1 gal after 2hrs ro/di

[alfieferenzo84]

I am getting about 1 gal every 2hrs from my new ro unit, but my waste water is full blast like 15 gal of waste to 1/8 of pure gal water so whats wrong??? Thanks

[AZDesertRat]

Start with the basics. What RO membrane do you have? What is your water pressure? What is your water temperature? What flow restrictor do you have? Have you actually timed the flows for both the product and waste or are you estimating?

Water pressure and temperature have major effects on RO output and waste ratios. If you water is cold or if your pressure is low or both what you are seeing is to be expected. 1 gallon per every two hours is 12 gallons per day which is very normal for a 25 GPD unit in the winter months. Your flow restrictor and waste ratio may be sized improperly for your application. Some companies like Spectrapure and Kent provide capillary type restrictors you trim to fit your individual conditions so it is exactly what you need, most others provide a fixed orfice restrictor that may not be what you need.
Answer the questions above and use a measuring cup or other graduated device and a watch or clock to actually time the flows from the product and waste lines to see what you really have. Without more info its impossible to troubleshoot accurately.

[detroit_fan]

my water temp is very cold also, i have a 75 gpd and and i made less than 3gals in 2 hours yesterday even with the hose coiled in a bucket

[alfieferenzo84]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9309970#post9309970 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by AZDesertRat
Start with the basics. What RO membrane do you have? What is your water pressure? What is your water temperature? What flow restrictor do you have? Have you actually timed the flows for both the product and waste or are you estimating?

Water pressure and temperature have major effects on RO output and waste ratios. If you water is cold or if your pressure is low or both what you are seeing is to be expected. 1 gallon per every two hours is 12 gallons per day which is very normal for a 25 GPD unit in the winter months. Your flow restrictor and waste ratio may be sized improperly for your application. Some companies like Spectrapure and Kent provide capillary type restrictors you trim to fit your individual conditions so it is exactly what you need, most others provide a fixed orfice restrictor that may not be what you need.
Answer the questions above and use a measuring cup or other graduated device and a watch or clock to actually time the flows from the product and waste lines to see what you really have. Without more info its impossible to troubleshoot accurately.

100gpd ge membrance

tap water is 48f
water after going though 50ft in 5 gallon bucket with 300 watt heater is 52f

So yeah thats not good now for the output

5oz for 1 gallon wasted or

1 pure to 26 wasted est.

somthing is wrong also why is that my tap water is so cold after the 5 gal bucket with a 300 watt heater and 50ft of line???

[AZDesertRat]

Heating water in a bucket is a very inefficient way to do it. The energy costs far outweigh the water costs.
Here is a link to Dow Filmtecs charts with the effects that temperature and pressure have on output. Something I would do though is get a different flow restrictor to reduce the waste ratio to 4:1, that alone will greatly increase your good output. Compare your 100GPD to Dows 75 GPD, theirs are rated at 75 GPD at 50 psi and 100 GPD at 60 to 65 psi which is what the GE is rated at.
Just at a quick glance I see the 42 degrees bumps you down to about 40 GPD at 50 psi. Do you know for sure you have 52 psi available at the membrane, thats after the prefilter and carbons directly at the membrane not house pressure.

http://www.dow.com/PublishedLiterature/dh_0558/09002f1380558292.pdf?filepath=liquidseps/pdfs/noreg/609-09010.pdf&fromPage=GetDoc

[alfieferenzo84]

what is a flow restrictor?

I tested 70psi from the sink i cant test the unit

Why cant i just turn the hot water on just a little??? As i have it hooked up so that i can control hot or cold!

[detroit_fan]

yeah i don't heat the water the coil sits in, it's just at room temp which is a lot warmer than my water coming in. waarm my incoming water up a little, not much but a little.

[AZDesertRat]

Trying to temper or control water temperatures at a flow of 4 oz or less per minute is just about impossible. If you have a single handle faucet it uses an internal cartridge that mixes the hot and cold and when you try to control temperature with an RO attached to the faucet will easily melt an RO membrane. An easy way to demonstate this is turn off either the the hot or cold under the sink and then open the faucet, the one still on usually comes out the faucet no matter what position the handle is in. Anything over 90 can be spell disaster for a membrane.
The flow restrictor is installed in the waste line either externally or internally, what brand RO unit is it? Like I say most use an external fixed orfice restrictor with a size like 600mL stamped on it but thay are not adjustable. If you do not see anything on th waste line it could be an internal capillary restrictor which can be trimmed and adjusted to work given your conditions, although you would need a new one as your symptoms show it would already be trimmed too short. Another option is an adjustable restrictor that uses a needle valve, I think www.buckeyefieldsupply.com sells a good one that you can lock in its set position once you get it dialed in.

[alfieferenzo84]

Mine is stamped 450

Yeah whenever the water is ran, toilet flash, washer ect my temp jumps from 76 to 100 so i donno but it ran like that for about 5 min think everything is okay? I guess i will just make water when no one is home as i live with 9 people family

[alfieferenzo84]

well i played around with it and got 76f for 30 min so i am going to let it go like that for awhile checking every 15 min to be safe and to let you know my thing is working right now i am getting 1 gal every 15 min not sure on the waste havent checked it but i think it will be okay now

Now my second thing is i got a dual line tds meter same as the store link you posted sells for 40 bucks but this thing is crazy if you tap the line it goes from 1 to 50 then all over the place it semse like junk! what do you got to say about that? Also i placed both of them in a cup of water and they where about 15 off from each other move them around and they go all over dont make much sense to me so hooked up to the ro unit i am getting from 5-30 after membrance and 15-40 after the di but with it being 15 off semse about right but i cant beleive this thing aint cleaning better then that???

5 mic sed
5. car
1 car so i donno maybe the filters are junk? The membrance i read a little on and thought it was good am i wrong its a ge desal RO 100 GPD membrane

Well laet me know and thanks for your help!!!

[AZDesertRat]

I am not a fan of the inline meters. They are no where near as accurate or repeatable as a handheld. Putting the probes in a cup of water won't work as they need water flowing past them to work correctly. Try removing the probe from the tee and making sure there is no air present in the line then reinsert it. Also try reversing the probes and see if one still reads higher than the other. Inlines are not temperature compensated like a handheld so for them to have nay chance of being accurate the water temperature and air temperature must be exactly the same. They actually sense air temp and not water temp. If you look on the fat part of the probe there is a small rectangular hole in the side, there is a temp probe inside there that sees air and not water!
I have always said the GE is not as good a membrane as the Dow.

[alfieferenzo84]

im feel stuiped i had it on flash mode for the membrance

Okay so now i am getting 1 gal to 1 gal but my tds are high around 25-45 on those junk meters as where before they where 5-25 so whats up with that? also it is stamped 450 so should i maybe change that???

I thought the ge where okay but those dow do sound good and there talked about everywhere! Well in a yr or so i will upgrade or maybe sooner as i would rather have a 75gpd membrance as i have read they are better?

Too many things lol let me know azdesertrat what you think, as you sound like you know what your talking about and know alot about this and thanks for your help so far!!!

[alfieferenzo84]

hey AZDesertRat

[AZDesertRat]

You will need to contact your RO vendor andask them about your flow restrictor. They will need your water temperature and pressure to determine if its the correct one. You should be getting 4 gallons waste to 1 gallon good to keep the membrane flushed correctly. Again inline meters can be inaccurate if the air and water temperature are not the same, get a handheld meter for accuracy.