Ro/di unit well water consumption

[reefrefresh]

I purchased a new compact reefkeeper ro/di unit from Air Water Ice. My issue is one of consumption, I live in a residence that uses a well with a pump to provide water. Am I going to run the well dry if I operate this (or any) ro/di unit? I know they produce waste water and the system does function properly but perhaps I should have thought of this before I bought...So anyone out there know if Im tempting fate and asking for disaster by running the unit via a private residential well? My only other option would be to ask a plumber or some such for a more educated guesstimate. Please help. Also no need for a booster pump, luckilythe water pressure is adequate. Now I need to know if the amount of water would strain the reservoir of actual water. Im no expert in terms of wells,water, and such so forgive my lack of proper terminology.

 

[slief]

I purchased a new compact reefkeeper ro/di unit from Air Water Ice. My issue is one of consumption, I live in a residence that uses a well with a pump to provide water. Am I going to run the well dry if I operate this (or any) ro/di unit? I know they produce waste water and the system does function properly but perhaps I should have thought of this before I bought...So anyone out there know if Im tempting fate and asking for disaster by running the unit via a private residential well? My only other option would be to ask a plumber or some such for a more educated guesstimate. Please help. Also no need for a booster pump, luckilythe water pressure is adequate. Now I need to know if the amount of water would strain the reservoir of actual water. Im no expert in terms of wells,water, and such so forgive my lack of proper terminology.

I highly doubt you will run your well dry. Wells are typically rated in gallons per minute and because they draw from the water table, they should never run dry unless the water table drops or unless you are drawing more water per minute than the well can produce. I would verify your GPM that your well is capable of which should be included on the Well Inspection Report. RODI's generally won't draw more than 1 gallon per minute and are generally much less than that. You can calculate your GPM usage by the GPD rating of the RODI. Just divide 1440 (number of minutes in a day) by the number of gallons per day that the RODI is rated at. Next factor in your rejection ration. If your unit is a 4:1 unit that produces 1 gallon of RODI to 4 gallons of waste, take the number from the math above and multiply it by 5 and you should have a pretty good estimate of the gallons per minute that your RODI will use. A 3:1 ration would require multiplying by 4 where as a 1:1 unit would mean multiplying x 2.

That said, I would do a Co2 test on your well water. Wells often have high levels of Co2 in the water. Co2 kills RODI cartridges. Often people that run wells will use a cistern to store the water and degas it before feeding the water into the RODI unit. That process is a best practice method when using an RODI filter that is fed from well water. To degas Co2 in well water, an airstone and or good surface agitation via a pump is used in the cistern. Several hours of decent flow with good surface agitation will generally remove the Co2 from the water and make it much safer for the RODI cartridges. From there a decent RODI booster pump can be used to feed the RODI filter and insure adequet pressure.

 

[RocketEngineer]

Most residential well pumps push around 20-25 gallons per minute. A RODI unit will use at most 500 gallons per DAY if it were a 100gpd unit (very common) with a 4:1 rejection ration (also common). That means, over the course of an entire 24 hour cycle, the well pump will only be on for about 20-30 minutes total. While you will see a constant flow of waste water leaving the unitl, the flow rate is very low. You use far more water taking a shower or washing dishes by hand.

 

[gone fishin]

I have never had any trouble with my well, but all wells are different depth and recovery rates. I do not think the RO/DI would put a strain on your well.

 

[Bmplank86]

I even recycle the waste water