How Much Waste Water With Ro

MPETERS · #1 09/11/2002, 10:40 AM

Hi,

I was just wondering how much waste water is produced with an RO/DI system?? Does anyone know the percentage of "good" water to waste water??

Thanks,

MalHavoc · #2 09/11/2002, 11:09 AM

It's probably about 4:1 at optimal water pressure. So, for every gallon of good water you make, you'll probably see about 4 gallons of waste. Do a search - there are tons of threads on this subject.

MPETERS · #3 09/11/2002, 11:58 AM

Thanks,

That is going to hurt. I have to truck my water in and keep it in a storage tank. It looks like my RO water is going to get expensive..

beerguy · #4 09/11/2002, 12:01 PM

In your situation it might make sense to catch the waste water and use it for things like watering the lawn and what not. It is still water, it's just very "hard".

MPETERS · #5 09/11/2002, 12:19 PM

That is a good idea, however, I don't have any grass

or other places I could use graywater!!

Thanks for the input.

Russ · #6 09/11/2002, 02:32 PM

You can use it to wash your clothes.

MalHavoc · #7 09/11/2002, 02:54 PM

I'm not really sure how well that'd work, considering how hard this water would be. The whole point of water softeners is to make water softer so a washing machine does a better job. I haven't tried it, but I bet that soap suds would be pretty difficult to make in RO wastewater.

Russ · #8 09/11/2002, 02:58 PM

add Calgon to the washer before washing cloths (You can get it at the grocery store). It softens the water, I believe. Might be worth investigating.

hatton3 · #9 09/11/2002, 07:40 PM

You could always flush your toilet with it

T3 · #10 09/11/2002, 09:55 PM

FWIW, I've been using the RO waste water to do laundry for the past 6 months with no obvious ill-effect on clothings. It suds just fine.
Your sediment and carbon prefilters should already remove many particulates such as clorine. So in some respect the RO waste water is not as bad as it would seem for purposes such as laundry and watering - especially at the cost of having it trucked in.
You could also consider buying RO water from a LFS or store if it works out cheaper...

T3

cisco · #11 09/12/2002, 06:01 AM

Mpeters
G,day
if you truck your water in and store it in tanks then all you have to do is to put the waste water back into the tank and re use it just get a longer hose and put back into your water tank, you will now have no waste.
cisco

MPETERS · #12 09/12/2002, 08:24 AM

Hi,

Thanks to all who have replied. I have gotten several great ideas on what to do with the "waste water". I will look at them and decide which I would be able to do.

Any more ideas would be welcome.

Thanks,