[zymotik]

Ok, I've had this idea for a while...

Most of my round is made up of new estates with outside taps 'as standard', and all the older houses have outside taps too. So I was thinking, if I could purify water quick enough on site, why not forget about buying a van and water tanks and all the trolley pain in the rectum... it'd save me a couple of thousand quid!!

So I dreampt this up, excuse the poor quality illustatration, I'm not the best at drawing and this is the best I could do to illustrate:

It consists of 1 Merlin 720GPD RO filter (produces 1.9 litres a minute without a pump!), A DI Tank and a 8002-793-238 ShurFlo 12v pump. Add a battery to power it. Some sealed ones on ebay for £15 (big 40ah ones too). Add a couple of poles and thats less than £1200 with fittings and hose. The RO unit is on ebay for £360 at the mo!! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4384333571

Is that a viable idea? What do you reckon?

I can't afford to do it yet, but I'm going to. Thought I'd share the idea, being a nice (or maybe stupid) bloke...

[AuRavelling79]

Yup! As long as all your customers have an outside tap with the right fittings.

As for saving yourself £2000, well you can get a full trailer system for about that and a trolley system for about £1200 - but if it's only because you don't want to produce and carry your own water it's got merit.

The following are not facts as i am no expert but just observations/questions to consider:-

Would carting an RO (with it's brittle plastic components and its membranes) around on an upgraded sack truck do it any good as you bounce it out of your vehicle, up steps, hitting flower pots, garden walls etc?

How about ditching the R/O and just running the water through a DI resin bottle? (If you're in a soft water area a days resin would be less than a fiver?, could you make it up in speed/charging it to your customers as part of the bill?)

I'm sure others will have helpful views too!

[Roy Harding]

What about winter when outside taps are isolated to prevent freezing of out side tap?

Roy

[thewindowcleaner1]

Ok, I've had this idea for a while...

I may be wrong but your Merlin seems to be missing two housing units, and although it can produce large amounts of pure water I'm not shure at what pressure it will come out, plus don,t forget the waste water from the merlin.
otherwise a good idea

What about winter when outside taps are isolated to prevent freezing of out side tap?

Ro membrans hate the cold, get damaged and production rate falls

GE are quite specific in their instructions with the Merlin.  If used commercially, and not just for small amounts of domestic drinking water, an additional carbon prefilter is necessary, to prevent damage to the membranes from chlorine in the tap water.

Alan

[s.hughes]

Hi Zymotik
This has been discussed before on this forum under the topic of installin an outside tap.
Its a good idea to share with us. I dont use a wfp yet but I have been looking into it for about a year. I am going down the road of diy.
I think that it may be an idea if you check out the winspray system. It works the same way as you want, i.e just connect to a tap and the rest is done. The system comes in a carry bag and looks really good ( pro).
Check out their web site on winspray.com.
What you want to look for is the winspray pdis (portable de-ionizer system)
I dont know if anyboy has one of these systems but it looks good and does what you want.

Steveyboy

[easycleanwindows]

what about large commercial contracts?I clean a very large coffe plant and thier water would completly destroy the membranes.Also what about outside taps in the back garden with padlocked gates?Also if youve got a van kitted out with a wfp system a potential customer i found goes for the more proffesional look:van,tank system rather than turning up and asking "where s ya nearest outside tap"

[Grafters Cleaning Services]

i can just see customers on water meters loving that idea, in princable it's OK but why not just make the water up at home and carry it around with you using 25ltr containers?

[s.hughes]

Yup I have to agree with Jay
I may eventualy buy 1 of the winspray systems, but only for a few jobs. I think that my customers would be cheesed off if they found me using their metered water.

Steveyboy

[zymotik]

Locked gates: Hoses! What do I do with a locked gate now, jump over with 20KG Lader! All I do with this is jump over with a 5kg pole and a hose pipe.

Water Meters: 1000 litres of water = 68-90p. Each clean 50 Litres * 12 months = 600 litres. Thats less than a quid!!

My Round is domestic and the taps are all the new tye that come straight out of the wall. They do not have exposed pipes and therefore don't suffer freeze probs. They never turn them off, I use them for my bucket throught winter and have made a list of them.

RO will produce enough water under pressure from the pump, its a specially matched pump as guided by the manufacturer for this purpose.

The only valid prob I see so far is the cold and the membranes being damaged. Looks like I'll have to get a boiler jacket for them, haha.

As for the Carbon filter, its a 10" pre filter, so no problem adding that. Plus I'll add a flush tank to keep the stop start ppm low.

Thanks for your input so far, anything else...??!!??

[zymotik]

I just thought, if the cold damages the membranes, at what temp is water anyway?? It isnt warm in summer! ...and it ain't that cold in winter, it still runs!

[matt]

you might aswell just build your own trolley system

http://www.d.co.uk/

[Bob McKillop]

Ionic do a WFP system that attaches direct to outside tap for £100. Has any body tried it ?

[MartinB]

Be careful when connecting Pump inlet to mains water. Most pumps have a maximum inlet pressure which is lower than normal mains water pressure. You could possibly damage the valves.

[zymotik]

Thanks mate. Didn't realise that about the warter pressure!

As for the Ionic £100 thingy, its meant for domestic use. It'll only do about 5 houses before needing refilling with DI resin.

Any other ideas for a cheap system?

Like the DIY link.

[dai]

It's the water carrying thing that has detered me up to now. This is what I'm thinking of doing. Building myself a really good trolley system and buy 2 x8kg RI cylinders. Use one cylinder on the trolley untill the reading goes up to 14, change cylinders and use the old one to filter water to 25 ltr containers .  I could get away with carrying 10 in an escort van. If I run short of water I can top up from a customers tap. My mate has recently gone on to the pole and the highest TDS reading he's had from local tap water IS 42. This is born out by the fact that his 8KG cylinder lasted him a month doing tops and bottoms.
The way I see it is this. I can't use the old cylinder when the reading goes too high but I could still use it to take a lot of impurities out of the water. It's only when the reading goes up to 42 that it's doing nothing. When the second cylinder reading gets high, change the resin in cylinder no 1, use cylinder 2 to fill the containers . I hope this makes sense. The only drawback that I can see is the extra weight of the DI cylinder on the trolley.
This way at least I would get every bit of benefit from the resin

[windows_chepstow]

Locked gates: Hoses! What do I do with a locked gate now, jump over with 20KG Lader!

You don't want to do it like that, Mate.

You want to split your ladders down.  Place one over the gate, against the gable end of the wall.

Place the other on your side of the gate, against the gable wall.

Walk up, step across, walk down.

Retreive ladders, join together and use as normal.