Drinking Dehumidifier Water??

You must live in a Murphy-Free zone. :D

As our infrastructure ages (AKA deteriorates), temporary loss of power can cause leakage of ground water into pipes. Power comes back on. Water contaminated. "Boil alert."

Loss of power to the pumping station leads to loss of water pressure even if your area is not in the blackout area. (Yes, Cleveland had no backup generators at the pumping station. :rolleyes:)

The "power" that you have may be from your generator.
 
Disruption of water service and electrical service are, in my experience, seperate incidents. I can and do loose power without loosing water pressure. And I can loose water pressure without loosing electrical service. Still...use the dehumidifyer water to flush the toilet unless you have a reliable way to distill it.

Codger

Edit: my water is supplied from an artesian well into a water tower. The tower has the capacity to supply needs well through an electrical outage. Water interruption is more often errant construction equipment cutting lines. Call 1-800-351-1111 before you dig!
 
Any of these ideas boil down to how desparate the situation may be.
I'd filter/boil and drink the dehumdifier water before I would out of a muck puddle, maybe.

The water in the toilet tank (not the bowl) is fresh, since we typcially flush several times a day, it's no more than several hours old. Drink that, and use the dehumidifer water to flush with, as has already been posted.

In a short term outage, there are many other viable sources, even rain water, most of them will need some sort of treatment.

Is the dehumidifier newer? How clean? (don't forget air conditioner condensate too)
Was it in a fairly clean environment or down in the stinky crawlspace?

Legionairres is a respiratory ailment. You get it from inhaling water droplets that contain the Legionella (sp?) bacterium. So, if you dehumdifier has that bacterium in it, you are at risk by breathing the air, not drinking the water.
However, that is not to say a mouse didn't poop in the container and you won't get a case of the rodent-feces-trots, or worse.

My personal opinion (and it's only an opinion) is that the dehumidifier may be a source of a small amount of domestic drinking water during a short term situation, if treated properly, but, I wouldn't rely on it unless the level of desparation takes a sharp turn upward.

As was suggested, it would be interesting to see how a few drops would react in a petri-dish. How much Staph and other junk is bred in the dehumidifier container?

A dehumidifier is usually run during warmer weather, which makes the liklihood of bacteria growth much much more likely.
Nausea, vomiting and diarrhea are counterproductive to survival. That's why treating water and making sure your water source isn't tainted is important.
 
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