dishes in sea water. I'd bet condensate would be fine for that purpose, but I wouldn't drink it.

Brett

[44'cruisingcat]

I think the posts mentioning legionella are confusing the types of A/C. Legionella can be found in evaporative type A/C systems, where the water is generally warm - on a compressor type A/C the water that condenses is cold, from contact with the cold evaporator (which is why it condenses) .
I think I would still probably only use the water for washing etc though, unless I had run out of other water.

Years ago some German friends of ours managed to get their rented Landcruiser bogged near Lake Eyre, it took them about a week to dig themselves out, and lucky for them the cruiser had A/C, and Marc was smart enough to collect the water, because they likely would have died there without it. (yes there was water on the ground there, which is why they got bogged, but it is extremely salt)

[FrankZ]

Originally Posted by ssullivan

Very intresting posts. So, given that Leigonella and other nasties can thrive on systems, do you think it is safe to wash dishes in that water? Our process is as follows:

1) Obtain water from reservoir in dehumidifier
2) Add 1 tablespoon of bleach and a good squirt of dish soap
3) Wash dishes and set aside
4) Empty dishwater from the "wash cycle"
5) Fill basin up with potable fresh water from our main water tank
6) Rinse dishes off above the basin of potable water with faucet, and dunk some of the dishes in the potable rinse water and rinse in the basin (to save more water of course!)

Sean,

When I worked in the food service industry what was standard was hot water for the wash (>150F) so you might consider heating the water if you can. The sanitize was left for after the rinse. Generally (when washed by hand not machine) it was a three part sink. Wash, rinse, sanitize. You might consider the bleach at the end with the bit of fresh.

[dana-tenacity]

A mate here in NZ has built a turbo charged water maker that he hopes will replace the office water cooler, if you were running a genset anyway you could get one of them and plug it in. Makes truckloads of 100% pure water, essentially a giant dehumidifier.

[Alan Wheeler]

Yeah I saw that. Great idea.
I drain my dehumdifier into our fresh water tank. I see no problems with it. Lets face it, it can't be any worse than than taking water from a stream in the bush. I have seen city resivors so bad I vowed I would never drink their water. Once I ran a bath at a house in the bush, where the water was so stained with tannin, that I honestly wasn't sure if I was going to come out cleaner than before I got in.

[northerncat]

give us a link to it
sean