Must stop killing irons...

[HollyBollyBooBoo]

Have killed 2 irons in the last 4 years and think it's down to the really hard water in our area - despite me periodically descaling the irons. Bought a new one yesterday and it recommends that in hard water areas you use distilled water, and if you're buying distilled water to ensure it is suitable for use in an iron.

Not in a month of Sundays am I going to buy water to iron with, so is it possible to distill water at home?

I got over this problem by stopping ironing!

Ou can buy water distillers from chiropody supply companies, they offend don't check if your a health professional.

De-ionised water is the same thing (sorry if you ready knew that) I use carplan in my iron.

Mil uses the rain water from her water butt cos she says rainwater is soft water so less minerals. Works for her!.

Already not ready! Water distillers £170ish btw

No!! You don't need to spend that much!! Just get a Brita filter jug (we have a Brita filter Breville kettle, does the same thing but also boils water so 2 birds with 1 stone there) and only use filtered water in the iron. Sorted.

If you live in hard water area, how are you not filtering water already to make tea and coffee with? Grotty flakes of limescale on the top of your cup of tea otherwise

Sure, the filters cost £3 each but I get close to two months out of each filter (you can tell when they run out of oomph) and figure £18 a year or so is completely worth it for filtered drinking water and limescale-free appliances.

Distilled water is heated and the pure water is collected in a seperate chamber from the mineral salts, of which lime scale causing calcium is only one of many.

Filtered water is not free of all mineral salts, it's lessened but it would still cause furring which is why the iron manuals say use distilled water.

Distilled or de-ionised water tastes vile, no one would drink it out of choice, it's the mineral salts that give water it's taste.

I work with autoclaves and if we could get away with using filtered water and not distilled we would and it would save the nhs a fortune.

Top tip from my MIL: she says to empty it between ironing - I'd never done that and never rarely actually iron anything hence why I'd killed a few in as many months.