Maintenance schedule questions

[Bartmole]

If using clear distilled water and hardline tubing (Primochill PETG), is the maintenance negated or slowed? Also, what would be a proper schedule in this case, if necessary, I've read everywhere from 6 months to 2 years with 6 months being the most common for softline tubing.

[MuHammer]

if you dont want it look like s*** you should do it about every 6 months

[brandishwar]

Soft tubing does require a more frequent maintenance table. You're going to want to drain and flush the loop every 6 to 12 months and put in new tubing at that time.

 

If you're going hardline tubing (acrylic, PETG, copper), then the 2 year timetable is more likely, depending on the coolant -- you'll want to keep an eye on it and check it periodically, flushing and replacing it at the first sign of degradation (i.e. discoloring). Distilled water, regardless of tubing, is a 6 month timetable at most. That's just simply the nature of it, even if you use a biocide. You'll also want to change any soft tubing at that point as well, whereas hard tubing should be able to last years without any issues regardless of coolant, provided you adequately and regularly flush it.