We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.

Anyone done this? It must be a fairly common problem with the
increasing popularity of this type of equipment.

Do Liebig Condensors still have daft legal problems connected with
them? I could spend a day with some smallbore copper, but would
prefer the lab ones.

Ideas please

EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.

A dehumidifier will work.
The dissolved mineral content of the output water is very low.
Clean the filter fairly often.

On 16 Mar 2005 15:23:18 GMT, Ian Stirling
babbled like a waterfall and said:

EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.

A dehumidifier will work.
The dissolved mineral content of the output water is very low.
Clean the filter fairly often.

Neat idea that, but I don't have a need for one, if anything, we need
a humifidier. )

EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.

Anyone done this? It must be a fairly common problem with the
increasing popularity of this type of equipment.

Do Liebig Condensors still have daft legal problems connected with
them? I could spend a day with some smallbore copper, but would
prefer the lab ones.

Ideas please

http://www.moonshine-still.com/

http://tinyurl.com/6vrcf

multipurpose, natch ;-)

RT

EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.

Anyone done this? It must be a fairly common problem with the
increasing popularity of this type of equipment.

Do Liebig Condensors still have daft legal problems connected with
them? I could spend a day with some smallbore copper, but would
prefer the lab ones.

Ideas please



I have been considering build a still for about 6 months (for water only
of course). As I don't want to pay the shocking fuel costs I was
thinking of trying to make it solar powered. I doubt it would be very
fast but it would be free which is a bonus as far as I can see it. Since
in our dull weather it would be difficult to capture enough energy to
heat a large amount of water I intend heat just a small tube that is
gravity fed by the bulk of the water. The main bulk tank will be black
to absorb as much heat as possible and the thin tube will be heated with
either lenses or a concave mirror.

I wasn't aware of any legal problems surrounding condensers (Liebig or
otherwise) but I suppose when I used them I was working in a lab and we
had a good reason to have them. A bit of copper pipe in a bucket of
water would be ample to condense water though. I wouldn't go to the
expense of getting proper lab kit unless I need accurate distilation
(e.g. I was distilling something other than water).

On the topic of distilling alcohol I don't think I would do it. There is
to much risk of concentrating the methanol in the liquor and not
realizing until you have gone blind. I imagine you would be fairly safe
if you discarded the first 10% of the distillate though.

doozer wrote:

I wasn't aware of any legal problems surrounding condensers

prolly 'coz there aren't any.

On the topic of distilling alcohol I don't think I would do it. There is
to much risk of concentrating the methanol in the liquor and not
realizing until you have gone blind. I imagine you would be fairly safe
if you discarded the first 10% of the distillate though.

and the last ....

things have moved on a pace since the olden days. for a start there's
this thing called the internet that disseminates useful information on
how to avoid many pitfalls that our predecessors fell foul of.

how mad is that ?


RT

EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.
Thus I want to look at home production.

De-ionised water is usually adequate isn't it? And even my school chem
lab had a machine for making that.

Owain

Ian Stirling wrote:

EricP wrote:

We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.


A dehumidifier will work.
The dissolved mineral content of the output water is very low.
Clean the filter fairly often.

Boil some kettles and leave te fridge door open?

In article , "EricP"
says...
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.

Anyone done this? It must be a fairly common problem with the
increasing popularity of this type of equipment.

Do Liebig Condensors still have daft legal problems connected with
them? I could spend a day with some smallbore copper, but would
prefer the lab ones.

Ideas please

I wonder if you could do something using reduced pressure so the
water boiled at a lower temperature - that probably presents a whole
different set of problems, but maybe more economical than boiling at
100 Centigrade and easier than cooling loads of vapour?

Rob Morley wrote:

I wonder if you could do something using reduced pressure so the
water boiled at a lower temperature - that probably presents a whole
different set of problems, but maybe more economical than boiling at
100 Centigrade and easier than cooling loads of vapour?

You really want to use the heat removed from the condensate to heat the
next lot of source water. Exactly how is left as an exercise to the reader!

--
Spamtrap in use
To email replace 127.0.0.1 with blueyonder dot co dot uk

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:51:54 +0000, doozer
babbled like a waterfall and
said:

I wasn't aware of any legal problems surrounding condensers (Liebig or
otherwise) but I suppose when I used them I was working in a lab and we
had a good reason to have them. A bit of copper pipe in a bucket of
water would be ample to condense water though. I wouldn't go to the
expense of getting proper lab kit unless I need accurate distilation
(e.g. I was distilling something other than water).

Last time I was near a Liebig, Customs & Excise were interested in
them. Apparently they are paranoic about anything that could "distill"
anything. As they are seriously nasty and heavy, I do not wish to
offend them in any way, shape or form. )

(I have heard tales about trying to block copper cylinders with
efficient heat exchangers because they are easily reversed into proper
alcohol stills)

The bucket and coil seem as good as any I suppose, particularly as I
have the pipe.

Cheers

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:11:36 +0000, Owain
babbled like a waterfall and said:

EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.
Thus I want to look at home production.

De-ionised water is usually adequate isn't it? And even my school chem
lab had a machine for making that.

Owain

Ok, I will pop out and get a de-ionizing machine tomorrow, any idea
how much they cost? )

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 19:56:14 -0000, Rob Morley
babbled like a waterfall and said:

In article , "EricP"
says...
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.

Anyone done this? It must be a fairly common problem with the
increasing popularity of this type of equipment.

Do Liebig Condensors still have daft legal problems connected with
them? I could spend a day with some smallbore copper, but would
prefer the lab ones.

Ideas please

I wonder if you could do something using reduced pressure so the
water boiled at a lower temperature - that probably presents a whole
different set of problems, but maybe more economical than boiling at
100 Centigrade and easier than cooling loads of vapour?

I had thought along those lines, but passing steam through a pipe in
cold water in the kitchen seemed more in my line of stupidity. It's
just to avoid a few quid a week in buying water and the project
interests me.

The pressure reduction is not too difficult to obtain, but collection
does present a few difficulties.

Cheers for the different input on this.

I have been considering build a still for about 6 months (for water only
of course). As I don't want to pay the shocking fuel costs I was thinking
of trying to make it solar powered. I doubt it would be very fast but it
would be free which is a bonus as far as I can see it.

I've seen a "survival" design which involves digging a hole like a small
fishpond, covering it with polythene sheet weighed down in the centre with a
stone, and a collecting vessel underneath at the lowest point. Solar heat
distills water out of the ground which condenses on the sheet and runs down
into the collector. If you have space you could fabricate something like
that. If you used (say) a polythene tub you could put a pint or two of tap
water in it to improve the yield. You can also get solar stills to go with
liferafts, but you'd be talking about sailing money....

[news] wrote:
doozer wrote:


I wasn't aware of any legal problems surrounding condensers


prolly 'coz there aren't any.


On the topic of distilling alcohol I don't think I would do it. There is
to much risk of concentrating the methanol in the liquor and not
realizing until you have gone blind. I imagine you would be fairly safe
if you discarded the first 10% of the distillate though.


and the last ....

things have moved on a pace since the olden days. for a start there's
this thing called the internet that disseminates useful information on
how to avoid many pitfalls that our predecessors fell foul of.

how mad is that ?


RT




Wow I never realized you could get all this information from one place.
Shame you can't trust half of it because it's written by crack pots that
have been drinking to much of their own moonshine.

As with most things producing a good still means more than just sticking
a fire under a tin can and condensing what comes off. There is no guide
that will give you real, hands on, experience of distilling which is
what you need to get it right. It would be like reading a book on brick
laying and expecting to get it right first time.

Fortunately the OP only needs to get rid of the mineral content of water
which means all that is needed is a fire under a can.

EricP wrote:
On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:11:36 +0000, Owain
babbled like a waterfall and said:


EricP wrote:

We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.
Thus I want to look at home production.

De-ionised water is usually adequate isn't it? And even my school chem
lab had a machine for making that.

Owain


Ok, I will pop out and get a de-ionizing machine tomorrow, any idea
how much they cost? )



You can pick up fairly cheap reverse osmosis machines now-a-days (less
than 200 probably even less than 100). Have a look in marine aquarium
suppliers (fingers crossed, in a few months time, I will be able to sell
you one )).

Defrost the freezer!

Regards
Capitol

EricP wrote:
On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 19:56:14 -0000, Rob Morley
babbled like a waterfall and said:


In article , "EricP"
says...

We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.

Anyone done this? It must be a fairly common problem with the
increasing popularity of this type of equipment.

Do Liebig Condensors still have daft legal problems connected with
them? I could spend a day with some smallbore copper, but would
prefer the lab ones.

Ideas please


I wonder if you could do something using reduced pressure so the
water boiled at a lower temperature - that probably presents a whole
different set of problems, but maybe more economical than boiling at
100 Centigrade and easier than cooling loads of vapour?


I had thought along those lines, but passing steam through a pipe in
cold water in the kitchen seemed more in my line of stupidity. It's
just to avoid a few quid a week in buying water and the project
interests me.

The pressure reduction is not too difficult to obtain, but collection
does present a few difficulties.

When I needed a small amount in a hurry[1] I connected the steam
wallpaper stripper up to a coil of 10mm Cu I happened to have lying
around [3] which I dunked in the kitchen sink with the cold tap running
slowly over it and collected the distillate in a cafetiere (although it
was quite cold as it came out so a plastic bottle would have done). No
doubt if I'd had a continuing need for the stuff the apparatus might
have evolved into something more elegant and efficient.


[1] to top up one cell of the car[2] battery which had dried out - the
others were OK


[2] no longer a problem as some local scally nicked it shortly afterwards


[3] as one does :-)

EricP wrote:
De-ionised water is usually adequate isn't it? And even my school chem
lab had a machine for making that.
Ok, I will pop out and get a de-ionizing machine tomorrow, any idea
how much they cost? )

No idea, but local scrotes don't usually need much encouragement to
break into a school.

Might need telling where it is ...

The school won't mind, they were wanting to convert the science block
into a Media Studies Interpretative Centre anyway, with a Soft Playroom
for the hyperactive A-level students.

Owain

In article ,
EricP wrote:

Neat idea that, but I don't have a need for one, if anything, we
need a humifidier. )

Tumble drier?

--
Tony Williams.

In article ,
EricP writes:

Last time I was near a Liebig, Customs & Excise were interested in
them. Apparently they are paranoic about anything that could "distill"
anything. As they are seriously nasty and heavy, I do not wish to
offend them in any way, shape or form. )

I wonder if they've ever heard of a freezer, which is also capable
of separating out alcohol from water? I discovered this for myself
at around age 11 when I tried freezing all sorts of things, including
some wine, and wondered what the puddle on the top was which wouldn't
freeze. Probably a horribly inefficient method, and since I don't
drink anyway, rather wasted on me.

--
Andrew Gabriel

In article ,
Owain writes:
EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.
Thus I want to look at home production.

De-ionised water is usually adequate isn't it? And even my school chem
lab had a machine for making that.

How about a Brita water filter jug?

However, check the instructions on the steam powered cleaning/ironing
equipment -- some specifically say not to use softened water, as it
causes rapid corrosion internally.

--
Andrew Gabriel

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 23:11:50 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) babbled like a waterfall and said:

In article ,
Owain writes:
EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.
Thus I want to look at home production.

De-ionised water is usually adequate isn't it? And even my school chem
lab had a machine for making that.

How about a Brita water filter jug?

About as much use as tap water. )
Although I would have thought it would have been ok, as well.

However, check the instructions on the steam powered cleaning/ironing
equipment -- some specifically say not to use softened water, as it
causes rapid corrosion internally.

EricP wrote:

Buy it.
On a US-based heating forum
(http://forums.invision.net/index.cfm?CFApp=2), they occasionally
mention the use of anti-freeze in heating systems. The water used with
the anti-freeze can have a small maximum amount of dissolved solids. If
the local water supply is unsuitable they will buy de-ionized water to
fill the heating system. The price mentioned was, I think, about 10c
per gallon.

This being the UK, I doubt that you'll find a supply at a similar
cost, but I think buying commercial quantities would still prove to be
be a lot cheaper than making.

Britas filters will not be effective. They may remove some of the
dissolved solids, but they are not deionizers.

Also read the manufacturers' instructions. The equipment might tolerate
softened water. If so, the dissolved solids will stay in solution and
can be removed by occasional draining and rinsing of the steam
generator vessel. Some equipment makers don't recommend using softened
water.

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 22:35:31 +0000, John Stumbles
babbled like a waterfall and said:

When I needed a small amount in a hurry[1] I connected the steam
wallpaper stripper up to a coil of 10mm Cu I happened to have lying
around [3] which I dunked in the kitchen sink with the cold tap running
slowly over it and collected the distillate in a cafetiere (although it
was quite cold as it came out so a plastic bottle would have done). No
doubt if I'd had a continuing need for the stuff the apparatus might
have evolved into something more elegant and efficient.


[1] to top up one cell of the car[2] battery which had dried out - the
others were OK


[2] no longer a problem as some local scally nicked it shortly afterwards


[3] as one does :-)


)))

Probably pack a length of 8mm pipe and bend it around a former and go
to the sink with it as well.

Although a friend has offered me one of those purification plants,
with a rack of filters and expansion vessel like a gas cylinder, for
reconditioning. Might get that and see what it does.

On the other hand might just see if I can buy in bulk, and keep The
Old Bag happy with her bloody steamers!

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 22:59:52 +0000, (Steve Firth)
babbled like a waterfall and said:

Yes Liebig condensers and automatic stills are subject to inspection by
HM C&E. The approved ways of getting pure water are deionisation and
reverse osmosis neither of which falls foul of the guardians of moral
probity/tax revenue.

So they are still wasting their time with stupidities like this. LOL
As if anyone wanting to make booze couldn't make anything they needed
without openly buying manufactured equipment.

Of these deionised water is your easiest bet and you can make that using
a Brita (or similar) "water filter" which is in fact not a filter but a
small deionisation cartridge.

As I mentioned above, I have the option to get a full plant for
nothing and recondition it. It has 4 cartridges and osmosis plus other
bits on it, depending how processed the water required. The quantity
of water it produces is remarkable compared to a jug.

EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.

Thus I want to look at home production.

Anyone done this? It must be a fairly common problem with the
increasing popularity of this type of equipment.

Do Liebig Condensors still have daft legal problems connected with
them? I could spend a day with some smallbore copper, but would
prefer the lab ones.

Ideas please

By far the easiest method is going to be a solar still. You can make
them for =A31, and the only operation required is pouring water in and
taking the clean water bottle away.

Lots of sites show how to make them, very easy. Theyre just a box, with
polythene front sheet, and a drain off at the front.

another option is wrap your cu pipe with rag and stick it in the pour
spout hole of a pan with lid on, and set the gas to low. No need to
water cool or coil it if the burner is low.

Note discard the initial output, as it will contain stuff dissolved off
the pipe.


NT

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:51:54 +0000, doozer wrote:

--------------------------------------8 There is
to much risk of concentrating the methanol in the liquor and not
realizing until you have gone blind.

There's a significant tax revenue stream that benefits from perpetuation of
such myths:

http://www.moonshine-still.com/page7.htm

In article , "Chris
Hodges" says...
Rob Morley wrote:

I wonder if you could do something using reduced pressure so the
water boiled at a lower temperature - that probably presents a whole
different set of problems, but maybe more economical than boiling at
100 Centigrade and easier than cooling loads of vapour?

You really want to use the heat removed from the condensate to heat the
next lot of source water. Exactly how is left as an exercise to the reader!

You'd need some sort of heat pump, maybe a Peltier, something to
circulate the coolant, two heat exchangers. That's already starting
to get a bit involved. Plus you'd need to have everything pretty
well insulated.

In article , "EricP"
says...
snip
The pressure reduction is not too difficult to obtain, but collection
does present a few difficulties.

I was thinking along the lines of an old Calor gas bottle for the
low-pressure vessel, and the pump from an old freezer to evacuate it.
Surely the condensate would just drip out of the pump?

Rob Morley wrote:
In article , "EricP"
says...

The pressure reduction is not too difficult to obtain, but
collection
does present a few difficulties.

I was thinking along the lines of an old Calor gas bottle for the
low-pressure vessel, and the pump from an old freezer to evacuate it.

Surely the condensate would just drip out of the pump?

along with a lot of oil spray. Not sure what the compressor electrics
would make of the water.

NT

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Owain writes:
EricP wrote:
We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered
cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled
water
has soared to litres a week, instead of year.
Thus I want to look at home production.

De-ionised water is usually adequate isn't it? And even my school
chem
lab had a machine for making that.

How about a Brita water filter jug?

However, check the instructions on the steam powered
cleaning/ironing
equipment -- some specifically say not to use softened water, as it
causes rapid corrosion internally.
Softened isn't necessarily the same as de-ionised. Many water
softeners use an ion exchange resin which essetially swaps Mg/Ca
carbonate ions for sodium and chloride ions - Chloride ions are bad
for corrosion. The ion exchange resins for producing de-ionised water
swap the Mg or Ca and Cabonate ions for H+ and OH- ions which then
re-combine to produce water.

Jim

Jim Ingram wrote:

Softened isn't necessarily the same as de-ionised.

I didn't say it was. Softened water will have sodium salts in solution,
rather than calcium & magnesium. The sodium salts stay in solution,
rather than precipitate on heating as with untreated hard water.

The twin resin-bed de-ionizers need caustic soda & HCl to regenerate,
so probably impractical for this application.

The other cheap & dirty supply would be rain water. If you've got a
clean roof (conservatory?) you could collect the run-off. Minimal
dissolved solids, I'd guess it might be a bit acidic with dissolved
carbon dioxide, and a great variety of bacteria and dissolved
atmospheric pollution. It might be liable to grow algae if stored in
translucent plastic containers. A water butt with a couple of filters
on the outlet might give a usable supply. No guarantees though.

Newshound wrote:
I have been considering build a still for about 6 months (for water only
of course). As I don't want to pay the shocking fuel costs I was thinking
of trying to make it solar powered. I doubt it would be very fast but it
would be free which is a bonus as far as I can see it.


I've seen a "survival" design which involves digging a hole like a small
fishpond, covering it with polythene sheet weighed down in the centre with a
stone, and a collecting vessel underneath at the lowest point. Solar heat
distills water out of the ground which condenses on the sheet and runs down
into the collector. If you have space you could fabricate something like
that. If you used (say) a polythene tub you could put a pint or two of tap
water in it to improve the yield. You can also get solar stills to go with
liferafts, but you'd be talking about sailing money....

The survival design normally reckons on seawater/urine/stagnant water
being poured into the pond-like hole. A 2nd sheet of polythene (==pond
liner) is optional.

Might not make much though, except in direct sun (then you would of
course want a clear top sheet, black liner, and funnel into your
collecting vessel (to reduce surface area).

--
Spamtrap in use
To email replace 127.0.0.1 with blueyonder dot co dot uk

Aidan wrote:
Jim Ingram wrote:


Softened isn't necessarily the same as de-ionised.


I didn't say it was. Softened water will have sodium salts in solution,
rather than calcium & magnesium. The sodium salts stay in solution,
rather than precipitate on heating as with untreated hard water.

They will of course still precipitate on evaporation (if that's
significant - e.g. steam iron).

The twin resin-bed de-ionizers need caustic soda & HCl to regenerate,
so probably impractical for this application.

The other cheap & dirty supply would be rain water. If you've got a
clean roof (conservatory?) you could collect the run-off. Minimal
dissolved solids, I'd guess it might be a bit acidic with dissolved
carbon dioxide, and a great variety of bacteria and dissolved
atmospheric pollution. It might be liable to grow algae if stored in
translucent plastic containers. A water butt with a couple of filters
on the outlet might give a usable supply. No guarantees though.

Skimming settling and possibly a UV lamp would help.


--
Spamtrap in use
To email replace 127.0.0.1 with blueyonder dot co dot uk

Rob Morley wrote:
You really want to use the heat removed from the condensate to heat the
next lot of source water. Exactly how is left as an exercise to the reader!


You'd need some sort of heat pump, maybe a Peltier, something to
circulate the coolant, two heat exchangers. That's already starting
to get a bit involved. Plus you'd need to have everything pretty
well insulated.

I know - hence my comment above. With peltiers I'd use the source water
directly as coolant for the hot side. I did look at building a
dehumidifer this way (solar powered) for the garage, but I didn't get
the chance of a cheap big peltier after all (and yes it would have been
more about the project than the end result!)


--
Spamtrap in use
To email replace 127.0.0.1 with blueyonder dot co dot uk

Rob Morley wrote:
I was thinking along the lines of an old Calor gas bottle for the
low-pressure vessel, and the pump from an old freezer to evacuate it.
Surely the condensate would just drip out of the pump?

The word freezer just gave me a thought. A small quantity (e.g. for the
poster who need to top up a car battery) could be obtained by placing a
cup of hot water inside a sealed outer container in the freezer and
using the resulting frost. Further refinement could include a power
resistor (run the wires out past the door seal) in the source cup to
stop it from freezing and speed up the overall rate.

--
Spamtrap in use
To email replace 127.0.0.1 with blueyonder dot co dot uk

In article ,
EricP writes:

Last time I was near a Liebig, Customs & Excise were interested in
them. Apparently they are paranoic about anything that could "distill"
anything. As they are seriously nasty and heavy, I do not wish to
offend them in any way, shape or form. )

Producing alcohol can be a dangerous old game.

My counsin used to do wine making. She also tried making champagne.

I think the champagne bottles are tested to several hundred psi
pressure.

She had several of her bottles of home made champagne sitting in the
basement. One bottle exploded and set off a bit of a chain reaction.

They found chards of glass embedded in the brick wall.

It was lucky that no one was down there when the bottles went off.

Graham

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 23:11:50 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:


However, check the instructions on the steam powered cleaning/ironing
equipment -- some specifically say not to use softened water, as it
causes rapid corrosion internally.

Our steam iron has an in built water filter. The filter can be
replaced.

The other half used to hate doing the ironing so I got a power steam
iron for them.

The ion comes in two parts. There is a base unit that plugs into the
power. The base unit also has a large reservoir water tank.

On top of the base unit sits the iron. The iron is connected to the
base unit by a long umbilical type cord.

The iron heats up as normal. However, the base unit contains a second
heater element. The water is turned into steam in the base unit and
then released along the umbilical cord into the iron when you press
the button. The steam is then reheated / superheated by the heat from
the iron itself.

It must produce at least five times the steam power of a conventional
iron.

The other half if happy - they can do the ironing in about a 3rd of
the time. One run over with the iron and even the toughest creases
immediately disappear. Shirts can be hung on a hanger - one shot of
steam aimed at the garment and the creases drop out.

Worth every penny.

Graham

Chris Hodges wrote:

They will of course still precipitate on evaporation (if that's
significant - e.g. steam iron).

The aim is to regularly drain the remaining concentrated solution/
water from the steam vessel before it runs dry and the dissolved solids
are deposited. Steam boilers use a similar system of automatic partial
blow-down & re-filling with fresh water, whilst in operation, when the
total dissolved solids reach a certain concentration.