Apologies if this sounds a bit odd and you may be thinking 'But I have a "No Maintenance Battery"'. I just wanted to share my thoughts on a less than obvious, but virtually free resource that many of us have under our noses ( not literally ). In fact many of us probably consider it a chore to dispose of it, or have even fitted a pipe at great expense and personal cost, to put it down the drain.
It is the condensate that comes from a typical condensing 'Tumble Drier' - pure water with just a hint of 'fluff'. The Missus often asks me to empty about half a gallon of this down the drain if I want my 'scruffs' to get dried before starting on the garden or car. I started off with a moment of realisation, perhaps whilst in the bathroom ( sorry, but many great ideas seem to start that way ). My soldering / desoldering station was a mess and I suddenley realised why. LIMESCALE, all I ever do is to tip water onto the sponges and the heat dries them up into a yucky crust. So I could use this stuff for free and solve the problem - it worked. Then I see my wife using 'Ironing Water' from the supermarket and; a) running out and in a panic using tap water, 2) complaining that the scent is way too strong. Aha ! I knew where to get a substitute / something to dilute with.
Now I have found the 'fluff' a little annoying, it settles to the bottom and clumps, so I do use a combination of simple containers / funnels to filter it, but it's probably unecessary for most things. A 'one cup' coffee fileter with a sheet of kitchen roll and a dishwasher salt funnel work together well for me, with a rather posh ice bucket to save the carpet. But the uses for this stuff just keep growing and growing. Here are some more :-
Have you ever had the displeasure of a blocked radiator matrix ? Well I have and it took an heroic effort to get the top and bottom off with a blowlamp and then the back of a wiper blade to dislodge all the 'crud' from the individual channels. Not to mention the strain on the nerves trying to resolder it. Why ? Our old enemy limescale once again, so when changing your coolant, this distilled water is a cheap and effective way to prevent introducing hardness into your cooling system.
Also, windscreen washer fluid. Have you ever cleaned and waxed you car ( I haven't yet, but I know many of you do ), only to have to wash the windows and end up with dried deposits streaked all over your pride and joy ? The hardness also crusts up your wash bottle ( take a look ), your pipes and of course those annoying little jets on the bonnet, where desperate attempts with bits of wire only push the scale back down the pipe tempoarily much of the time. Solution ? You've got it - a one-off spring clean of the system and some of that free distilled water again. Long term use of distilled water would actually clean the system too to some extent. I use the 'Tesco' concentrated blue stuff and make up my own fluid with this because I am too mean to pay £4.99 for 5 litres 'Ready to Use' at the garage and use it all in a week.
The same goes for cleaning your windows or conservatory. As you ( or your other half ) may know, hard water will leave deposits and spots. Hose pipe ? No ! You can even buy a 'water softener' cylinder 'thingy' at great expense to ensure the final rinse dries up cleanly. Or you can do a final spray and squeegy with this stuff and save your money.
There are still a few car batteries that can be topped up I believe. Sometimes a deep discharge will 'sulphate' up the plates and there are ways to try and undo that. About forty years ago I killed my Yuasa motorbike battery and as a student could not afford a new one. ( A remedy found in a 1920 wireless book saved the day. A saturated solution of Glauber's Salt ( sodium sulphate ) dissolved in ( yes ) distilled water and charged at .5 amp for several days, followed by rinsing with more distilled water, emptying and refilling with supluric acid of SG 1.25. I had to dilute it with distilled water ( none of which came from a tumble drier ), but it worked !
Oh, and I nearly forgot. Houseplants, instead of cactii and potplants getting crusted up with limescale, through repeated watering and concentration of the hardness in tap water, we use our surplus to water them without even taking a trip to the kitchen tap.
I feel sure I will find many more uses as time goes by, and it goes without saying that I would be most interested if you find another !
Foobar ( Noel )
It is the condensate that comes from a typical condensing 'Tumble Drier' - pure water with just a hint of 'fluff'. The Missus often asks me to empty about half a gallon of this down the drain if I want my 'scruffs' to get dried before starting on the garden or car. I started off with a moment of realisation, perhaps whilst in the bathroom ( sorry, but many great ideas seem to start that way ). My soldering / desoldering station was a mess and I suddenley realised why. LIMESCALE, all I ever do is to tip water onto the sponges and the heat dries them up into a yucky crust. So I could use this stuff for free and solve the problem - it worked. Then I see my wife using 'Ironing Water' from the supermarket and; a) running out and in a panic using tap water, 2) complaining that the scent is way too strong. Aha ! I knew where to get a substitute / something to dilute with.
Now I have found the 'fluff' a little annoying, it settles to the bottom and clumps, so I do use a combination of simple containers / funnels to filter it, but it's probably unecessary for most things. A 'one cup' coffee fileter with a sheet of kitchen roll and a dishwasher salt funnel work together well for me, with a rather posh ice bucket to save the carpet. But the uses for this stuff just keep growing and growing. Here are some more :-
Have you ever had the displeasure of a blocked radiator matrix ? Well I have and it took an heroic effort to get the top and bottom off with a blowlamp and then the back of a wiper blade to dislodge all the 'crud' from the individual channels. Not to mention the strain on the nerves trying to resolder it. Why ? Our old enemy limescale once again, so when changing your coolant, this distilled water is a cheap and effective way to prevent introducing hardness into your cooling system.
Also, windscreen washer fluid. Have you ever cleaned and waxed you car ( I haven't yet, but I know many of you do ), only to have to wash the windows and end up with dried deposits streaked all over your pride and joy ? The hardness also crusts up your wash bottle ( take a look ), your pipes and of course those annoying little jets on the bonnet, where desperate attempts with bits of wire only push the scale back down the pipe tempoarily much of the time. Solution ? You've got it - a one-off spring clean of the system and some of that free distilled water again. Long term use of distilled water would actually clean the system too to some extent. I use the 'Tesco' concentrated blue stuff and make up my own fluid with this because I am too mean to pay £4.99 for 5 litres 'Ready to Use' at the garage and use it all in a week.
The same goes for cleaning your windows or conservatory. As you ( or your other half ) may know, hard water will leave deposits and spots. Hose pipe ? No ! You can even buy a 'water softener' cylinder 'thingy' at great expense to ensure the final rinse dries up cleanly. Or you can do a final spray and squeegy with this stuff and save your money.
There are still a few car batteries that can be topped up I believe. Sometimes a deep discharge will 'sulphate' up the plates and there are ways to try and undo that. About forty years ago I killed my Yuasa motorbike battery and as a student could not afford a new one. ( A remedy found in a 1920 wireless book saved the day. A saturated solution of Glauber's Salt ( sodium sulphate ) dissolved in ( yes ) distilled water and charged at .5 amp for several days, followed by rinsing with more distilled water, emptying and refilling with supluric acid of SG 1.25. I had to dilute it with distilled water ( none of which came from a tumble drier ), but it worked !
Oh, and I nearly forgot. Houseplants, instead of cactii and potplants getting crusted up with limescale, through repeated watering and concentration of the hardness in tap water, we use our surplus to water them without even taking a trip to the kitchen tap.
I feel sure I will find many more uses as time goes by, and it goes without saying that I would be most interested if you find another !
Foobar ( Noel )
