The water that is returned into the cold line by the booster pump does not go through the membrane.
I didn't suggest the rejected water goes back through the membrane. My concern was reintroducing the concentration of minerals and sediment back into the supply water line. It doesn't seem good for any plumbing system.
I get that when the narrow sighted goal is to reuse the waste water this seems to check the box. But does it?
I'll admit, I was going off of how you explained it and as yesterday dragged on, I had more questions so I did breifly look it up and aside from the initial concerns I had, I now I have more questions.
Does the booster pump run off of pressure differential? Or is it on when the rodi is in operation?
Where does that extra water go when you're not using hot water? Am I to assume that your hot water side is capable of expanding to displace the extra water injected?
From an engineering perspective, my 1st choice would be to over pressurize the hotwater side because hot water heater come equipped with pressure relief valves to deal with expanding water.
Does that mean that this is a gimmick and all that water is really wasting out of the pressure relief?
If not, how does the system prevent over pressure? I guess it can leach backwards into the city supply, which would be a huge red flag. That means your neighbors are getting higher TDS in the potable water supply? How can that be legal? And if true, I don't see any cost savings for the user. You're still paying for the waste water and giving it back for free only to use a small portion when you run your hot water during times that the RODI is on.
I have had it for 6 years nothing has exploded things such as valves are built solid anything tested has to withstand 1.5 times the expected operating pressure.
As long as you're hotwater heaters relief valve is in working order, I would tend to agree with you. In fact, if I had one of these systems, I would put a bucket on the end of the pipe connected to the hotwater relief valve and occasionally check it to confirm/deny my theory.
people would research before voicing personal opinions instead of reading about what an actual ENGINEER developed.
For me, this is the scary part, advertising clouding percieved "sound engineering science". Which is simply an attempt at marketing taking advantage of consumers lack of understand hydraulics. Sprinkle in something that makes enough sense that the rest of what is said can be lumped into a sales pitch.
Let someone decide for themselves I chose not to put extra footprint on the worlds water supply .
I'm all for coming up with ways to conserve water. But this seems like it's done at the owners expense of shortening the life of hotwater heaters, fixtures and seals. Being active duty military and moving around a lot, I've owned 4 houses in my day and I wouldn't put one of these on a house I owned. It's bad enough spending money on plumbing upkeep, I definitely don't want to increase that budget to save some water. But you're right to let the consumer make their own decision but don't you think they need to at least be fully aware of what's really happening?
A normal RO wastes more than it makes
To push back, there are RO units out there that have better rejection rates than others, in our hobby people tend to purchase the rebranded
BRS version which isn't the best candidate for conserving water. As mentioned Spectrapure offers some more efficient units that waste less water. But if we're being honest with ourselves, is the few gallons a week savings enough to justify speeding up the buildup in your hot water supply side?
In my opinion, I think you can route the water to a garden or your washing machine and utilize the water that way. And if you truly want to strip TDS from water, why not ditch the membrane altogether and simply use DI to achieve 0 TDS? That seems more along the lines of what a conservation savvy person would gravitate towards anyway.
