I have been told to only put distilled water in the radiator before but no one really said why. Someone recently told me why and I thought I would share. It has been the only "technical" explanation I have heard.

- Tap water has chlorine in it and this causes the lubricants? (silicants - I think that is what he said) that prevent rust to drop out of the water thus leaving the metal unprotected.

- To test use a pool chlorine testing stick to see if there is any chlorine in the water and to see if the ph is at 7 ( I think).

Anyway, thought I would share and let others clear up the missed parts.

 

good info thanks

 

Personally I like to use RO/DI water with a TDS of 0 (basically pure water). I then add 20-30% antifreeze (I'm in Florida) and water wetter.

 

antifreeze has a higher boiling point than water, I use 50/50 and am in Phoenix AZ.
in addition to chlorine, tap water has hard metals in it.

 

The principal reason against tap water is simple - it has dissolved metals and minerals in it that will deposit on the interior surfaces of your cooling system. It does not take much of a coating to seriously degrade heat rejection efficiency - IIRC, something like 1/14" of scale (roughly .07") will degrade your cooling system by 10%.

Both distilled and RO-filtered water will be acceptable for use in your cooling system. Tap water should not be added to "wet cell" batteries for a similar reason - although, a coating on the plates will result in shorted cells.

 

i have a filter system with a reverse osmosis system on the house is this an acceptable water source

 

precisely 1.21 jigawatts?

 

Yes. Reverse osmosis is an acceptable filter process for removing dissolved solids, minerals, and metals from tap water.

Due to the cost of distilled water out here (thank you, PG&E!) I purchase RO-filtered water for use in radiators and suchlike - I have two three-gallon jugs I fill at intervals. Since I also have to keep a supply around for my MIL's medical equipment (bugger...) the intervals between jug fills are not great.

But, having my own jugs means I can get them filled at 0200 if I find I'm out, or close to it.