Poll: Do You Know Your TDS?

[cracker]

This thread reminded me to run tests I haven't in years. I have an old oceanus 4 stage. I run 2 carbon, blocks Ro then Di resin. I'd have to check my logs to find how long ago I changed the RO membrane. The others more recently of course. However it has been quite a while & I'm amazed I still get 0 from my 1 year old HM hand held tds meter. The only Ro I have sitting around is in the 30 gl top off barrel for the 180. I usually keep 15 maybe 20 gls in it. I also have 10, 1 gallon jugs capped under the sink. Any way the water in the topoff was 1 . My tap is 124. I also contacted the water Co & learned there are no cloramines in the water. Is this the chemical that eats up Ro membranes? Iv'e read where You should sterilize the canisters. Thanks to caveman for starting this thread. An important yet easily forgotten thing.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

BRS 4 stage 75gpd RO with 2 stage DI. Bought separately,(I had an old RO unit in the house but the housing cracked after a few months) but it's essentially their 6 stage system. I also have the three probe inline TDS meter. Incoming TDS is 80-90, after flushing the membrane is usually 0-2 and always 0 after the DI. My DI resin is almost a year old and still producing 0 TDS water, but I'm going to replace it soon. Filters and membrane are about 4 months old.

 

[CarolinaReefs]

I have one of those dual TDS meters on my RO system and monitor the TDS coming out of my membrane and the TDS after the DI. I don't know the TDS of my source water though. I'm always at 2 TDS out of the RO and 0 out of the DI.

 

[NY_Caveman]

The Poll of the Day is over but the poll lives on. I thought I would recap some of the numbers after the big response the poll received yesterday. Over 900 people voted which is a little more than 1% of registered users.

The results were about what I expected overall. RO/DI water is touted everywhere on this site and it appears users do put their money where their mouths are. In fact, I am guessing that people voted in numbers because they were very proud of their systems starting with the best quality water possible. They should be proud. Of course everyone’s system is different. The 12.8% of us who do not own home RO/DI systems and know the TDS are just as concerned as the rest I am sure. We have apartments, no room, small systems, or use other types of water, etc.

Here are some broken down numbers:

I added that one at the bottom because I found that the most interesting part of the poll. 8.5% of people who have RO/DI systems do not know the TDS. That surprised me. At first I thought, why spend so much on a unit for your home/business and not kick in the extra $20 for a TDS meter? Then it occurred to me, they probably have a set interval to change membranes and resins and it works for them.

I found this poll very interesting despite its lopsided results. Thanks to @dbl and R2R for making it the POTD!

 

[melev]

Very interesting results! Thanks for compiling the list.

 

[Brad Miller]

I have 370 TDS into the house now....
Reading 5 TDS out of di
Guess I'll upgrade or replace my aquatic life 100 gpd, 4 stage to include more di stages and polish...
Local township uses well water...UGH !