What is a good affordable RO/ID unit?

[JoshH]

1500 gallons for the carbon block per their manual. The sediment filter doesn't give a gallon rating, just said to change when the flow drops.

That's actually pretty darn expensive.... when a premium 10" carbon block for $16.99 can process up to 35,000 Gallons of water with chlorine Or up to 3,500 Gallons of water with chloramines

 

[Journeyman]

That's actually pretty darn expensive.... when a premium 10" carbon block for $16.99 can process up to 35,000 Gallons of water with chlorine Or up to 3,500 Gallons of water with chloramines

Good point. Though at my rate of use it will last me almost 2 years. At that point I guess I can swap it out for a 10" canister and go from there.

 

[JoshH]

Good point. Though at my rate of use it will last me almost 2 years. At that point I guess I can swap it out for a 10" canister and go from there.

Now assuming you make 10 Gallons every two weeks, that works out to 260 GPY. I'm not sure what the product to waste ratio is on those particular units is but say it's 1:4 Product to waste (Which is standard). That works out to you running 1300 GPY through the carbon block. Now in saying all that it's still less than $7 a year for your particular setup which isn't bad atall. But you can see how this unit can quickly become expensive if someone isn't aware of other options or the actual costs involved.

Btw I'm not bashing the RO Buddy, it is a great little unit, especially for the price of it. And it size is roughly half that of most filtration setups which is another bonus. I'm just merely pointing out some potential downsides to it for the OP to consider. Every system has it's strengths and weaknesses and by no means are any of them perfect.

 

[Journeyman]

True, it works for me because of my smaller size.

 

[AdamNC]

Been using this one a few years now.

https://aquaticlife.com/products/twist-in-3-4-stage-reverse-osmosis-systems?variant=19971202154554

 

[Sethdarkus]

Went ahead and bought a RO buddy twist on unit with 100 gallons a day due to slightly better reviews and ordered a Aquafx booster pump kit just in case. Overall cost $220 charged to PayPal credit. Will probably upgrade to a different unit in the future however im sure they hold some resell value. best case if I don’t need the booster pump I can return it. My main choice of that unit was length of time of filters based on not having chlorine’s or other chemicals in my water along with how I will only need 70 gallons or so to fill the tank when the time comes and needing only 36 gallons a month afterwards for water changes on the two tanks and around 432 gallons a year not counting the 70ish to fill the tank but it’s probably less than 70 once you account 40 pounds of rock and 40-60 pounds of sand. So I’m probably looking at 1,728 gallons of waste water however I could probably cut down on waste by installing a second filter to process waste cutting waste down by 50% however it requires upkeep of PSI to pull off however the booster pump I bought that I can adjust PSI with I might be able to daisy chain it up to 2 times getting 3/4 gallons of RODI water