Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi. I believe some of you guys run an RO system. I am having trouble getting clear info on a couple of points.
Firstly, was thinking of getting a 5 stage unit... no pump or storage tank. Does the mains pressure provide adequate "flow" to the collection/outlet tap... ie. Could i get a reasonable fill rate or is it painfully slow.
Secondly, from your experience, do you think it better to go with a greater number of stages, giving a greater filter replacement cost,for (any?) real improvement in water quality.
Appreciate any responses... cheers

I use a Boss 020 four stage RO filter ,yes it is very slow on mains house pressure,I fill and store in 25lt plastic water cubes,have it set up on the laundry wall with the supply comeing from the washing machine tap adaptor supplied with the filter and put the cubes in the sink and fill them there,so ifn they overflow no floods.With the number of stages I think that would depend on the water quality ta start with ,here in Perth its pretty good so a 4stage unit is more than adequate in my opinion.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I bought a 4 stage unit at a garage sale when I was in Pt Hedland and off memory I used to fill the washing machine using the waste output of the RO unit and sometimes it took 2 washing loads to fill an 11 litre bottle.

I did try out the unit when we bought the farm in SA and one rainwater it was 1:1 so I took it off line and it's been in a box ever since.

Now as far as mains water pressure yes it is enough to run the unit and on the farm with 43 metres of head and the input tap close to closed it had enough pressure to run the unit.

Cheers Bryan

Good point on the waste water Bryan,that is a down side to the RO filters sure can add up to a lot ifn ya use it a fair bit ,with some form of re-cycling being needed,my waste line goes into a 200lt drum on the patio wich I fill the watering can with for the garden,as I hate ta see good water go down the drain.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

hillzabilly wrote:Good point on the waste water Bryan,that is a down side to the RO filters sure can add up to a lot ifn ya use it a fair bit ,with some form of re-cycling being needed,my waste line goes into a 200lt drum on the patio wich I fill the watering can with for the garden,as I hate ta see good water go down the drain.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

NICE!

Biggest issue we face in Hedland is the water is semi-hard so RO, while producing the cleanest water, does take a massive amount of time, but its the wastage that is the real killer! I have heard that the RO systems do 1:1 RATION (you get one liter and the drainage gets one liter) and thats the best you can hope for. A maintenance friend never knew this, telling me that he will NEVER buy bottled water ... until his Laundry reno where he removed the RO unit and did it by extension while the work was going on. After a year he would get one later of water and the waste would fill up a 9L bucket...

He ripped it out and then bought direct from Coles. Not a win for me and our business, but that put me off RO... Must do Maintenance and it depends of your input water!

I've got one here that I use for washing my honey extracting plant and for house use as we have no mains out here and rain water is scarce. I RO my bore water that is 3300 ppm and has shit loads of calcuim. It comes out beautifully and is more than drinkable. It is however extremely inefficient. It has an out put of 30% so 1ltr for every 3ltrs put through and I need anti scalent to stop the membranes from clogging too fast. The membranes need cleaning every 6 months at $70 a pop so not the cheapest thing to run but my options were few. It does however do 6000ltrs per day so more than I'll ever need.

Sorry interwebs aren't real good over here, I'll post the photo again :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Wow Woody, that is some mean setup.
Thanks for the reply guys, seems a bit of chlorine n chloramine in my drinking water will have to do. Too much waste and seemingly excessive cartridge replacement costs, where my tap water is 'drinkable', cant really be justified. Plus SWMBO doesent want another tap on the kitchen bench... she wins again (only by default though).
Cheers...

If your doing tap water the costs would be less as the water is better quality and need less refining. Do a water test and get a pro to look at it and they will let you know what you need any what your output/waste would be.it may not be too bad. Remember my water is crap so i get alot of waste water

Chlorine vents pretty quickly if that's all you're worried about. Leave the bottle open to atmosphere for a day or 3 and the chlorine will disappear.

We used RO because the town water was hard. Lots of kidney stone problems amongst the townies that drank the water.

warramungas wrote:Chlorine vents pretty quickly if that's all you're worried about. Leave the bottle open to atmosphere for a day or 3 and the chlorine will disappear.

We used RO because the town water was hard. Lots of kidney stone problems amongst the townies that drank the water.

If the town water is hard they need to treat it more efficiently do not have to put the hard water directly to RO and if in hot area could look at a solar .

wynnum1 wrote:

warramungas wrote:Chlorine vents pretty quickly if that's all you're worried about. Leave the bottle open to atmosphere for a day or 3 and the chlorine will disappear.

We used RO because the town water was hard. Lots of kidney stone problems amongst the townies that drank the water.

If the town water is hard they need to treat it more efficiently do not have to put the hard water directly to RO and if in hot area could look at a solar .

Hush your mouth! Spending is a dirty word.

Water where I work is drinkable but not recommended for small children or pregnant women so f€(k that!