[dai]

Conducted a little experiment this morning.
 It lashed it down all day here yesterday. When I went out to the van this morning
Rain had collected on the top of my water containers in the trailor. I took a tds reading of the rain water and it 000 PPM as I expected.
I then went to one of my downspouts and left a clean jar under it. Came back tonight and the jar was full of 007 PPM tds rainwater that had come off the slate roof.
We could clean windows with that. Is it worth getting a rain butt? I am DI only having 57 TDS tap water. Maybe it's the heavy rain that's washed the contaminates off the roof. We have no mains gas round here, most of us burn oil or solid fuel.
Have any of you with rain butts checked the TDS reading? Dai

[AuRavelling79]

Yes - off of my asbestos garage roof I get about 60ppm in my water butt. I use it for squeegee work. (I can truthfully tell my customers who may be concerned about water usage that I use water collected from my water butt. (And I store my R/O'd water in another water butt, so it's doubly true!) )

[rosskesava]

Just out of curiousity I checked the rain water in the garden.

The TDS was 127.

When I checked the water in a puddle on a tarpalin it was 41?

The tap water is at present 334.

[Newwfpgatherer]

Ross

While you're using the meter, try your toilet water...before & after!!

Pj

[jsm]

It was only 20 years ago that my nan and grandad didnt have running water,  they lived in a timber roughcast house on Canvey Island , Essex  - they got their drinking water from the roof and collected it in big tanks .
They lived to 80 plus and lived like this from 1953 .

My grandad even had to dump in a bucket and dig a hole in the garden because they had no main drainage as well -  

come to think of it - his windows where always clean , must have known somthing  

[matt]

Dai

with 57 TDS tap water

it still would be worth getting a small RO unit, as my RO brings my TDS down to 006 - 007

save a bit of that resin

[Newwfpgatherer]

It was only 20 years ago that my nan and grandad didnt have running water,  they lived in a timber roughcast house on Canvey Island , Essex  - they got their drinking water from the roof and collected it in big tanks .
They lived to 80 plus and lived like this from 1953 .

My grandad even had to dump in a bucket and dig a hole in the garden because they had no main drainage as well -   
come to think of it - his windows where always clean , must have known somthing 

I bet there's a great allotment growing prize veg now!!

Pj

[dai]

Matt, An RO unit is on my list. I was thinking that with 57 TDS the merlin should bring it down to single figures. I don't understand if RO units take out a percentage or work some other way. I have read on here that a Merlin will bring the TDS down to 18 or 20 Tds. Does it depend on the TDS of the water going in though. If the TDS going in was 200 and the merlin took out say 90% then you would have 20TDS coming out. If the TDS going in was 50 would it come out at 5 ppm? Dai

[matt]

Matt, An RO unit is on my list. I was thinking that with 57 TDS the merlin should bring it down to single figures. I don't understand if RO units take out a percentage or work some other way. I have read on here that a Merlin will bring the TDS down to 18 or 20 Tds. Does it depend on the TDS of the water going in though. If the TDS going in was 200 and the merlin took out say 90% then you would have 20TDS coming out. If the TDS going in was 50 would it come out at 5 ppm? Dai

from what i understand the merlin doesnt do THAT good a job at lowering the TDS (i.e down to 18 TDS)

my TDS before RO is 460 - 470 and after the RO its down to 006 -- 007 (depending on the day)

so i dont think its the incoming TDS

[surecleansystems]

Hi Dai

We use a merlin our water is reading 83ppm and we are getting a reading of 000ppm once water has gone through merlin.

Art

[P @ F]

Hi Sureclean , quick Q about MERLIN , If 1000 L of tap water went into it what pecentage  of the water would be wasted , at your TDS level ?

  Cheers Rich  P @ F

[surecleansystems]

we are still getting a ratio of 1:3 pure water to waste quite high I know. Means you're pouring about 650lit of water down drain.

Does anyone know how to tweak the merlin so as to get better results or would this damage the membrane.

Art