• Do you need help identifying a 🌶?
    Is your plant suffering from an unknown issue? 🤧
    Then ask in Identification and Diagnosis.

water Collecting condensate water?

thirdcoasttx

thirdcoasttx

At my moms for the weekend and she started using the condensate water from her ac to watet her plants. The service tech in me says no but she hasn't had any ill effects yet. Anybody else do this and what are your results?
 
I have in the past. Where do you see a problem? Its just humidity pulled from the air and condensed back to water. I don't see any oils or anything getting into it.
 
Oil could possibly get into it if there was a leak in the coil but then you have a bigger problem. Also that water is going to trap any airborn nasties, algae grows in the pvc over time, you get rust from the evap frame in the water. I'm not saying don't use it these are just my thoughts...
 
I do collect and use it for non-food plants outside.  I have not used it for veggies, etc, just because I don't know if it is safe or not.
In the middle of summer I will collect 3-5 gallons per day here in Arkansas with the swampy air.
On a side note, my pets will not drink it if I put it in their bowl.  It grows mosquito larvae just fine though.
 
I don't think it's going to be majorly bad, I mean, depending on the conditions it's in I wouldn't necessarily advise using it in any kind of aerosol manner (legionnaires if it's been warm for example), but the question that arises really is...well, why? I just use the stuff out of the tap, sorry, faucet. I might use "grey water" for non edibles if I grew that kind of thing.... 
 
. . . why?
Click to expand...
 
Conservation.  Stewardship.  Prudent use of resources: why pizz away free water only to pay to run more from the tap, water that may well have come from a reservoir that is already woefully low?
 
Consider the environmental contexts: an outdoor plant in July in Birmingham, Alabama may likely be much thirstier than one in Birmingham, England.  We miss the water more where the wells are running a bit dry.
 
My old central a/c unit drains into a bathtub and is yielding around three gallons a day.  That's woefully inadequate to meet summer needs, but it is 90 gallons a month and perhaps 500 gallons across a season.
 
 
It is fine to use it if you keep something in mind.  Fungus thrives in constantly damp environments like that so do not water with it frequent enough that the soil surface stays damp.  The same could be said of any watering schedule but the same fungus you'd get from the air from too frequent watering has a head start in the A/C drip pan... of course you're supposed to clean that out every season so now might be a good time to do that.
 
On the other hand, for most of us smaller-scale growers, water is very inexpensive.  You probably get a cent worth of water out of an A/C per month if that.
 
Water from the a/c is distilled water not counting what you add in the condensate pan.
 
What is in the condensate pan is what you are living with in your house......not a problem.
 
swellcat said:
 
Conservation.  Stewardship.  Prudent use of resources: why pizz away free water only to pay to run more from the tap, water that may well have come from a reservoir that is already woefully low?
 
Consider the environmental contexts: an outdoor plant in July in Birmingham, Alabama may likely be much thirstier than one in Birmingham, England.  We miss the water more where the wells are running a bit dry.
 
My old central a/c unit drains into a bathtub and is yielding around three gallons a day.  That's woefully inadequate to meet summer needs, but it is 90 gallons a month and perhaps 500 gallons across a season.
 


Click to expand...
 
 
I guess that's a lot more than I expected. My air con here in the uk has a total of, well, zero condensate. I never have to empty the pot or whatever, the light never comes on on either unit. But in Birmingham, England most people don't even use a/c, and I only run it maybe three or four weeks a year. 
Fair enough! 
 
 
I had mosquito larvae in old soapy washing machine water once so I wouldn't take that as a sign of anything other than the resilience of those pesky things! ! 
 
 
 
I guess that's a lot more than I expected. My air con here in the uk has a total of, well, zero condensate. I never have to empty the pot or whatever, the light never comes on on either unit. But in Birmingham, England most people don't even use a/c, and I only run it maybe three or four weeks a year. 
Fair enough! 
 
 
I had mosquito larvae in old soapy washing machine water once so I wouldn't take that as a sign of anything other than the resilience of those pesky things! ! 

Moosery my old man is a brummy! Half my family is still in birmingham. Wish I could afford to fly over there but its so damned expensive nowadays.
 
Blech!  All manner of nasty fungi and bacteria live in condenser water. (Anyone up for a nice dose of Legionella?)  While likely safe, I think I'd pass.  Besides, a few cups of water is nothing compared to one dishwasher run, to say nothing of what it takes to grow a pound of cow or corn.  There are much more effective ways to conserve water...
 
Geonerd said:
Blech!  All manner of nasty fungi and bacteria live in condenser water. (Anyone up for a nice dose of Legionella?)  While likely safe, I think I'd pass.  Besides, a few cups of water is nothing compared to one dishwasher run, to say nothing of what it takes to grow a pound of cow or corn.  There are much more effective ways to conserve water...
Click to expand...
 
all manner of organisms live in soil too - including botulism spores. 
However to do a sensible risk assessment requires the full facts. I personally can't believe there's a major risk because most of the spores or bacteria including legionella require a vector to cause illness, specifically in the case of legionella - aerosol water droplets. Hence my warning about that, it should most definitely not be used in a plant mister gun! 
Of course this is assuming the presence of "nasty" things in the water in the first place. Legionella et al do require very specific conditions as does botulism, in which to thrive as they both are normally unable to establish a sizeable colony due to something known as competing - other organisms are more dominant and will pretty much wipe out the aforementioned organisms in all but a very specific set of parameters, in the case of botulism - lack of oxygen. For legionella, specific temperatures I believe. Antibiotics are a fine example of this theory of competing organisms, it's exactly how they work.
But, I digress. Point is - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that's why I probably wouldn't presume to know if it's safe or not, and personally that's why I'd only be willing to use anything other than fresh water on plants that are to be eaten. Ideally. 
 
However it's usually very rare for this kind of thing to become a major problem.
 
A side note though, a guy died here in the UK last year from opening a home compost bin, probably didn't make the news over in the USA, but it was put down to a freak incident - he breathed in aspergillus I think it was. Now I notice compost bags have begun to say "do not breathe dust" even though that sounds insane. Sometimes weird stuff happens! 
 
Anything in the condensate water that has just dripped off the coil is also likely in the air you are breathing inside the house. I wouldn't drink it because it is full of dust, mold spores, algae spores, and a smorgasbord of bacteria. I also wouldn't drink rain water for the same reasons. Unless evidence turns up that there is something particularly dangerous in condensate water, I can't see it being any worse for watering plants than rain water.
 
On the plus side, it is chlorine and chloramine free and I'm guessing it has less heavy metal contamination than typical tap water. 
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top