On Thu, 05 Dec 2013 10:22:02 -0500, "Pete C." >
wrote:

>
> sf wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 05 Dec 2013 08:44:07 -0500, "Pete C." >
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On 12/3/2013 2:52 PM, Helpful person wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Unfortunately the water where I live is horrible so I am forced to use bottled,.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Either an RO system or proper filters will pay for itself over bottled.
> > > > You do have choices.
> > >
> > > The $150 or so under counter RO systems work very well and are very easy
> > > to install.
> >
> > What is the "waste ratio" all about and why do the lower cost units
> > have a higher one?
>
> The reverse osmosis membrane essentially passes only clean water, which
> means that the contaminants stay on the input side of the filter. This
> water with concentrated contaminants generally needs to be disposed of
> as "reject water" to keep the crud from building up and preventing new
> water to be filtered from getting to the RO membrane. Higher end units
> have better designs to allow for less reject water and thus less water
> consumption.
>
> A key thing to keep in mind is that the under sink RO systems only
> produce up to ~10 gal/day of filtered water, and the reject water is
> only produced in proportion to the filtered water produced. Thus if the
> ratio of reject water to filtered water is 1:3 the unit only "wastes" up
> to 3.3 gal/day of water, and if you only use 1 gal of filtered water in
> a day it only wastes .3 gal of reject water.
>
> If you are particularly frugal that reject water can be collected for
> other uses such as watering non-food plants or flushing toilets or
> similar where the increased concentration of contaminants won't be an
> issue. This would require some work on your part to do since such
> reclamation setups aren't commercially available for a small home unit.

Thanks, that could be a very expensive proposition considering the
cost of city water these days and how it its increasing.

--
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.