0 waste RO System

[Bebo77]

Saw this on costco.com looks interesting...

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product...er_BCEmail_239




Limited Time Offer:

$30 Coupon is reflected in the price. Valid for orders placed October 16, 2007 through November 25, 2007.



Online price


$289.99

*Less coupon


-$30.00

YOUR COST


$259.99

For years, the only solutions to poor quality drinking water involved buying water by the gallon at the supermarket or paying expensive fees to deliver 40-pound bottles to your home. Now, systems with the same technology as water bottling plants can be installed right under your kitchen sink, providing you with gallons of water for pennies a day.

Standard reverse osmosis systems waste 4 or more gallons of water for every gallon of pure water produced. The new patented "Zero Waste" reverse osmosis system wastes no water.

This state of the art system reduces Arsenic(v), Cysts, Barium, Cadium, Chromium, Copper, Cryptosporidium, Floride, Giardia, Lead, Radium 226/228, Selenium, TDS, and Turbidity. In addition, bad tastes and odors, such as chlorine, can be virtually eliminated from your drinking water along with unwanted chemicals and sediments, giving you fresh, healthy tasting water with every glass.

Watts Premier features high quality NSF certified reverse osmosis and filtration systems for your home or office. They are designed for easy installation and maintenance and are the same systems sold nationwide by professional installers. In addition, Watts Premier sells a variety of filtration components which are compatible with many other reverse osmosis and filtration brands.

Features:

* The only 100% efficient reverse osmosis system available today
* Perfect for areas with higher water costs or low water pressure
* Eliminates the need for air-gap faucets
* Patented water conserving design
* Easy to install
* Inexpensive to maintain
* NSF certified
* IAPMO Certified
* Tank Dimensions: 11"D x 16"H
* Filter Dimensions: 18"L X 15" W X 6"H
* Warranty: 1-year limited warranty

[reef_doug]

Funny, Bebo I beat you to the same thinking only by a few seconds!

[Bebo77]

lol....

they say great minds think alike...

[d0cdave]

"Waste"... only if you dont irrigate your garden with the waste water

Anybody put a TDS meter on one of these? I get less than 5ppm on my RO, and thats with a 3.5 year old filter media

[frogiii]

Thanks for the link, I have been looking for good new inovation RO/DI filter system. Current Ro/Di has been using same metheod over a decade. It's about time they figure out new design. I'm getting this one.

[Puffalicious]

I'm thinking of a decent RO/DI system I don't need zero waste since i'm not paying for water anyways.... should I just get one from ebay like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/WaterGeneral-RO6...QQcmdZViewItem

[Bebo77]

those cheap ebay ones seem to have a problem with phosphates.. i know 2 people that use them and both have a phosphate problem that they can not find the cause of...

[dwl]

take a look at some of the posts in the Lighting, Filtration, and Equipment forum from AZDesertRat.
I think they take the waste from the R/O and pressure feed it into your hot water line. This in turn raises (or at least can raise) the TDS in your water heater and other appliances like clothes and dish washers. It might negate any (or some) of the softening if you have a water softener.
Again, there are several threads in that forum about this.

HTH

[afelder]

Whats the GPD on the unit?

Although Costco doesn't really sell bad stuff

[Crusty Old Shellback]

dwl,
I am thinking the same thing. I had been looking into some of these systems and all of the 0 waste RO systems that I found pump the waste watre back into your hot water storage tank.

That may work for some people but I have a tankless hot water heater so it won't work for me or others who have my set up.

Now if this one truely is a 0 waste with no "extra" way to get rid of the loaded water, then it may be worth looking into. But how do you get rid of all of the bad elements that are taking out of the water?


On a side note, our club just did a behind the scene tour at Aquarium of the Pacific with the tour guides being part of the actual Husbndry group. I called ahead and got it set up that way so we could actually learn something from it. Anyways, found out that they don't use RO/DI water for makeup water on their tanks. They just use good 'ol tap water and run it thru some carbon and a sand bed filter.

I've also seen discussions on a site about the Kold Steri untis that make up 0 waste water. They question the use of RO/Di water as well. You remove much of the same chemicals that you put back in the water, i.e. calicum, buffers, molydium, stronium, etc. Kind of makes sense to me.


Update.

Yep, as suspected, it plugs into your hot water line and sends the waste water into your hot water heater. I just checked their installitaion book and that's what they are doing. For some reason, you have to install the hot water tap at least 25 feet from the hot water heater. Why? So the waste water will now be flushed down the drain when you turn on the hot water waiting for it to get hot? Dosen't sound like some high level secert patent that they want you to beleive. So your still wasting the waste water, just not like it used to be wasted. Tricky advertising.

[bromion]

Don't buy a really cheap eBay model. I bought one from dvoneb on ebay and spent as much fixing various defects in the cheap parts as I would have on a more expensive system.

Look for a system that uses a FilmTec membrane with a flow rate that matches the flow resistor on it. Lower GPD = less waste and longer life, as well, so only buy the GPD you think you will need. Mine is 50GPD, I think, and I have a storage container for lots of water.

[Bebo77]

Originally posted by blown63chevy
dwl,
Anyways, found out that they don't use RO/DI water for makeup water on their tanks. They just use good 'ol tap water and run it thru some carbon and a sand bed filter.

but they only have 1 reef tank ... i could care less if my tank was fish only...

[bromion]

Well, zero waste is very costly to achieve. There must be SOME waste, be it liquid or solid, since you are removing molecules from the water. You can distill your water with very little waste, but that would be quite a bit more expensive than RO. You could also circulate your waste water through successive filters, but again, it would be more costly since each level of waste would have higher concentrations of contaminants, ruining the filters sooner. And there would still be some water waste needed to carry away the pollutants.

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Gabe, guess again. they have one 5000G reef and a whole bunch of little reefs along with some highly hard to keep sea dragons that they breed. And seeing their reef from the top, it looks amazing. Plus the fact that they have to trim the corals all of the time. I learned a lot from the tour. Some eye opening, some confirmation of what I already theroized on. Don't be scared to try some of the non traditional, easier ways of keeping a reef system. NSW, Romaine lettuce, Nori from the Asian markets, non RO water for top off, etc.

[Bebo77]

man.. i need to go visit them again.. when i went a few years back they had 1 500 g or so reef tank..

[reef_doug]

It sure is tempting to get one and add a DI cartridge and test it.

I guess with the Costco unit, you could always return it if it's not what you tought.

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Yep, well worth the trip. See if you can get a group of reefers together to go. 10 per group is a good number. If you do, drop me a PM and I'll give you some contact info to get a good tour set up.

[gtrestoration]

How can these dump the waste water into an already-full hot water heater?

From the PDF file I found searching that model number it appears you attach the waste line to the back side of the hot water line.

http://www.wattspremier.com/premier/...4RET031403.pdf

SteveU

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Hey, check my update I added in the bottom of my first post.

[Captain Quirk]

Originally posted by Puffalicious
I'm thinking of a decent RO/DI system I don't need zero waste since i'm not paying for water anyways.... should I just get one from ebay like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/WaterGeneral-RO6...QQcmdZViewItem

I'd urge you to consider one, anyway. Water is a resource that we don't have a lot of here in the California DESERT...

...

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Steve, that's it. It actually pushes the water back up the line. remember that your cold water line connects to the hot water heater. So when you push water back into the hot water line, it goes back into the tank which pushes the water back into the cold water line. All you have to do to achieve this is over come the line pressure, Hence the boost pump on the system. There is no valve on your lines either before or after the heater. AS you turn on your hot water line at the sink, water from the top of the heater enters the hot water line and cold water from the sullpy enters the bottom of the heater. So if you push water back down the hot water line, ie the waste water with a boost pump, you push water back into the cold water line and actually all they way back out to the main line in the street.

I did a bit of research on this a while back trying to fully understand the whole process. Found out it will not work for me as I don't have the hot water tank and thus would just be recirculating and waste water back into my house system. I do have a whole house 5 stage water softner system that also filters the water with carbon and such. It is a heavy duty comerical system that the previous owner installed. I've never checked my TDS but so far, I have no problems with either of my tanks.

[ezcompany]

chevy, if you ever get a tour going, count me in

[Crusty Old Shellback]

ez, sorry but we just did one. 20 people signe dup from our club but only 15 showed up for the tour. They missed out big time. If any of the other clubs want to do the same as we, drop me a PM and I'll gladly pass on some info.

[d0cdave]

Ray,

Interesting info about the non-RO makeup water. You apparently asked a bunch more questions in your group

Anyone know of a professional lab that will test tap water for concentrations of certain elements? TDS in Fillmore runs over 450ppm at the tap. My RO takes that down to 5 or less. If the majority of it is trace minerals and Ca, I could save a bundle on additives. I'm an optimist.. so sue me!

[dwl]

I am still pretty new to this stuff, but from what I have read, the closest thing to a zero waste system would be the Kati-Ani systems.
Like what was said earlier, if you can use the waste water to water your garden/flowerbeds, that seems to be about the best thing you can do with R/O unless pumping the waste water back into your plumbing is not a problem.

It looks as the filter guys are now carrying the kati-ani units, perhaps they can comment.