Water purity question

[phearamedusa]

Originally Posted by harrywitmore

Nice comparison Ray. I was just about to buy a new RO System until I started reading about how much waste water there is with it. Some estimates seemed to indicate that it would be 4 gallons of waste to 1 gallon of purified water. But, I really have no idea what the numbers are actually. Then I also started reading about how is using with a hard water well the water also needed to be softened before actually passing the water through and RO system. Can you help me understand the realities of using these systems with hard well water? It's a very big deal to me to dump 4 gallons of waste water to get one of purified. Are these real world numbers?

I'm not Ray, but I can help answer this. Some RO systems do waste alot of water, some more then others. You can "catch" the waste water in a barrel, and refilter until your ppm level reaches the maximum allowed/suggested by the RO manufacturer. To get the "catch" water back thru the RO system you will need a sureflow diaphram pump. What is the ppm of the well water before filtration? Softening may not be necessary if under the maximum suggested by manufacturer.

[harrywitmore]

Originally Posted by phearamedusa

I'm not Ray, but I can help answer this. Some RO systems do waste alot of water, some more then others. You can "catch" the waste water in a barrel, and refilter until your ppm level reaches the maximum allowed/suggested by the RO manufacturer. To get the "catch" water back thru the RO system you will need a sureflow diaphram pump. What is the ppm of the well water before filtration? Softening may not be necessary if under the maximum suggested by manufacturer.

My well water has a GH of about 150 ppm. I need to run some test of the RO system I have to see how well it functions. I have not used it hardly at all but it's a very cheap system. I will get some numbers from that of the treated verses the 'waste'.
It's not hard for me to collect rain water normally. My only limitation is the size of tank. I have about 500 gallons of storage tanks to use in a system that I have yet to build. I guess I need to get up from this chair and get to work. Thanks for the information "phearamedusa" and Ray. It's great to have people that know what they are doing answer questions.


EDIT: I did get up and run some test with a 5 in 1 strip. My well water untreated is

ph 6.8
Alkalinity (kh) 120 ppm
Hardness (GH) 150 ppm
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0

Rain water and RO water tested out the same and are

ph 6.2
Alkalinity (kh) 0 ppm
Hardness (GH) 20 ppm
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0


Guess my RO system is working but I suspect my waste to treated ratio is more like 6-7 to 1.