R/O Waste Water Uses

I call shenanigans on that. Even with a small 75gpd RODI system, that's 75 gallons of DI output plus 225 gallons of waste water. You mean to tell me that meter can read a dripping faucet, but can detect 300 gallons of flow in a day? BS.
 
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In california my meter will pick up a small drip leak. I went to my meter, lined up a toothpick with my water meter pointer and after 4 hours the meter was no longer in line with my flow meter. I highly doubt they build meters that allow you to have free water if you use it really slowly...
 
Hmm, this is an interesting thread. To be honest, I've never recycled the water and just let it go down the drain. I'm thinking about trying the laundry idea that a few people have mentioned. Thanks for the tips! What about using the waste water for freshwater tanks? Would that work? I have 3 planted tanks and that waste water could be put to good use.
 
jerzeedevl said:
Hmm, this is an interesting thread. To be honest, I've never recycled the water and just let it go down the drain. I'm thinking about trying the laundry idea that a few people have mentioned. Thanks for the tips! What about using the waste water for freshwater tanks? Would that work? I have 3 planted tanks and that waste water could be put to good use.
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I run my waste tubing right into my 55 freshwater planted for top offs...plants have been growing great. The rest goes into a trash can out back to use for outside plants.
 
If your home has a soft water system and you run a RODI unit, can the waste water be used to garden? I hear you can't use the soft water in the garden, is this true?
 
RGibson said:
I save my water in a 350 tank which is on the out side wall the RO is on the inside of this wall i used the water to flush the toilet.RO water will not show up on your water meter because of low flow.
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NOT TRUE unless your meter is not working correctly you are still paying for the water that your RO unit uses for RO water and waste water.
 
Pdetevis said:
If your home has a soft water system and you run a RODI unit, can the waste water be used to garden? I hear you can't use the soft water in the garden, is this true?
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Yes! The waste water is much cleaner that your tap water. The waste water will have no chlorine and a minor amount salt if you use a water softener, watering the garden with it is fine. It has already been filtered out by the first few stages of the RO unit. The waste water comes from the membrane which is the final stage in a RO Unit. The DI part produces 0 waste water.
 
If you wanted to plumb the waste to a drum for washing machine/other use how do you redirect the waste water to a drain once that drum is full? I was thinking a bulkhead of some sort to overflow the waste drum but then it's a large diameter tube that doesn't exactly fit on a drain saddle or into a toilet bowl. How have you guys done it?
 
Dirty is based on your perception. The TDS of the rejected water is higher than tap. The dissolved solids are still there and in greater concentration. Some sediment has been removed along with the chlorine. If your municipal water supply uses chloramines the waste water also has ammonia in it since the carbon blocks only remove the chlorine part, DI removes the ammonia as it passes directly through the membrane.
 
ReefTourist said:
If you wanted to plumb the waste to a drum for washing machine/other use how do you redirect the waste water to a drain once that drum is full? I was thinking a bulkhead of some sort to overflow the waste drum but then it's a large diameter tube that doesn't exactly fit on a drain saddle or into a toilet bowl. How have you guys done it?
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Bump for washing machine back to drain setup?
 
mandarin_goby said:
Just ordered the BRS water saver with free shipping...ends at 12:01am CST

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-150-gpd-water-saver-upgrade-kit.html
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Reviving an old thread...again.

These things are marketed as "water saving", and technically they are since they are creating less waste, but essentially aren't they just another RO membrane ran in series with the first one in your RODI system?

And if that's the case, what would be the limit? Meaning, could a person run 3 in series? 4? 5?

At what point would the TDS be too concentrated for any of it to make it through a membrane? I know this would depend on the incoming TDS, of course, but in general wouldn't there be an additional benefit to doing this? Up to a certain point that is.
 
Flint, MI water currently has lead in it!!! They believe the underground pipes delivering the water is the problem.

My bottled RO waste water on the other hand starts with clean city water from the great lakes which tests very low on TDS meter to begin with. It is then pre-filtered through a .5 micron sediment filter and a .5 micron carbon block filter.

I would imagine some of the pre-filtered water mentioned above makes it's way through the RO membrane somewhat before being discharge as waste water.....further filtering some of the water.

My RO system certainly isn't adding anything to this waste water...especially considering I change the sediment & carbon filters every 6 months, and I change the RO membrane when my TDS meter has higher readings on the output end of RO system.

So there is no way my bottled RO waste water is worse than the city water going into it...which is good to begin with for drinking.

It's a fallacy that the RO waste water has a higher TDS reading than the water going into the RO system....mine reads the same TDS level or less.
 
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alexkharden said:
Reviving an old thread...again.

These things are marketed as "water saving", and technically they are since they are creating less waste, but essentially aren't they just another RO membrane ran in series with the first one in your RODI system?

And if that's the case, what would be the limit? Meaning, could a person run 3 in series? 4? 5?

At what point would the TDS be too concentrated for any of it to make it through a membrane? I know this would depend on the incoming TDS, of course, but in general wouldn't there be an additional benefit to doing this? Up to a certain point that is.
Click to expand...

Yes and no IMO... I had one and now went to a single 99% membrane from Spectrapure. Multiple membranes need higher water pressure across all membranes. I was 4:1 still to get the TDS down but even at that I was 11-15 ppm TDS out of the membranes. IDK if I had a bad membrane or what but now I have an average rejection rate of 99.07% 304.5 ppm in and 2.833 ppm out.

Water pressure 62psi @62F with a ratio of ~4:1. I should see an increase of 300% life in my DI resin.

Back to the main question of does it save water? Well for me no because the trade off was higher TDS out of the membrane and to lower it I had to increase the ratio from 3:1 back to 4:1. My decision to change was because the water is cheaper than the resin.
 
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