Rodi unit

The refurbished units are not used, they were sitting on a shelf at a distributors facility that went belly up so they were returned and new filters installed.

More stages are not better, its what the stages contain that tells the story. The"stages" thing is something started by the ebay sellers who are selling you a low end drinking water system with additional low quality or low efficiency filters tacked on to make them sound like the best thing since sliced bread.
Compare the BRS 5 stage to the Spectrapure 4 stage. BRS 5.0 micron nominal rated sediment filter, Spectrapure 0.5 micron absolute rated sediment filter. Thats 10x smaller micron and absolute rated so much better at protecting the carbon block.
BRS a 5 micron carbon block which is not needed if they had provided a better sediment filter along with a good 0.6 micron carbon block. Spectrapure provides a single 0.5 micron 20,000 gallon carbon block which is more than adequate for chlorine or chloramines. You need to remember, everything you place in front of the RO membrane has an associated headloss or pressure drop so the fewer filters or components the better. This is also a cost savings since you have one less canister and filter, fittings and even a smaller top bracket.
The most important parts are the RO membrane and the DI filter. BRS and others use dry, untested, off the shelf Dow Filmtec RO membranes. Spectrapure specially treats all their RO membranes then either batch tests them for quality control or in some cases individually hand tests and guarantees each one in writing as with the MaxCap series. This is important since the treating process is proven to increase the Rejection Rate and for every 2% you can increase that rejection rate you DOUBLE the life of your DI resin. Huge cost savings over the life of the system.
BRS and others use bulk DI resins, Spectrapure has a test facility where they continously test DI resins then blend them in house based on that testing so you get thefreshed and the most high performance resin available anywhere. Again a huge cost savings.


If I were to choose vendors in order of preference it is of course Spectrapure first, closely followed by Buckeye Field Supply then by PurelyH2o. All these vendors use the highest quality components and things like 1 micron or less sediment filters along with single 0.6 or 0.5 micron carbon blocks and full size vertical refillable DI filters. Buckeye also uses capillary tube flow restrictors similar to Spectrapure which is another overlooked and misunderstood item but very very important.

I stand by my recommendation.

 

Damm! you sure told me! It makes me think twice. Thanks for that info!

 

DI resin

I don't like brs color changing resin at all. I bought two charges of it. Packed them real good into the DI cartridge. Both of them in a month or two became a net PRODUCER of phosphate. They emit once the saturate. I now use a BRS pre-filter labeled for chloramine removal instead of DI resin and I solved my phosphate problem by boosting input pressure to 80 psi with a pump. I don't trust my Dow filmtec 50 membrane. I've been waiting for a Kent HI-C membrane but discovered the other day the Spectrapure. Evidently both are using the same class membrane material. I find the user calibration of the capillary tube and the extra step process on the membrane a curiosity. The 4/1 waste to product ratio is probably ? the same for both since the membrane material is believed by me to be the same.:thinking2

 

I had similar problems with that resin wallstdrifter. I only use spectra pure DI now.

I ended up getting the MaxCap 90gpd system with high capacity DI resin.

 

I'm not going to get too much into brand names. I will just use a very old Latin phrase of Caveat Emptor which translates into, "Buyer beware". A less ancient phrase would be, "You get what you pay for".

 

The spectrapure DI resin sounds great. I have a mothballed Total Chlorine Checker that, if I remember right, I can use to figure out the amount of chloramines in my batch water. I don't mind a little chlorine, it is very unstable, but chloramine has to be +- 0. I guess a little chlorine can be bad too if you are using products that contain ammonia. Just now crosses my mind that there is some potential at that point to produce, in your tank, your own brand of chloramine!

 

With Spectrapures 0.5 micron carbon block you will have no trace of chlorine in your finished either from free chlorine of chloramines. With their SilicaBuster DI resin you will also have non detectable ammonia from the chloramines. You do not need any special catalytic carbons or whiz bang chloramine removes that waste your money.

 

I had may shopping cart full at Spectrapure (about $180 of cartridges and two stage maxi)
Then I remembered that stupid hanna total chlorine checker. Fired it up to get a readind of zero total chlorine in my 4 day old batch water. The chlorine had evaporated (or was never there) and chlorimine was not being used by the municipal to clean out the viruses (menengitis etc) and other biocontagions) in the pipes etc.

I remembered the old school advise to cure your tap water and/or RO water before use. Once the chlorine evaporates only the chloramines if any should remain.

So, if I batch 1 month supply RO product at a time and test it once for total chlorines with Hanna after the chlorine evaporates I will see if I need to add costly chloramine remover. This will rarely happen considering what I know about my municipal.

My previous residence only 20 miles away drew from under a very polluted river and the water always had sickening and fish deadly levels of chloramines. I lost thousands in rare African Chiclid breedstock on the move out there. Now I'm back and the water supply couldn't be sweeter. TDS 130 and tastes better than plastic bottled water.

I like the Spectrapure .2 block carbon and prefilters. I really like the Spectrapure DI resins program. I'm initially impressed with the HI-S 60 for my purposes pending further homework on my part.

Thanks and Best Regards.

 

I I suspect chloramines I guess I need to test for Ammonia in the product water and chloramines in the source.

 

With chloramines, the chlorine does not dissipate as it does with free or total chlorine. The ammonia binds the chlorine so it stays in solution, this is why chloramines are used by so many utilities, the residual reaches the far ends of the distribution system mains and is still viable. Don't expect it to dissipate or break down easily. Its not an issue though with a good 0.5 or 0.6 micron Chlorine Guzzler type carbon block for the chlorine portion and the SilicaBuster DI resin for the ammonia portion. That combination is as good as they come and works very well on chlorine or chloramines at normal municipal residuals.