[Gargaax]

I need some advice from all you  RO experts.............

I have been researching RO water on the net and was reading that when water is heated only pure water evaporates. therefore all, salts, calcium nitrates etc seperate from the water.

Now for my question....

Do any of you guys use a water butt to catch rain water? (Rain water is water that has been evaporated from the Seas and rivers by the sun) Seeing that this water is already 'seperated' (with a very low tds, I would imagine) surely it would be a lot less wear and tear on your RO units and will cost you less for maintenance in the long run...
I'm only a learner wfp window cleaner at the moment so I apologise If I am asking stupid questions.

[Morph]

No questions are stupid...
Sometimes the answers are though!!

You are right.  Rainwater has very low tds, would be even lower if it didn't run from dirty gutters etc into Butt.
But can't hold enough of the stuff to make it practical

Pj

[Andrew McCann]

Good idea in principle.

Not very practical though unless....... you store it into a large container and then pump it direct through a DI. It should be at a low TDS so maybe not worth putting it through an RO. You will need to pump it though.

To store rain water to go through RO really isnt worth the hassle. You probably cant store a worthwhile amount and you will have to get your pressure up to around 50 PSI so you will need a decent pump to do this.

But... Like Morph says dont feel silly about making any suggestions or asking questions.

There's a wealth of knowledge and experience here and the answers
( USUALLY ) are great...  and some are just a total HOOT!!   

Andrew ( smellin of dog doo doo that I fell into today )  Grrrrrrr

[Morph]

So you don't always come out smelling of roses then?
Sorry mate

[Ben Walker]

if you have plenty of space for water butts and perhaps you catch off a house sized roof then in winter you could feasably have enough water to pump through a DI. (i think)
- a good thing to do. all you need is pump and DI

In summer though you might not have enough collection, and therefore have to resort to the mains. if you live in soft water area that be ok, still us DI.
hard water area not ok. you'll need a RO, which if you purchase you perhaps might as well use all year round anyway.

For RO, http://www.ro-man.com/shop/index.php?cPath=22 is good

ben

[dai]

The tds coming off my slate roof is 7ppm. As the others have said collecting enough is the problem.
 My bag of resin is still going strong and I started it the end of August. I have 3 di vessels and it takes 1 bag to fill the 3 of them. The TDS has just gone up to 1ppm on the second vessel. when it reaches 5, I will run the water through that one first before it goes through the new one. I did that with the last one untill the TDS reached 25. I am using tap water with a TDS of around 57. I do tops only and get through about 150 ltrs a day, 5 days a week. If a bag lasts me 4 months it will work out about £250 a year DI only. I can live with that. It's only a pound a day. DAi