How should I install Drain Line for my Water Softner System?

[ditttohead]

Do not buy a low cost RO off of AmXXX. I can recommend many companies that sell good quality RO systems, most of the online resellers are simply trying to out cheap each other.

 

[luhem519]

Is the salty taste occurring only after regeneration occurs? What is the hardness amount in the raw water?

The Brine Draw/Slow Rinse stage of the regeneration cycle is usually programmed for 60 minutes duration. Brine should all be drawn out from the brine tank within approx the first 15 minutes of the 60 minutes, leaving 45 minutes to push the brine through the resin and to rinse salt residue to drain. If brine draw is taking more than 15 minutes to empty the brine tank, the Brine Draw setting may need to be extended to eliminate the salty taste following regeneration.

When I tested the water hardness without water softner it was 80 ppm. I set 5 hardness in water softner. It is still new so i am not sure if it will fix the problem next time.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[luhem519]

Do not buy a low cost RO off of AmXXX. I can recommend many companies that sell good quality RO systems, most of the online resellers are simply trying to out cheap each other.

Which

Do not buy a low cost RO off of AmXXX. I can recommend many companies that sell good quality RO systems, most of the online resellers are simply trying to out cheap each other.

which one should I buy then ?

 

[ditttohead]

I sent you a pm. I can recommend dozens of companies that sell good quality RO systems. They will likely cost $75 more than the online guys, but sine they are not racing to the bottom, the price includes real name brand components including companies like Pentair, John Guest, Parker, GA Murdock, and good units typically include USA made filters. I don't make recommendations to a specific place in the forum for obvious reasons.

 

[luhem519]

Thank you!

I was checking yesterday all RO companies and the Waste output .. OMG that is insane.. some of them has 1:3 output/waste ration. Is there anything out there that does not waste so much water? Or this is standard?

 

[Reach4]

Thank you!

I was checking yesterday all RO companies and the Waste output .. OMG that is insane.. some of them has 1:3 output/waste ration. Is there anything out there that does not waste so much water? Or this is standard?

Minimizing waste could cause less selectivity. Do get a permeate pump. That helps too.

There are RO units that do zero waste by putting the rejected water into the hot water. I don't know if there is a downside to that.

 

[Bannerman]

RO membrane does not work as most filters in that it does not catch and hold contaminants as they are removed but instead, dissolved contaminant solids must be flushed away from the membrane as they are removed. Water is required to flow across the membrane to flush contaminants to drain.

The 3:1 reject rate will not be constant since the ratio of 'waste' will increase as the membrane is subject to increasing back pressure from product water held in the pressurized storage tank. A permeate pump will eliminate back pressure on the membrane with the following benefits:
- waste to product ratio will remain constant regardless of how full the storage tank is.
- the recovery rate will be increased, thereby reducing waste flow since the RO unit will not need to operate as long per day to fill the storage tank compared with no permeate pump being present.
- the RO storage tank pressure may be increased up to 90% of feed pressure. Without a permeate pump, product pressure will typically be restricted to 60% of the feed pressure.

As an alternative to a permeate pump, Pentair offer their GRO membranes which require an indicated waste ratio of only 1:1. The indicated contaminate rejection percentage is slightly less than conventional membranes so water savings does have a tradeoff. While some have attempted to pair GRO membranes with permeate pumps to attempt the best of both, this has been mostly unsuccessful as there is usually insufficient waste flow to run the permeate pump properly unless the waste flow is also increased to approx the same as used for conventional membranes.

 

[ditttohead]

Is it really waste? Or is it simply part of the process? When water goes down your drain it goes to the sewer where the water is treated and released into a river so as to replenish the next cities water supply in many areas.

There are 1:1 ratio membranes that are very good, but in reality they are closer to 1:1.5 due to the back pressure of the tank. We set them to a 1:1 ratio when we build the units but as pressure builds in the tank, the waste remains the same, the production rate of the RO water goes down. 3 to 1 systems usually perform closer to 5:1 for the same reason. The vast majority of bottled water uses RO as a primary treatment process but these systems run closer to 2:1, the opposite of a residential design. This is due to the complex designs we incorporate into commercial units, staged membranes, recycle etc. higher recovery rates are possible and common but this requires fairly complex water testing and algorithmic based software that estimates how far we can push the membranes, extensive pre-treatment, and we clean the membranes as needed. Sorry to get overly technical, just thought it may help.

 

[Azeem Ashraf]

I successfully installed water softener system with your help, thank for that. Mistakenly, I ended up running pipe upstairs in WM line and used 001 product for air gap.


I think i should post a new topic for this. There's a salt-ish taste in water softener and after extensive searching on the internet i got to know that i should install a RO system to remove sodium.
I am thinking to get this one
https://www.rosolution.pk/reverse-osmosis-domestic-solution/

any suggestion?

 

[Reach4]

I think i should post a new topic for this. There's a salt-ish taste in water softener

I think you are saying there is a saltish taste in the water that has passed through the softener. A TDS (total dissolved solids) meter is useful for identifying the level just after the regen vs a day later. The TDS meters are cheap, but usually not absolutely accurate. Still, they are useful in identifying changes in salt level.

A softener will usually increase TDS a little. It exchanges some hardness ions for sodium ions. If there is a 50 % increase between your hard water and the soft water, adjust the softener. If the TDS is very high in your cold water, then an RO becomes more and more desirable.

Anyway, if the salty taste goes away after you have used significant amount of softened water after the regeneration, the slow rinse cycle should be increased.

For the softeners I am familiar with, there is a BD (brine draw) cycle, which might be 60 minutes. The brine should be sucked out in about the first 15 minutes, the actual brine drawing. The remainder of the BD cycle is the slow rinse. You can watch the brine level during an RO to see what your time is. If your brine took 30 minutes of the BD cycle, for example, then a 60 minute BD would not be sufficient.