Home Reverse Osmosis Systems?

[Otterbrew]

I am intersted in buying a small home RO system, and was wondering if anyone has some insight on a model, features, design for collecting the needed volumes, etc... My water source is in such flux that feel I need to build my water from scratch. There are several units available on eBay, but I don't want to guess at which one to select.
Thanks,
-Greg

[Charlie]

Home Depot and Lowes have units in the $150 range. One is Whirlpool and one is GE (I think).

Production rate is 4 and 5 gallons daily. By a strange coincidence that's the tank size as well. The manuals (available on-line) don't say a whole lot about the product (water) specs.

I'm thinking about it. My best guess at utilization is to install the unit and send a sample out for detailed analysis. Then replace the cartridges and get a new water analysis semi-annually.

Charlie

[captain carrot]

I have an Omni RO system. $150 range from Menards. I get close to 10 gal/day if I leave the faucet on with a hose going down to the water jug. It's paid for itself many times over. Good luck!

[MNHazmat]

Check out airwaterice.com. I bought a unit from them a few years ago for reefkeeping and it still works great. You can get a high capacity unit there for what you pay for a 5gpd unit at Home Depot.

[bigdan]

I was just thinking about this. My wife and I are in the process of closing on a house that's on a well. It's got a UV light and a softner. I know I don't want to brew with the water from the water softener, but I think the UV works on bacterial stuff would it be good to have the brew water run through there or would the RO take care of it? What size RO system works best for on demand water on a ten gallon all-grain brew-day.

[zee]

well systems are kinda rough. i love my well, because it has the most tasty water i've ever had. i don't have any kind of uv or filter on it. it comes out of the ground, gets stored in a cistern, and that's it.

now, with brewing the problem is that the composition of your well water will be in constant flux, depending on the amount of rain, the temperature, snowmelt, etc. i personally don't worry about it a whole lot yet, but i know this is one of the things that might keep my brewing slightly inconsistent. going ro will definitely take this flux out of the picture. the other thing you can do is take water samples from the tap at various times over the year and after heavy rains or droughts. have them all tested so that you have an idea of the range of change your water goes through. you might find that the flux isn't all that bad and its something you can pretty consistently guess on rather than making ro.

i personally don't like the idea of ro, since you're only getting 5-15% of the water coming in. it just seems massively wasteful to me unless you have a place to use that water. [and i don't mean just dumping it on your lawn]

[Bugeater]

I used a small counter top system for several years up to a couple months ago. It simply hooked up to a faucet adapter that allowed you to use the kitchen faucet in the normal way for unfiltered water. The thing only cost about $65 about 5 years ago but now sells on eBay for around $90 or so. It will put out about a gallon every 15 minutes. Not very fast but I always ran my brewing water into a couple water jugs the night before while watching tv or playing around on the computer so there was no problem with the slow flow.

The only reason I quit using it is that since moving to housing out where I work, I can easily grab as much RO water as I need from the big system at work.

The big expense with home RO systems is the cost of replacement filters. Those can run half the price of the original system if you replace them all at once. The prefilters are cheap and should be replaced a couple times a year. The membrane filter is the pricey one and needs to be replaced only once a year (longer than that depending on useage rate).

You should run unsoftened water through the filter. The water softener salts will take a toll on the filter. Most of the home systems do come with a cheap TDS meter. You should use that every couple months to make sure the filter is still working properly. Once the ppm of total dissolved solids starts rising, you need to replace the filters.

Which system to get depends on what you need. I only need it for brewing now and then so I don't need a large capacity filter with pressure tank and faucet. If you plan to use it for cooking and drinking for the family then you will need a much bigger one. Basically, go with the biggest one you can comfortably afford.

Wayne

[bigdan]

Thanks Wayne.