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Author Topic: RO water & waste  (Read 2185 times)

Offline euge

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RO water & waste
« on: April 01, 2010, 12:23:48 pm »
Installed an undersink RO unit. Water tastes great and evidently helps out my beer... ;D Yay!

Problem is this unit is only about 9% efficient according to the manual. For every gallon of RO water produced 5.5 gallons go down the drain. >:( This has been measured by myself several times. If I had realized this beforehand I might have done something different. Plus the runoff is about 310 ppm salinity- only about 30-60 ppm more than my softened tap-water.

I'm not about to stop using it now!

Thought about drilling through the wall under the sink to the outside to run the waste into a collection tank or into a solar still. Then this water can be used for my garden.

Ideas?

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Offline majorvices

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Re: RO water & waste
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2010, 03:22:08 pm »
Use the run off water to make stouts.... and make a lot of stouts! 8)

Offline Kaiser

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Re: RO water & waste
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2010, 03:48:23 pm »
Ideas?

You could try getting this to work with your water: Alkalinity reduction with slaked lime. Your water seems very similar to mine and I bet you can get the RA down to 20-40 ppm as CaCO3. after that A little acid malt will allow you to brew lighter beers.

What is the TDS of your softened water. My RO system came with a simple hand held TDS meter and I get about 30-40. The tap water is around 300.

Kai

Offline majorvices

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Re: RO water & waste
« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2010, 04:56:47 pm »
What? That didn't help at all. Make stouts!!!  :P :D

Offline euge

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Re: RO water & waste
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2010, 05:36:31 pm »
Thanks Kai. I will read up on the slaked lime. 

And, my dear major- the R/O waste water is all salt-water since it's source is my softened house water. Not sure if it would make a good stout...?
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. -Richard P. Feynman

Laws are spider-webs, which catch the little flies, but cannot hold the big ones. -Anacharsis

Offline majorvices

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Re: RO water & waste
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2010, 06:27:05 pm »
Oh, yeah. Never mind then. Maybe just get a big salt water aquarium? A REALLY big one? ;)

Offline euge

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Re: RO water & waste
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2010, 06:48:39 pm »
Oh, yeah. Never mind then. Maybe just get a big salt water aquarium? A REALLY big one? ;)

Ahah!

Another obsession!

Actually a good idea. I've been wanting to set up a big tank for Cichlids but I'm ballsy enough for a salt-water tank. Have an expert on them at work...
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. -Richard P. Feynman

Laws are spider-webs, which catch the little flies, but cannot hold the big ones. -Anacharsis

Offline euge

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Re: RO water & waste
« Reply #7 on: April 05, 2010, 09:27:25 pm »
Kai, here's what I'm getting as of now:

CW, 253 ppm
SFT, 251 ppm
RO, 14 ppm

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. -Richard P. Feynman

Laws are spider-webs, which catch the little flies, but cannot hold the big ones. -Anacharsis