Using waste water

YoCamron

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Hi all. I am in a pinch right now as I just changed the carts and di resin in my rodi unit and it is making no clean water but a lot of waste. I believe I need a booster pump which I ordered and won't have till next week. I have already run out of rodi water and have no water to top off with. Can I use waste water and treat it with prime? I have well water with a water softener. Thanks
 

Woodyman

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Hi all. I am in a pinch right now as I just changed the carts and di resin in my rodi unit and it is making no clean water but a lot of waste. I believe I need a booster pump which I ordered and won't have till next week. I have already run out of rodi water and have no water to top off with. Can I use waste water and treat it with prime? I have well water with a water softener. Thanks

Did you double check how you reinstalled everything after your changes?

The booster pump will help with production and efficiency, but if you were producing water before there's no reason you shouldn't be now.

You would more than likely be better off topping off with just filtered tap water vs your waste water.

If your in a pinch distilled water from a gas station or grocery store might be your safest bet until you can figure out the issue with your system.
 
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jda

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Tap water is better than waste water. If you have a well, the no chlorine? Some do and some do not. If no chlorine, then no prime needed. If it makes you feel better, you can put some tap water into a container and run a filter with some GAC in it.

Tap water is not the poison that people make it out to be,... in small batches. I nearly always use it for new tanks. Just don't use it all of the time. It becomes a problem when it is the only water source ever used.
 

Duffer

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I would not use the waste water,you are asking for trouble…go buy some distilled water, cheap and easy ti find
 

Eagle_Steve

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Worst case, take tap and run it straight through the di resin. This would kill the resin quickly, but would make clean water.

Although, I think something may be hooked up wrong.
 
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YoCamron

YoCamron

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Thanks everyone for the advice. Got some Walmart brand water that claims to be filtered by ro... as for my rodi unit, I took it apart and put it back together 3 times. My unit has been making water slower and slower as the weather got cooler, and I had heard cold water can affect psi heavily so I assumed that was my issue and a booster pump may help (worth a shot anyway since my regular water output is fairly slow but never an issue). This is my first winter with the brs 4 stage rodi unit as I had an ro buddie ro unit for about 5 years. I ordered a pressure gage and a flush valve to add as well. Hope it works
 

ScottJ

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I use an RO Buddie and municipal water. In the middle of summer a gallon takes about 40 min to produce. Now it's up to an hour. In another month, it'll be an hour and 15. I would think a bigger unit wouldn't be that much different, cold water wise.
 

Woodyman

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I use an RO Buddie and municipal water. In the middle of summer a gallon takes about 40 min to produce. Now it's up to an hour. In another month, it'll be an hour and 15. I would think a bigger unit wouldn't be that much different, cold water wise.

The rated production rates on RO membranes is 77 degrees F and a pressure of 80psi, anything outside of those values will change the stated production rate.

So yes as your feed water gets colder or your pressure goes down you will get less production, hotter water and more pressure will increase your production rate.

If you can, increase the pressure up to around 90psi to mitigate some of the effects of the colder water. Either way 90psi would boost your production in both cold and warmer weather.
 

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