Distilled Water.

[Keith Tapscott.]

Why is distilled water so expensive to buy in the UK? :confused:

 

[pauldc]

I get it from my local independent chemist for £2.50 for 5 litres - more expensive than from the tap but better than buying it from Halfords or super stores in my experience. Infact the chemist is great and gets me brown glass bottles at about 30 pence for the 500 ml size and cheaper for smaller bottles. I think it is about finding a nice local chap and building a relationship - certainly my chemist is interested in talking about photography as it is a nice distraction for him from handing out the methadone.

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

I get it from my local independent chemist for £2.50 for 5 litres - more expensive than from the tap but better than buying it from Halfords or super stores in my experience. Infact the chemist is great and gets me brown glass bottles at about 30 pence for the 500 ml size and cheaper for smaller bottles. I think it is about finding a nice local chap and building a relationship - certainly my chemist is interested in talking about photography as it is a nice distraction for him from handing out the methadone.

£2.50 for 5 litres is quite reasonable, but I`ve seen it at stupid prices of £12.95 just for 1 Litre.
How does distilled water differ from deionised water? (51 pence per litre from Asda super market.)

 

[Magnus W]

In aquaristics shops you can buy a revers osmosis filter for ~130£ - 190Euro - 220$.
Link here
It will supply about 90 liters of pure water / day

-- MW

 

[Baxter Bradford]

Keith

I bought one of the aquarium reverse osmosis from E**y with the extra deioniser module it was £65 and came from a seller based in Germany. Works well and simple to install.

Household flow ones are around the £100-120 mark without deoiniser if I recall correctly.

 

[JBrunner]

I use distilled water to mix my paper developer, etc, however for water stops, film developer, and such, I have found that running my tap water through a britta type charcoal filter jug is enough to to the trick. I have very good water out of the tap where I live, however, and I think testing would be in order for someone to try this. In other words YMMV.

 

[Photo Engineer]

There are 3 grades of 'purified' water.

Distilled water is boiled to steam and the steam is condensed into another container. The impurities are left behind. In this type, there can be impurities left that are either volatile or come from the apparatus itself. These include amines and metal salts.

Deionized water is plain water run through a mixed bed ion exchange resin to remove ionic impurities. It leaves behind any non-ionic organic impurities.

Then there is Deionized Distilled water which combines both of the above processes to give the purest water. Ideally, this includes a resin that removes organic impurities as well.

Here, distilled water is about $0.90 / gallon.

PE

 

[gainer]

I have found the water condensed by my dehumidifier to be satisfactory for practical darkroom uses. It surely has CO2 and maybe some other gases from the air, but nothing that causes calcium and magnesium precipitates that I get from my well water, and no chlorine that I used to get from city water of Newport News, VA. I'm pretty far from any industrial air pollution, except for an occasional leaky gas well. I suspect that boiling the dehumidifier water would get it as pure as anything I could buy around here. The problem is that about half the year, the humidity is too low to keep up with my demands.

 

[m_liddell]

Halfords 'battery top up water' is the cheapest I have found so far. If anyone know anywhere significantly cheaper please tell!

I used distilled water for *everything*, dev, stop, fix, and washing which gets pretty pricey. I had a nightmare with tiny spots on my negs and this is the only way I solved it.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I only used DW in emulsion making, not for processing.

I do not use water from a dehumidifier as it contains algae, fungi, and bacteria. If you look closely at your colletion tank for the dehumidifier you will see the slime along the edges of the tank.

I have been advised that this is not a good procedure to follow.

PE

 

[Dave Miller]

I use distilled water for the developer and the final film wash, but am happy to use filtered water for the rest.
That dosn't answer Keith's original question though.

 

[Rob Archer]

Interesting - I've never given much thought to the water I use for actual processing, but find a final rinse in filtered water with a drop of wetting agent works fine and makes a difference to the final quality of the negs.

Rob

 

[Photo Engineer]

I use distilled water for the developer and the final film wash, but am happy to use filtered water for the rest.
That dosn't answer Keith's original question though.

Dave, since you are in England, can you answer it?

OTOH, my answer is really - why use it? It is not necessary. Most developers and fixers contain extra ingredients to 'adjust' for most normal tap water supplies in the world. Photo flo and equivalent wetting agents are designed to do the same.

At worst, the only place you would need DW is where the water is very hard with lots of minerals. In that case, you only need it in the final rinse anyhow.

PE

 

[clay]

The pH of my tap water changes seasonally. In the winter it is about 7.2, in the summer, it is 8.0. That fact alone is enough to make me use distilled water just for consistent devlopment behavior. I realize that many commercial developers are nicely buffered to make this a small factor, but I use a lot of home brew stuff that does not have the same buffering ability.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The pH of my tap water changes seasonally. In the winter it is about 7.2, in the summer, it is 8.0. That fact alone is enough to make me use distilled water just for consistent devlopment behavior. I realize that many commercial developers are nicely buffered to make this a small factor, but I use a lot of home brew stuff that does not have the same buffering ability.

The fact that the pH of tap water varies is immaterial.

The buffer capacity of tap water is close to zero regardless of its pH.

You must understand the difference between buffer capacity and pH. The buffer capacity of most developers is huge and therefore the developer will swing the pH to the correct value by virtue of its capacity to change or control pH.

When developer is added to tap water at pH 4 or pH 9, if the final pH of the developer is to be 9.0 it may then vary from 8.95 - 9.05 which is insignificant in terms of development considering all of the other variables going into the process. Very often, agitation or temperature will cause more variation than a difference of 0.1 pH units. I have done this experiment.

You must also remember that even distilled water can vary in pH depending on how long it has been exposed to the open air and the ambient carbon dioxide in air.

PE

 

[Bob F.]

How expensive is what you are buying? Halfords is 3.50 beer tokens per 5 litres IIRC and as I only use it for film developer and the final rinse I don't find it particularly expensive. Paul's idea of trying the local chemist's shop is a good one though; I'll give that a try.

Cheers, Bob.

 

[gainer]

I only used DW in emulsion making, not for processing.

I do not use water from a dehumidifier as it contains algae, fungi, and bacteria. If you look closely at your colletion tank for the dehumidifier you will see the slime along the edges of the tank.

I have been advised that this is not a good procedure to follow.

PE

I have indeed seen this stuff. I do not pour from the top of the tank, but have rigged a hose outlet from the bottom. The water is quite clear. I do clean the tank from time to time with Clorox. I could take it to the same place I had my well water analyzed, but that costs more than 100 sheets of printing paper, and my printing paper is going to tell me what I want to know. Let's just say I would have no qualms about making tea or coffee with that water.

I don't much care for the cloudy solutions I get from my well water, and although I have done it at times, I don't like to used chelating agents in film developer that I'm testing, at least not until I have tested it without.

I read somewhere that one could use the broth from vegetable soup to mix developer. I haven't gone so far as to test that proposition.

 

[Troy Hamon]

I decided long ago I wasn't going to fret over water purity...we have good water from the tap and I use it for mixing developer, stop, and fixer, and for rinsing. I figure that I'd rather make the process enjoyable and simple by only addressing issues like water purity IF there is a perceived problem with my final prints. So far, it hasn't been an issue. If I learn to do emulsions someday, that seems like an entirely different level of quality control...

 

[gainer]

I should have mentioned that during those dry times I use a borax-hydroxide mix to get about the same pH as carbonate in my well water without the cloudiness of carbonate.

 

[Dave Miller]

Dave, since you are in England, can you answer it?

Nope!

I can only guess, that since no one uses it except us lot because car batteries are now sealed, and don't use much, if any; the demand has fallen to zilch. Does that sound familier?

Bob, my local Halfords only stocks small bottles.

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

Nope!

I can only guess, that since no one uses it except us lot because car batteries are now sealed, and don't use much, if any; the demand has fallen to zilch. Does that sound familier?

Bob, my local Halfords only stocks small bottles.

My local supermarket (ASDA) sell deionised water for 51 pence per litre.
Never seems to be much mention on photo-forums about water quality, filtering &c.

 

[srs5694]

I can only guess, that since no one uses it except us lot because car batteries are now sealed, and don't use much, if any; the demand has fallen to zilch. Does that sound familier?

Here in the US, most supermarkets and drug stores sell distilled water, so there have got to be uses for it other than in mixing photochemistry. I recall my mother buying it when I was a child for use in a steam iron. I don't know if it's still used for that (I don't happen to own an iron), but if so, that'd be a pretty common use for the stuff.

 

[m_liddell]

Here in the US, most supermarkets and drug stores sell distilled water, so there have got to be uses for it other than in mixing photochemistry. I recall my mother buying it when I was a child for use in a steam iron. I don't know if it's still used for that (I don't happen to own an iron), but if so, that'd be a pretty common use for the stuff.

You can buy it in Tesco's for about the same price as halfords, but in smaller bottles. The packaging indicates for use in irons.

 

[BBMOR]

hello
the water so called distilled is in fact deionised water a cheap way to have at least a soft water ,without Ca and Mg salts is to use a Britta or a Kenwood filter which are placed in a kind of can and you are able to produce a lot of volumes in a cheap way

succes

jm

 

[firecracker]

I'm assuming if the water is provided as drinkable water whether it's straight out of your tap or not, it's okay for photographic materials for the most part.

Maybe not. :confused: