FINALLY getting somewhere.

That is a really sad commentary on Kenmore. You paid the same as say, one of Walt's units, and got crap! It is not fair. If you get a TDS meter and test it, perhaps they will give you your money back? That, to me, is truly false advertising. :-/

I have 2 carbon units, one sediment unit, the membrane, and the DI. My DI lasted nearly a year. That is one reason I wend with the slower unit (75 gpd instead of the 100). It yields a higher rejection rate and saves on the DI resin.

 

I don't think the GE was that bad of a deal. Grant it I should of bought a Hobbyist learning RO from the start. The membrane was crap but the housing, plumbing, auto shut off, and drinking water kit are all usefully. The drinking water tap that it comes with is the nicest I seen from anyone. So I believe I am going plumb my 2 stage omni filter before the R/O thru to the DI and use all of that for the tank water. I think I will continue to drink just the RO water. So I will end up with all the media of the typhoon.
FrankenRO is born!!
The pics should be fun I just have to wait until I get paid.
What your TDS Sue RO and DI?

 

Well, I don't have a DI bypass, so I don't know that. RO/DI = 0 TDS

It has been creeping up to 5 TDS this last couple weeks tho.

 

It is good you got the year out of it. It funny I was looking forward to the move because the water is cleaner on this side of the river. GH is like 200ppm in Davenport instead of like 400ppm in Illinois. I ended up having to fight the chlorimine more than anything else and they add that!

 

Yeah , I think my water is not too bad to begin with, like 150 or so TDS

 

TDS it's like holding my hand in front of my eye. I have not tested for this yet.

The Kenmore was in the house when i bought it. I have not changed the filters yet the price of 50 plus does not sound like a good idea right now. I will pay 3.oo for a 5gallon ro from my lfs.

Well i did the chemi-clean and that was the biggest mistake, blew up my skimmer like crazy, 48 hrs of this stuff i am about to go nuts. Doing all the wrong things right now for i dont have that much time to do it right.

Ok i have to start over, asses, plan and iniciate.

 

When you first set up a new R.O.D.I. please record the following tds reading.
D.I. tds
R.O. membrane tds
Tap water water tds
Drain water tds
Rate of production gallons per hour .
Water temperature .
Now you have a system history save it , compare this to your current readings.
If you supply this information in an e-mail with questions I can give you better answers .
The simple way to determine if your membrane is up to par .
Tap water tds ____ X .05 = your R.O. membrane tds.
Example 300 ppm tds tap water times .05 equals 15 ppm . The reading from your membrane should be very close to this . Less is better, a reading of 30 just means you are eating up D.I. cartridges twice as fast as you should.

Thanks for letting me butt in

Walter The HO Guru

 

Hi ,
I have had a very bad week no site, no e-mail. I wanted to get back to you sooner .
Chloramines are difficult to remove completely. If your carbon filters are not up to the task they just break the ammonia and chlorine apart . The chlorine gets removed but the ammonia passes to the membrane. The membrane does not reject all of the ammonia . Leaving you with an imbalance of ions in the product water . Basically early d.i. death . The problem may be your membrane rejection rate. A very good / excellent membrane will reject about 97-98 % of the tds .If your tap water is 200 ppm your r.o. membrane tds could be 4-6 ppm .
My rule of thumb test is this, your membrane fails at 90 % rejection 200 x .10 = 20 ppm
Ok for a drinking water sytem, bad for a d.i. system . A membrane rejecting only 90 % can use 3-4 times as many d.i cartridges as an excellent membrane will need. Even a good membrane at 95-96 % will get at last twice the life out of your d.i.
The H2O Guru

Walter

 

Hi Walter, I have an airwaterice booster pump with an 80psi switch on it that cycles the pump a lot on and off so I disconnected it and now the pump is putting out 100psi is this an ok pressure for a RODI system?

 

Hi Walter! Thanks for the reply! I guess you were busy with our NJ Reef club group buy! LOL! I heard it ended up to be pretty big (big from my perspective anyway!) I got a typhoon kit in that order.

To follow your advice here, can I just pull the hose going out of the RO and into the DI to get that reading? then of course, put it back in. I did not do this initially , so I will do it before I remove the old an after putting in the new ;D
Great advice! Thanks so much!