[darren73]

does a water butt have enough pressure of the tap to run a di can anyone help-darren

[Jeff Brimble]

There are a couple of people that have made a very simple non pressurised DI Tank, just water in and out. Zero pressure.

[darren73]

thanks jeff was starting to think this wasnt possible as i am using a backpack and need to ro into waterbutt then di water from butt,new to all this equipment so im just trying to understand everything ta for the reply-darren

[ian m]

Hi Darren

what is the tds reading from the ro into the water butt?

Ian

[darren73]

dont have the ro unit yet was going to ask friend with an r/o to make me up some and store it, not sure what the reading is ian but i want to di anyway

[ian m]

There is usually a small di vessel attached to the ro which is designed to "polish" the water down to zero tds

I dont use ro as the water where we are is only about 55ppm, so a bag of di resin lasts me about 3 months.

Some parts of Antrim have hard water as there is some limestone there, have you checked your own tds reading from the tap yet?

[darren73]

i havent got a meter yet to test it ian,i was going to buy a merlin r/o-does this mean i wouldnt need a di

[ian m]

You always need some sort of di vessel to bring the tds down to zero.

If you fill a water butt from an ro unit then want to run it through a di vessel it will need to be pumped as there will not be enough water pressure to force the water through the di.

Suggest you get a tds meter before you get anything else
]
http://www.surecleansystems.com/proddetail.asp?prod=48

[Jeff Brimble]

Ian and others , Is there a difference between rainwater tds and tap water tds, just that I am wondering if dissolved algae build up animal/plant material etc also registers on a tds meter. We want to remove mainly calcium. I noticed that if you just filter  harvested rainwater through very simple filtration using spnges, you can still get the same results as RO ie very little spotting.

[KarlJones]

Water pressure from a water butt can get through a DI but it is very very slow and it does need quite a bit of coaxing now and again.  So it just is not worth the bother at all. 

I have done it in emergencies, infact my system is set up so that I have a 300GPD RO then a small 250 ML DI sitting on the RO going into a water butt.  I have a big DI for sorting it out if for some reason the water inside has gone above 001 TDS. 

The 250 ML DI canisters are a pain as you have to keep filling them.  However, I find it easy to flush my system at the same time as doing the refill.  So it sort of solved two problems (stopping high TDS going through the DI at flush time and not having to wait an age for my DI water).  I flush as soon as my water butt reaches 001.

Too be honest, go and buy a handheld TDS meter meter this week, then get some reading from the tap.  As any advice is pretty much a waste without figures.