On 12/5/2013 11:03 AM, sf wrote:
> 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.
>
You had a major wildfire threat to your own municipal water supply this
summer, that had to be a bit tense.