I'm Doing The Research And I'm Confusing Myself Now!

[SkiFletch]

Dunno about UK prices at all. I know that you can find pumps that'll do the job in the States for around $60

 

[Jozlyn]

Before you go gung-ho on purchasing an RO unit, make sure you have enough water pressure to run one. Anything less than 30PSI is going to be painfully slow an ineffective. Hence I suggested using a booster pump if neessary to raise the pressure in the line.

Huh? How do these things work?

 

[AK77]

They connect to the mains water supply and pump the water at a higher pressure into the RO unit. If your RO unit doesn't come with a pressure gauge, you will need to get one too, firstly to find out what your mains pressure is and if its not high enough you will need to get a booster pump and then configure it to about 35 PSI. They are only £10 so about $25AU for a gauge.

 

[SkiFletch]

I'll take this one. RO units are essentially a membrane filter with the smallest holes you can imagine. Water is forced through the membrane with a high pressure which comes out as nearly pure water (RO discharge) and most is allowed to not go through the membrane (waste) to keep the membrane from over-streatching from the high differential pressure. If the input pressure is too low, the RO discharge will be painfully slow (think a trickle). Very often, people such as yourself living in remote environments dont have high enough pressure in the line that supplies the unit to get decent flowrate out of it.

You can tell if you're "in the ballpark" by looking at how fast water comes out of your tap or your storage tank. If its forceful then you're probably ok, if it more or less falls out of the faucet, your pressure is probably too low.

 

[AK77]

That's good. When I turn my tap on full, the water comes blasting out so hopefully I can skip a booster pump.

 

[Jozlyn]

Bugger, our rain water tank works via gravity, no pump, it's slow.

The RO units are very expensive, along with all of the other bits and pieces, I may have to see if it works out cheaper, in the short term, just to buy distilled water from somewhere.

Could you use an RO unit on town water? Town water pressure is massive.

My husband is already uncomfortable with how much this is going to cost to set up propertly!

 

[AK77]

Hi Joz,

Yup you hook the RO unit up to mains tap water supply. It'll remove all the crap from it. Although the RO units are pretty pricey, in the long run its cheaper than buying RO water from the LFS. I've only had my tank up and running about a month, and I've already spent £25 on water

 

[SkiFletch]

Heh, yeah its not cheap. There's a silver lining there though ... It forces you to go slow and prevent disasters from happening from moving too quickly

You can and even should use the RO unit on town water. The RO unit will even remove the biologics you might have problems with An RO membrane will last for years of typical aquarium use if routinely flushed and properly cared for, so its a good investment. You can reclaim and use the waste water if you like as well