RO Faucet Air Gap Failure

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Nathan Meyers

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My kitchen sink has a GE Profile RO system, which is fed by softened San Diego water.

When the system was about 3 years old, we started having frequent leaks under the sink that we traced to the RO faucet. Checked the drain line - it was clear and working fine. The base of the RO faucet looked bad, with some evidence of corrosion to the metal and to the gasket.

Plumber replaced the base (which contains the air gap and the electronics), and we saw on disassembly that the air gap itself had badly corroded. He said that was the cause, and the new faucet with a fresh gasket has worked fine for a year - but the leaks have returned. When the problem is happening, it's slow drips along the outside of the drain hose from the air gap to the drainpipe - and, no, the drain hose is not clogged.

So, of course, I again suspect corrosion. It's impossible to get a look at the air gap without a lot of disassembly, but at this point I'm losing confidence in the GE faucet's ability to handle the waste from the filter. I'm wondering whether to try some other brand of faucet, or whether it makes sense to replace my dishwasher air gap with a dishwasher/RO combination air gap. A lot of those products have plastic parts, which may better withstand the (apparently) corrosive wastewater.

In all my searching, I have found NOTHING about corroding air gaps, but it does happen and I'm trying to figure my best path forward.
 

Craigpump

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RO units strip out alkalines which in turn reduces the pH of the water. A low pH will damage brass and copper fittings.

You need a plastic air gap.
 

Nathan Meyers

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I checked pH on the water (caveat - with cheapo pool test strips I keep around to check my water softener), and saw that both the incoming softened water and the waste water showed a pH of about 8.4, and the RO product water showed about 6.2. It's the air gap that corroded, not the faucet.
 

Nathan Meyers

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Unless GE built it that way, there shouldn't be any dissimilar metals. The wastewater is delivered in a plastic tube that mates with the faucet, and the air gap lives inside a plastic housing in the faucet base - you have to remove and disassemble the base to get a look at it. It strikes me as utterly strange that a GE RO faucet would contain an air gap that couldn't handle wastewater from a GE RO unit. But I figured a forum like this would be a good place to (perhaps) find someone who's seen this problem.
 

Craigpump

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GE probably didn't build it, they probably buy them from some off brand manufacturer and then rebadge them.

Is any event, there is no reason that it should fail unless there are dissimilar metals or poorly cast pieces being used.
 
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