Typhoon RO/DI -- your kiddin me!!!!!!

[mujtba]

I just got my Typhoon RO/DI 75GPD unit.
It seemed it made about 5 gallons in 2 hours. But thats not my concern. My concern is about the drain.
For every 5 gallons of pure water which is made, about 40 gallons of water is drained at the same time!!!!!!:scared:
Is that normal???? I mean I know everyone here loves their tank, but is it wise to waste so much water? People are dying for water. We have droughts in many places, and here I had drained about 40 gallons of water and made just 5gallons of RODI water.
Do you guys all go through this too?
It seems the best solution is to buy distilled water, or get a 5 gallon jug and buy the RO water from the LFS. Plus I only need to do 5 Gallon water change per month, right? So doesnt that make more sense. I really don't like wasting this much water. I love my tank and what it can become, but people die for food and water, and just because we are blessed with water, doesnt mean I should waste it....
Please give me some input.. Maybe I set the RO-DI unit wrong?? I dont know.....
:help:

 

[birdy]

For every one gallon of good water most RO/DI units waste 3-4gallons, I drain my waste into my washing machine. You are paying for the water whether you make it yourself or buy it at the LFS.
As far as water changes ideally you should change 10% a week.

 

[mujtba]

how many gallons is 10%?
I heard some people say they do a 5gallon a month water change..
i really dont feel like wasting 30-40 gallons of water every other week.
so you do a 10% water change weekly and waste about 80 gallons of water a month? your fine with that?
people in ethiopia die for water..... how about that on your concience...

 

[dalefio]

Just think of all the water we waste with the evaporation from our tanks. Collectively in this hobby we probably lose hundreds of thousands of gallons a year. I think you are on to something here, I am going to de-salinate my tank water and send it to Ethiopia.

 

[birdy]

But your reasoning doesn't make any sense the LFS does the same thing and wastes the same amount of water so it makes no difference whether you buy it from them or make your own, you also missed the part where I said I use the waste water in my washing machine, I also use it to water house plants.

 

[sly]

RO water is RO water. If you buy it from somewhere else, they had to deal with the waste water also. Besides I don't see what the big deal is. The water you describe wasting is like taking a shower 3 times. It's not much. You say that people in deserts are dieing for water. Do you think that by not using water you will benefit THEM in any way. Where do you think the water goes once it's down the drain. It's not gone forever! It simply goes back into the rivers and lakes to be evaporated and rained down on the earth again. You can't lose water. The earth is basically a closed system. If those people are in a desert, that's because the weather patterns dictate it, not because someone somewhere else decided to "waste" water.

 

[mujtba]

haha u guys can make whatever excuses u want to justify what u do... you are your own person!

dalefio, water evaporation is not considered waste. you cannot control evaporation... thats nature...
your sarcasm wont help also... maybe your not a humanitarian..
i just was shocked with the amount of water being wasted... it seems your fine with it.. thats on you..
Birdy, how does my reasoning not make sense? my LFS uses the drained water in their freshwater system.. and in any case, are you one of those people who will jump off a bridge just cuz mark and cindy did it? anyhow, if you use it for washing machine and house plants, thats good... maybe i can do the same thing...
im not here to argue with you.. i just wanted to see if it was normal for my drain to waste so much water...
apparently it is...

where i live, several times in the summer they dont allow restaurants to put jugs of water on tables unless requested by customers due to water droughts..
i think u guys shud try to use the water at home elsewhere..
a lady in Somalia walks 10miles to BUY one jug of POLLUTED water to drink... tisk tisk... we sure take advantage of wat we have ..
peace

 

[brandons]

Tbirdy: I'm looking for a viable excuse to get one of these RO/DI units because I too did not like how much water was wasted at all... it really bothered me, but using the water in the washing machine is an awesome idea since it would be used anyway.... how did you go about this? Do you turn on the RO/DI unit when you want to do the wash and then just run the waste in to fill it up?

 

[birdy]

My unit is set up next to my washer, when I need RO/DI water I just run the waste into my washing machine, I am constantly doing laundry as I have 16mo old twins and a Husband in construction. I also don't go through tons of water, maybe 30gallons a week.
I will ignore any personal remarks made toward me as they are unecessary and childish, as it was said before it really doesn't matter to the environment how much water you waste as it is constantly reused, it is basically a matter of your pocketbook.
If you are so concerned about the Ethopians then you should bottle up your RO waste water and send it to them.

 

[mujtba]

birdy, my wifes a humatarian.. sure nature reuses the water.. does that mean poor people dying fron thirst can open their mouths when it rains on them? i had no personal attacks. i was surprised by the responses here of how many people didnt care and just looked the other way..
only brandon seemed to not like how the water is wasted...

if you search the web, you can see how many places are in need of water..
thats all i was trying to say.. it was my first time using the RODI, and i thought i was doing something wrong..

 

[salty cheese]

Originally posted by mujtba

Quit wasting water.

 

[birdy]

It's okay, I was just trying to give you some idea's on how to use the waste water, no one likes the amount of waste, it is just something we have come to accept. I just have trouble relating RO waste water to drought in other areas of the world it is a matter of geography and there is not much we can do about it, the amount of water I use has nothing to do with the droughts in other countries (as far as I know anyway). I use RO/DI water because I have first hand seen the difference between using it and using tap water not because "Mark and Cindy" told me to, and I will never ever use tap again.
As far as your water change question, I would do a 5gallon water change a week for a 55gal tank.

 

[dicemanj]

i do not have a ro-di unit, but why can't you run the waste water back through the unit to get more ro-di water? I agree that wasting water should not be done, but 40 gals a week is not that much. Do you have low water toilets, low presure sinks, do you wash your car, water your lawn, do you turn the shower off while scrubing your hair, your teeth, if you drink half a glass of water do you empty the other half, do you use a dishwahser. I would imagine that most people waste way more water than 40 gallons a week and don't even notice it. I think in the big picture 40 gal a week is no big deal. I was unaware that these units even had waste water.

 

[mujtba]

sure water is wasted doing daily chores and stuff... u cant help that..
thats not the point.. point is, the RODI unit wastes water and you just look at it there and count the gallons, all within hours!

mines made 5gallons in 2 hours, and next to it I filled a 40 gallon container of waste water. the water is still good, its like tap water.. but i just gota reuse it.. maybe laundry.
you cannot just use that water and put it back into the unit.. not unless we had some form of pressure behind that water to pump it back to the RODI..
wish these inventors made sumin like that!
or is there??
:happyfish <--- we sure do a lot for em!

 

[brandons]

The only way I could see reusing it and putting it through the system would be like you said, pressurize it. Use a water pump!!!!
OH YEAH PROBLEM SOLVED!!!! well not really. The water that comes out of it isn't just "tap water" it is.... kinda. Think about it. If it makes 1 gallon of RO for every 4 gallons of waste (total 5 gallons) that's 20% good 80% waste. The water coming out though i believe has the waste from that 20%. From what I read that 80% is "washing off the permeable membrane" or something. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong I'm just brainstorming. So that water that comes out no longer has 100% of what it had before it has 120% of watever was in it. If you run it through it will probably:
A) Just keep concentrating it more and more which isn't a problem since it is waste, but each time I would think you could use it for less things
B) Clog the filter because it will be jamming more through it.
I think it'd clog it because the first time it is "removing" 20% of the waste. The second pass it's taking out 20% more, but this 20% is more reflective of 24-25% percent in relation to the first time and it keeps going up from there.
I do believe they make commercial units that allow it to cycle and stuff, but they are probably mucho money. I had a problem with wasting water, but yea 40 gallons a week isn't really much and I'm sure noone would miss it. Plus it is going right back into the world's supply. I think it would be more of a problem if you took the waste water and put it in barrels with lids on and just saved it up forever and kept taking away from the "free water supply" hehehehe
I'm personally going to talk one of these units over with my family (live with them till i'm done getting my b.a.) and since the filling the tank up will be a HUGE amount i'll just use a majority of it to fill up my waterbed.
Not to steal the thread, but what about water from a Dehumidifier... is that ok?
Ok enough thinking for tonight... going to bed. I have to wake up before work tomorrow and sand/stain my stand or i'll never get to the water part

 

[ltrain35]

I too have ro/di unit. When I first hooked it up, I knew it said to have the one hose (waste) go directly into a drain, but I just left it open. When i saw how much water was coming out I thought that it was abnormal too. After reading on the board, I saw that it was normal to have that much waste water for every gallon of pure water that is produced. I also didnt like the thought of wasting that much water. I altered my unit so i ran the waste water back into the unit like it was coming out of the faucet again. Whether I use up my filters quicker or not, i just couldnt see wasting that water. I ended up taking the waste line and hooking a one way check valve. I then put in a t-valve and hooked it into the line that goes into the unit. That way, the pressure from the faucet would prevent backflow and the check valve would prevent it from backing up into the unit.
ltrain35

 

[mujtba]

ittrain, is the waste water, 'WASTE' water, or is it just extra tap water draining from the other end.. i called it waste water cuz its being wasted...

where did u get the 1way check valve and a tvalve? can u show me a diagram of ur unit..
id like to do that with mines too...
also, how would it make ur filters get used quick? :notsure:

 

[birdy]

The waste water has all the nasties in it that your fliters filtered out, if you run that back through your filter you are going to go through filters like mad and you would spend more money on new filters than you just spent on waste water. Just be inventive find ways to use the waste water.

 

[mujtba]

thankx birdie.. so far, i think usin for laundry is best solution since we do laundry all year..
i was thinkn of waterin plants, but we dont have a garden in the winter..
hence, the laundry wins the match!

 

[latino277]

there seems to be a misunder standing on the ro section of our Ro/di unit.
the ro filter is a ??? tube inside of a tube. this second/smaller tube is were your ro water come out of. this smaller tube has your RO membrane with a dedicated output that goes to your DI filter. At no time does your waste water(or any elements of it) come in contact with your RO Water (or any elements of it)...
so you wonder what the hell I'm talking about???
your waste water from the RO/DI unit is nothing more that water that did not Phisically fit through the RO Membrane. So your waste water is actually cleaner than your Tap water because it has gone through 3 stages of carbon micron filter and none of the RO membrane Waste has tought it.
Also. Because the "bad elements" are not removed from your ro membrane we have to replace the membrane every 2-3 yrs?
:nervous: I really hope this makes sense???:notsure: