Garden Railway Forum

While I was emptying my condenser tumble dryer I thought "I wonder if the water would be any good for engines?"
It has been turned to steam then condensed so should be purer than tap water but it does smell of conditioner. Any thoughts?

Your boiler will become nice and soft and smell of roses?

Should be better than tap water at least as it will be free of lime.

You do need to filter out the fluff etc (just look at the air filter). This is present in the water as well. I have been using it as well as filtered rainwater for some time.

David

I'm using water from the dryer filtered (for fluff) through a coffee filter paper. Being new to live steam I'm just hoping that this will be ok in the long term!

I have just started using water from my condenser tumble dryer. I filter it through an old Britta water filter. I recall reading somewhere that the water is acceptable, provided it is filtered. Previously I had been buying distilled water.

I can't see any reason why filtered dryer water isn't ideal. I normally use filtered rain water.

I'm sure it would be quite suitable as long as you run it through a simple filter.

rain water is about as pure as you can get & surely it is in large supply over there.

Sir Clothem Cap:117401 wrote:While I was emptying my condenser tumble dryer.....

Do you not have domestic staff for these duties?

steam Technology:117545 wrote:rain water is about as pure as you can get & surely it is in large supply over there.

I read somewhere that rainwater is not pure. It absorbs the chemicals in the atmosphere and can come down as acid rain. If so I suspect it is quite weak though.

stoker:117546 wrote:

Sir Clothem Cap:117401 wrote:While I was emptying my condenser tumble dryer.....

Do you not have domestic staff for these duties?

One can't get the staff these days

There was a long and quite bitter argument about defining the purity of the water used in Spitfire cooling systems. In the end Ernest Hives cut through it all and wrote simply that it should be drinkable.

Have you tasted tumble drier condensate? It's horrible, really really nasty. It has still got lots of conditioner and detergent in it. It is not strictly distilled as the steam from the drier is still largely "wet steam"; it contains minute droplets of water, which carry over anything dissolved in it. So at best it is tap water plus a lot of other things.

So I use rainwater. It comes out of the butt crystal clear, I don't even filter it.