Reverse Osmosis Systems

by milspec6 Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:27 am

I don't know how many of you are using RO systems for your fresh water supply, but I wanted to pass on a little tip.

I had a water vendor out to my house to try and sell me on their RO system as the local water is terrible. The system looked okay except it lacked a good activated carbon filter stage. I sent the guy back out the door and started to wonder if there are members running RO systems without a high quality activated carbon filter stage before the RO membranes?

Why is this important? RO membranes are what does the filtering of the incoming water. If you inspected one you would see that it looks like spun yarn and when the water is pushed through it under pressure, it removes the contaminants.

There is one problem, those membranes have zero tolerence for chlorine....I mean zero. So, you have to have an activated carbon filter stage prior to the water reaching that membrane. If that stage fails or is non-existent, you will not have an RO system very long.

Something to consider if you are using one and change that filter often! I can't tell you how much fun it was to replace RO vessals on the military sytems after a carbon filter failed.