A lesson learned

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Another post in the water sub series in the main off the grid series of posts.

The latest distillation run shows a stubborn problem with contamination.  I cleaned all the parts, so it didn't come from there.  It has to be the rubber automotive heater hose.  It must be degrading under the heat and thus contaminating the water.  Even though I have eliminated all the hose, all but the hose near the heat source; then that must be where the trouble was all along, since the rubber smell is still there in the latest run.

There's a commercial distiller that is completely stainless steel.  That may be the way to go. The only cure for this is to do some metal work, but is it worth it?

One more run with the output from this last run.  I'm going to see if the water is getting substantially worse with each run while not appreciably cleaning up the distillate.

One other item:  I bought a dehumidifier.  It arrived yesterday, just in time for a run today.  The only way to get a lot of water this way is to keep the door open.  The trailer is too small to contain much water.  But I already suspected that.

Update:

About a quart of water from the dehumidifier.  I didn't time it, so I didn't get a rate on the production.

The quality isn't too bad.  Spent a lot of time cleaning the parts to the apparatus.  There was a surprising amount of stuff I must have missed.  Well, we'll see how this plays out.  In any case, the rubber parts have to go.

One thing I noticed:  the contamination loves soap.  Or, to put it another way, the soap readily removes the rubber junk, whereas plain water does not.  I wanted to use this to clean up soapy water, but the soap may be breaking down the rubber hose.  In other words, what I want to use it for may not work well with rubberized parts.  Also, the steel or iron parts have an affinity for the rubber, but copper does not.