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In using di water aboard yachts are their any concerns?

In using Di water aboard yachts are their any concerns storing and using the water in icemakers,waterheaters,washing machines etc? And if so what would the rate of deterioration be in days,years?

Jim Lovell
Boater - Newport Beach, California
2005

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That is almost impossible to answer, even if we knew all of the necessary information. To begin with, not all DI water is equally pure, and the more pure it is, the more active it will be when in contact with a metal (that is my understanding, I'm not an expert on DI water).

Also, there may well be other concerns than just corrosion - the taste of DI water isn't all that great (that is why they add minerals to most bottled water), if it is too pure there are some debates about the health effects of drinking DI water (just use the search engine to find a few letters about this in th archives), and you may have problems with increased algae growth since some large purifiers have to use a UV light to prevent it for themselves. Those are just the conerns I could think of off the top of my head, like I said earlier - I'm not an expert and am unaware of any other problems you might have.

If you are primarily looking into using DI water to avoid something like calcium build up, there are probably cheaper and easier ways to prevent it - a water softener being the most obvious. If you looking at it for something much cooler like purifying sea water for use on ship, I have no ideas for you whatsoever!

Good luck.

Jim Gorsich
Compton, California, USA
2005