Who Is Using Dehumidifier Water??

[Rootbound]

Just curious if anyone is using their dehumidifier water to feed their plants with? Any drawbacks? Its a bit humid in my area now and the dehumidifier is running, just hate to toss the water out. Thanks, RB

 

[outwest]

I used to use the water collected by my portable AC without any problem. It's basically distilled water. I understand there can be issues with pathogens, but I never had any.

Happy growing.

outwest

 

[sixstring]

i have always used my dehuey water and a/c water,no problems ever.yes im mostly soil but i also use a res for times when im gone.the res sometimes sits for weeks before i get to using it.

 

[jammie]

yep- just distilled water, never had a problem. remember to add cal and mg

 

[Rootbound]

Thanks all! I currently use RO water because my tap water is 650ppm (1.3 ec) !!

 

[500lbs Guerilla]

Just be careful if your dehumidifier uses copper coils. It can leave trace copper in the water which can build to toxic levels over time. Happened with my Phoenix max 200 a few years ago. Left about 10 ppm copper in the water

 

[outwest]

Thanks all! I currently use RO water because my tap water is 650ppm (1.3 ec) !!

Wow. I thought my water was bad at 220 ppm and 13-17 grains of hardness.

outwest

 

[motz]

I'm interested to see how this turns out for ya Root to say the least.
Have done it before myself, not good.
Water going thru those alum piping not good, buddy.
Why don't they plumb houses with alum?
If the water is not out of copper, plastic or rubber, I wouldn't do it.
Ya may want to rethink this one?

 

[500lbs Guerilla]

My personal experience is with almost losing an entire mother room to copper toxicity after watering with dehumidifier water for about a month. This was with my commercial sized Phoenix dehumidifier with copper coils.
Before that, I was using the water from my smaller department store dehumidifiers with aluminum coils, and I never had a problem.
Keep in mind that dehumidifier water is essentially distilled and has nothing to buffer the pH. Your pH can swing rapidly. Better to mix it with some tap. Some will raise the pH to about 10, then drop it down to where they want it before using. I've heard this creates a bit of buffer as well.

 

[Rootbound]

I'm interested to see how this turns out for ya Root to say the least.
Have done it before myself, not good.
Water going thru those alum piping not good, buddy.
Why don't they plumb houses with alum?
If the water is not out of copper, plastic or rubber, I wouldn't do it.
Ya may want to rethink this one?

Well, this was the type of answer I was looking for. Been researching it a bit but wanted first hand experience. Thanks @motz . Would love to hear others experience. I think @Seamaiden uses dehuy water.

 

[motz]

That's just like saying don't drink the water from your faucet, never heard of such a thing with alum, I have.
There is a reason for no alum water pipes just like not cooking or boiling anything in a non coated alum pan.
Alum toxicity, if its not a good for a human it can't be good for fragile plants.
Now the pH swing is another story.

 

[500lbs Guerilla]

I'm not a scientist on the matter. This was a few years ago, but I can only speak from personal experience and the research I did when I was having the problem.
A Google search will show that many people speak of trace copper in water from dehumidifiers with copper coils, and that it may not be suitable for marine or plant life. I don't know if it's because the water is condensed on the coils instead of passing through them. That fact though, combined with the visible signs of copper toxicity that matched all photos of copper toxicity I could find, led me to believe the water was the culprit.
Tolerance of copper in cannabis isn't very high, I think it's something like 80-100ppms if I recall. Watering for a month with 10ppms of copper in my distilled water, well it seemed like a logical conclusion.
But I won't press the matter and insist that I'm right, because I really don't know for sure. You're right in that plumbing is made of copper for a reason, and I don't know if that means the same trace metals are to be found in all residential drinking/tap water.

 

[sixstring]

well i think my a/c has copper and aluminum in the coil and im not sure on the dehuey.but in summer i get 100% of my water from those 2 units,in winter its prolly only 30-40% because the a/c doesnt run.been doing this for 6 years indoors and never a problem.matter of fact my a/c water tests lower than my r/o does sometimes lol. now i could see a brand new a/c coil being a problem because when they are new they sometimes have a coating of oil on them to protect them,but mine didnt or if it did i never noticed any signs the plants were not happy .

 

[sixstring]

but the copper thing i dont get,because of how we build houses with all copper,and the hot water run would seem to be worse than any dehuey coil.and cold water pipes condensate during summer as well. so idk bout all that.

 

[Seamaiden]

A Google search will show that many people speak of trace copper in water from dehumidifiers with copper coils, and that it may not be suitable for marine or plant life. I don't know if it's because the water is condensed on the coils instead of passing through them. That fact though, combined with the visible signs of copper toxicity that matched all photos of copper toxicity I could find, led me to believe the water was the culprit.

Cupric solutions are used on aquatic vertebrates (not all species, EG; Echinoderms are NEVER Tx'd with cupric solutions, neither are most butterfly fishes), and it is used to kill aquatic invertebrates as well as some forms of nuisance algae. The form I am most familiar with for use in these areas is CuSO4, copper sulfate. It is highly soluble and far more toxic than the form we find in tubing and pipes. That said, one should *never* use Cu piping/tubing, or anything, that's near a marine environment or really where it will come into contact with the water column, EG; chillers used for temperate systems.

I've been using my collected dehuey water for both watering plants, and for keeping both aquatic vertebrates and invertebrates, no problems to this point. Perhaps the Cu coil thing is particular to how each dehuey is manufactured. Mine is a pretty inexpensive dehuey, I think it was a couple hundred dollars or so. I wonder if, perhaps, you're using a better, more expensive unit that's using copper tubing, that may explain what you observed and why it's different from the observations of others.

 

[Rootbound]

Still on the fence on this one. Just hate to be pumping traces of aluminum into my plants.

 

[Oldmanstoner]

All this over pretty much a No Brainer. If your not using basically free RO water then, well what can one say? Copper pollutents, wtf? I'm now starting to use a lot more water an water filter going 24/7, but I'm not paying for AC, for the most part.

 

[3N1GM4]

I would add a few drops of hydrogen peroxide to kill any bacteria growing in the humidifier water and test the ppm and ph the first few times I used it...maybe, or I might just stand at a closet door staring 1000 miles away and then stash the peroxide in the cupboard behind the corn chips while thinking of something else so that I can not for the life of me remember where I put the peroxide until I go to make some nachos, at which time I then put the peroxide on the kitchen table where it stays so I will be able to find it...right next to the deoderant and cordless drill.

 

[carBon.14]

I used to use the water collected by my portable AC without any problem. It's basically distilled water. I understand there can be issues with pathogens, but I never had any.

Happy growing.

outwest

Do you mean the bacteria that causes Legionnaires disease? I dont think it's a plant pathogen - but if you've got that in your cooling system I'd say you probably have a much bigger problem hahaha

 

[madmaster420]

I would add a few drops of hydrogen peroxide to kill any bacteria growing in the humidifier water and test the ppm and ph the first few times I used it...maybe, or I might just stand at a closet door staring 1000 miles away and then stash the peroxide in the cupboard behind the corn chips while thinking of something else so that I can not for the life of me remember where I put the peroxide until I go to make some nachos, at which time I then put the peroxide on the kitchen table where it stays so I will be able to find it...right next to the deoderant and cordless drill.

have you been watching me lately???

lmfao

You actually described my morning ritual...swap coffee cup for bottle of h2o2!

Hahahaha