Re: [Paddlewise] Heating Bottles

From: Gary J. MacDonald <garyj_at_rogers.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2006 16:49:02 -0500
OK.  Lots of people have trouble sorting these out, and for those who get strayed:

1.  Nalgene is a brand name, not a type of bottle or a kind of plastic.
2.  Nalgene bottles come in Polyethylene (the classic white translucent ones).
3.  Nalgene bottles come in Polycarbonate AKA Lexan (the new rigid ones: 
transparent, first in smoke colour now in many colours).
==========
4.  I think the original Q was about the old white PE bottles (getting harder to 
find) not the rigid Lexan ones.  I do not know if they are affected by boiling, 
but I certainly doubt the new type PC/Lexan one are.

5.  I have 10-15 yr old PE bottles, some of which were frozen almost daily for 
years on end.  I don't notice the taste, and because they are a bit flexible I 
felt better about freezing them. I never worried about splitting them with ice 
expansion. It is only recently that one split in the freezer, after being filled 
under a block of ice already inside, which was then pushed against the top end, 
and pushe dthrough it by the expansion.

6.  I sometimes freeze the PC/Lexan bottles, but with cubes as a starter to 
limit the expansion of a single block freezing.  If I just put water in to 
freeze, I put only a little water in to start them off, and on a slant so 
expansion will push up the sides, and not straight outward.

7.  I cannot see how the PC/Lexan bottles could resist the pressures of a full 
bottle of water freezing and expanding.  I have burst all kinds of things over 
the years.

8.  Just so you know, I live on ice water the way some people live on coffee.

GaryJ
>>>I would say no. PE nalgene bottles that I have filled with near  
>>>boiling H2O on winter camping trips seem to become brittle and  
>>>break after only a
>>>short period of use.
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Received on Tue Dec 05 2006 - 13:42:56 PST

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