water softening for steam gen. iron

salthepal

I have a lovely Rowenta Steam Generator iron with which I usually fill with softened water from our system.
This is the info from the iron's manual -


• Tap water:
Your appliance has been designed to work with tap water. If the water in your area is very hard, mix 50% tap water and 50% distilled water.
In some regions near the sea, the salt content in your water may be high. In this case, use distilled water only.

The water softener is currently disabled due to a few weeks of plumbing work and I am wondering how I can soften a 2 litre bottle of very hard tap water so that I don't ruin my iron.
I obviously have loads of softening tablets - can I perhaps use one of these to achieve the desired result - or is it much too hit and miss?
Thanks for any help.
Sally

Ebe_Scrooge

I don't know what water softener tablets contain, so I can't really offer any advice there.

But do you or any of your friends have a condensing tumble dryer ? If so, the water that collects in that is ideal for steam irons ( just filter it through a piece of cloth to make sure there's no fluff in there ).

Alternatively, for a short-term fix you can buy bottles of distilled water from the likes of Halfords ( and probably most hardware shops ) - it's used for topping up car batteries ( the older, non-sealed type ), but is just the same as what you put in an iron. It's not the cheapest solution ( though not mega-expensive ), and would probably be better for a short-term fix rather than risk damaging the iron.

Biggles

I use 50% de-ionised water but I used the steam generator for almost ten years before that with ordinary (and very hard) tap water with no observed harmful effects.