One week ago Friday, I installed a new AC unit on my back porch. I'm
sick to death of screwing around with window units. They need proper
support and insulation so that you don't lose room cooling around the
sides of the unit. Plus they are hard to keep clean. The last one grew a
lot of mold in the vents and foam insulation. Yuck!

The large unit I had burned out last fall. I gave it to freecycle for
someone to re-build or harvest the copper coils just to get it hauled
away.

My poor Hobart unit was up to 55 degrees last week as the porch was up
to 90 degrees and refrigerators don't like that! So I finally bought a
nice little indoor unit that is keeping the room at 70 to 75 degrees.
The Hobart is staying back down to 38 to 40 degrees now. :-) Fortunately
I did not have anything really perishable in it when the temps got too
high...

The AC unit sits on the floor and is vented to the outside. I'm going
to add some extra foam insulation to the slider panels in the window but
it's not nearly as inconvenient as a regular window unit. It's cooling
a 12' x 23' area and the window is only open 8" with the plastic panels.

Anyway, my question is about the water coming off the condenser. It has
an internal tank with a small hose that I could try to run outside
(which would require me to lose additional cooling to the outdoors by
cutting an additional hole in the panels) or running the drain hose into
an additional tank which is what I have chosen to do, even tho' I'm
going to have to empty it about every 2 days.

The tank holds 4 gallons and this unit, with the current humidity (which
is sitting at 68% today in my bedroom according to my digital
hygrometer) is collecting around 2 gallons per day.

I've tasted the water and it does not taste the least bit bad or
metallic. I'm currently just using it to water plants...

Is this water potable? Could it be used for the pet waters or for
cooking and drinking?
--
Peace! Om

Web Albums: <http://picasaweb.google.com/OMPOmelet>
*Only Irish *coffee provides in a single glass all four *essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar *and fat. --Alex Levine