Water filtration

[Argentum]

you can also get water distillers if you don't want the hassle of plumbing in a filtration unit.

http://www.juiceland.co.uk/item--Fre...RESHNPURE.html

I think they cost about 10p a litre to run so about 45p a gallon.

[wiesmier]

I hadn't been having too many issues with water till they built or, re-built the water-treatment plant just outside the village. Now the water is terrible with loads of particles - looks like they are adding sheeps wool to the water - possibly complete sheeps!. Now I give it the Brita treatment and that's helps a lot.
The water is quite acid - all the peat round here and what have you - not sure if that helps or hinders tho.

[Argentum]

Originally Posted by wiesmier

I hadn't been having too many issues with water till they built or, re-built the water-treatment plant just outside the village. Now the water is terrible with loads of particles - looks like they are adding sheeps wool to the water - possibly complete sheeps!. Now I give it the Brita treatment and that's helps a lot.
The water is quite acid - all the peat round here and what have you - not sure if that helps or hinders tho.

The water here is acid too and used to be very clean but these days it's full of red clay. The hot water header tank has a layer in the bottom of it and the bath goes red after a few days. It's like indicator stop bath, you know when it needs cleaning

[Trevor Crone]

Acid water - very good for Amidol developers

[Stoo Batchelor]

Originally Posted by Richard S

Does anyone have any views on the necessity of filtering the cold water supply ? I have not done this previously, but as I am in the process of building a darkroom, this would be a good time to do it if there are definite benefits.

Richard

Hi Richard

Following serious problems with crud on my negatives, along with drying marks, I had a Reverse Osmosis undersink filter system fitted. As far as I am concerned it is the best money I have ever spent. Not only are my negatives always squeeky clean, but I also take a couple of litres to work with me each day, and fill my kettle with it, which is still looking like new inside.

It would be money very well spent as far as I am concerned.

Best

Stoo

[NoelKingsley]

I used to use Distilled water for film development but never noticed any difference. I now use tap water for everything and I live in a hard water area.
Noel

[Neil Smith]

Lots of people are using distilled water, and quite a few people in the past mention they buy water from Halfords which is deionised water.
My question is does it matter which? I believe distilled is more pure and harder to find, as well as more costly. Anybody have any information regarding the two?

Neil

[Dave miller]

Originally Posted by Neil Smith

Lots of people are using distilled water, and quite a few people in the past mention they buy water from Halfords which is deionised water.
My question is does it matter which? I believe distilled is more pure and harder to find, as well as more costly. Anybody have any information regarding the two?

Neil

I don't think it matters. My prime requirement for the final film rinse is that the water be free of undissolved minerals that would otherwise dry on the film and cause stains. I also prefer to use a near neutral ph water to make my developer with.

[Bob]

When I looked into this I found that DI water may still contain organic residue such as bacteria - anything much larger gets caught. Other than that, they are pretty much identical.

[Argentum]

real purification of water is more complex than it might seem.
Truly deionised water doesn't exist except under laboratory conditions for very short lifetime.
Pure H2O doesn't exist naturally as water is amphiprotic which means it reacts with itself and H2O + H2O gives H3O+(aq) and OH-. It reaches an equilibrium by itself.

The deionization filters do not remove the ions from water molecules. It removes mostly dissolved minerals and distillation process never achieve pure H2O because of carry over in steam. But that is not really relevant for our needs because what we need is water which has sufficient disolved minerals removed and sufficient organic matter removed. Distillation requires several passes through the process to make it really clean and that makes truly distilled water very expensive and a deionisation filter does not remove everything.
So your cheap distilled water is probably single pass distillation and not as pure as you might think and nor is de-ionised water. But both will be pure enough for photographic chemical processing.

A home system of distillation or De-ioniser should produce consistent water quality which is plenty good enough.