RO system?

[Todnedo]

Double post

 

[Todnedo]

Sorry I should of explained.
the Permeate pump uses the energy of the brine Water of your RO- system, to pump the permeate into your pressure Tank.
It isolates your Tank from the membrane and lets your membrane perform like in an athmospheric tank system.

http://www.advancedwaterfilters.com/faq.php?q_id=26

 

[Marty]

the process is happening all at once. the RO puts one drop in your tank and 4 drops go out the brine tube. that means your house is missing 5 drops right? but because the 4 drops going down the brine tube are at a higher pressure than the house, they flow back into the house before the city can put 5 more drops into the house. since the house only actually needs 1 more drop (because the RO removed only one and put back 4) the city only provides one drop.

The loop of all this is within your home. you are not adding more water to your house than you started with. how could you? you just took water out of the system.

do my orange analogy in front of you with real oranges (or paper clips or whatever you have available) and it'll make sense.

I'm trying to find the flaw in the logic here.... I think where I'm going wrong is I keep thinking of the RO as totally removing the water from the house plumbing system...ie, like putting water into a glass. If you put water into glass and you need to put 3/4 of that water back into the system, you now would need to displace the water in the pipes...that doesn't seem to be the case here...Seems that the water is out of the pipes in the RO system, but it's not out of the plumbing system and is still under pressure, whence preventing any new water from the city from coming in (except for the clean RO water in the storage tank). The water is not out of the city plumbing, until it hits the storage tank.

Now explain this to me, when I empty my RO system say after 10 minutes I open my cold water tap, I get warm water...I then have to wait until the warm water drains away and I get cold water. This pisses me off, since it wastes water. I meant to call watts about this, but never got around to it. I almost feel like I rigged the HOT/COLD the wrong way into the RO system, but that's not the case.

 

[DGray]

Thanks

Wow, I have been wasting a lot of water over the years I've had RO units. Thanks for that great explanation Summoner12!

 

[summoner12]

Sorry I should of explained.
the Permeate pump uses the energy of the brine Water of your RO- system, to pump the permeate into your pressure Tank.
It isolates your Tank from the membrane and lets your membrane perform like in an athmospheric tank system.

http://www.advancedwaterfilters.com/faq.php?q_id=26

Actually it isn't a pump and it isn't really using the pressure from the brine.

The permeate pump really just allows the pressure between the brine and the tank to equalize for a second allowing the tank to fill to house pressure..... I really don't know how to explain it... but the way that website you linked to is trying to make a permeate pump seem better than zero waste is kinda silly. Brine water isn't dirty water. sure it has a higher TDS (total disolved solids) than normal tap water... but it isn't much at all. I think my brine only goes up in TDS by like 50-100 PPM. The fact that they don't acknowledge that a system driven by a boster pump can also produce a higher tank pressure is odd. With my system, if I want a higher tank pressure I adjust the pressure switch to not turn off until I get the desired pressure. Since my home pressure is only 25PSI I need a booster pump to bring up the pressure for the membrane but I also need it for zero waste. Even if I didn't do the zero waste, i'd need a booster pump because 25PSI is too low for the RO process.

The bits highlighted in a positive way with the permeate pump are still found with a zero waste system. they obviously want to sell you something.

 

[summoner12]

I'm trying to find the flaw in the logic here.... I think where I'm going wrong is I keep thinking of the RO as totally removing the water from the house plumbing system...ie, like putting water into a glass. If you put water into glass and you need to put 3/4 of that water back into the system, you now would need to displace the water in the pipes...that doesn't seem to be the case here...Seems that the water is out of the pipes in the RO system, but it's not out of the plumbing system and is still under pressure, whence preventing any new water from the city from coming in (except for the clean RO water in the storage tank). The water is not out of the city plumbing, until it hits the storage tank.

Now explain this to me, when I empty my RO system say after 10 minutes I open my cold water tap, I get warm water...I then have to wait until the warm water drains away and I get cold water. This pisses me off, since it wastes water. I meant to call watts about this, but never got around to it. I almost feel like I rigged the HOT/COLD the wrong way into the RO system, but that's not the case.

because as the brine flows into the hot water pipe and down through the hot water tank it displaces the hot water into the cold water pipes....... I don't have this issue..... I wonder how your system is plumbed.... could you show pictures?

 

[summoner12]

this is mine BTW......

this is before I was done.......

 

[ckranz]

Here is a good site to get an RO unit cheap and good quality.
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/build-your-own-ro-system.html

 

[summoner12]

Here is a good site to get an RO unit cheap and good quality.
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/build-your-own-ro-system.html

Thats not bad but your gonna need to know what your looking at to make the purchase... if the system comes with those nice clear housings that is pretty good as well.