Eliminating wastewater for Ro/Di?

[TanksNStuff]

After a few incidents where my wastewater collecting trash can overflowed in my garage when making Ro/Di for my tank, I decided to come up with a way to eliminate this problem.

My first thought was to install a float switch that would just turn off the flow at a certain level in my trash can. This would stop my overflow issues, but it still doesn't eliminate the fact that I will always waste water when making filtered water. I can only use so much to water the garden and such, and it kills me to have to dump a couple full trash cans of water down my driveway every weekend.

Then it hit me. Why can't I just add a Tee or Wye on the intake tubing line, then take the wastewater and feed it back into the Ro/Di unit with the regular feed? This would basically loop the wastewater back into the Ro/Di unit so there will never be any waste! I could even put a separate Tee and valve in the wastewater line in case I ever wanted to get RO only water.

Are there any reasons why this is a bad idea or will not work?

 

[Phyl]

Check out the filter guys. Jim did a great workshop on this at MACNA XXI this year!

 

[bayondai]

Is there a link to the filter guys? I am curious about this too.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Thanks Phyl! Sadly I wasn't able to make it to MACNA to see this workshop. :'( Are there any online video versions of this workshop?

I checked out their website though. All I could find was their "Water Saver" unit that seems to take wastewater from the first membrane and feed it into the second. This system only reduces the amount of waste water though.

I was thinking that if I just recycled the wastewater back into the filter main feed, then I would never actually have any waste at all. Is there any down side to doing this?

 

[Tazmaniancowboy]

http://www.thefilterguys.biz

or the link directly to the dual membrane add-onhttp://www.thefilterguys.biz/dual_membrane_kits.htm

 

[Phyl]

You do need to finally have SOME waste. Something needs to carry the bad things that you're taking out of the water away. This isn't just like a poly filter that catches the garbage and can send the rest along. I'll reach out to Jim to see if he'll join us here in this thread!

 

[Mbodell]

If you don't want the waste, you would have to go with the Kati Ani system.

 

[TanksNStuff]

You do need to finally have SOME waste. Something needs to carry the bad things that you're taking out of the water away. This isn't just like a poly filter that catches the garbage and can send the rest along. I'll reach out to Jim to see if he'll join us here in this thread!

That red part is what I was worried about and the reason I posed this question here first. I know my idea (and I'm sure I'm not the first person to ever think of it) would stop me from having wastewater. I was just concerned about the impact of recycling the waste and not having an outlet for the things we are filtering out.

It would be great if Jim could tag along and offer some expert opinion on this topic. Thanks again Phyl.

 

[Phyl]

To say that there is NO waste with Kati Ani would be incorrect. There is waste, just not during the water PRODUCTION phase. The waste with Kati-Ani is with the regeneration process. And that waste water isn't water you can use on the garden. There may be significantly less waste, but that would need to be measured.

 

[Mbodell]

You're right there is waste and I guess I was looking at that a little one dimensionally. From what I understand though the waste it isn't multiple trash cans full of waste water.

Also I was thinking that if you feed back into the RO membrane, wouldn't you need to adjust for the lost pressure with a booster pump?

 

[thefilterguys]

Hi Phyl did I hear someone mention me. Thanks for having me as a workshop speaker and inviting me to your forum.

The best you can get from an RO/DI system is reduced waste down to about 1.25 to 1 with dual membranes and increased pressure via a booster, from 4 to 1 with a single membrane. Trying to reuse the waste in a loop ends up with the tds becoming so concentrated with single or dual membranes they clog very quickly and fail. Using dual membranes only concentrates the waste water reaching the second membrane by 10% and after three and a half years of testing did not appear to shorten the membranes life span.

Kati Ani is an option and it is no waste except for regeneration as mentioned.

Jim

 

[Edwardw771]

Hey Jim,

Welcome to the site. Thanks for speaking for us. I hope you enjoyed NJ.

 

[Phyl]

Thanks for joining us, Jim. I think that your workshop went a long way to help in our efforts toward increased conservation. Now to put those ideas to practice!

For those of us who have a regular 5/6 stage RO/DI what do we need to do to reduce our waste down?

 

[ricwilli]

When I went over to Davids (Malulu) house to see how he regenerates his Model #5 Kati Ani, he wasted less than 15 gallons of water. I just got the model #2, and even though I have yet to regenerate it, I know it will be a lot less than 15 gallon of water waste. You can't go wrong with that.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Thanks for checking in Jim. And thanks to everyone else who replied as well.

My Ro/Di is only a few months old so I don't plan on getting a new dual stage or even replacing it with a Kati Ani just yet. That seems like the best solution though since my original plan will not work and those obviously produce far less waste.

I guess for now, I'll just live with it the way it is. :'( I'm glad I asked the question before just doing it though.

 

[Tazmaniancowboy]

Thanks for checking in Jim. And thanks to everyone else who replied as well.

My Ro/Di is only a few months old so I don't plan on getting a new dual stage or even replacing it with a Kati Ani just yet. That seems like the best solution though since my original plan will not work and those obviously produce far less waste.

I guess for now, I'll just live with it the way it is. :'( I'm glad I asked the question before just doing it though.

Tanks, the add on membrane kit from filterguys is pretty cheap and complete. It installs in less than 5 minutes. I say 5 because you will be following directions. I watched Jim do it in 2.5 minutes at MACNA. I'm looking into doing this on my own, but I have to check out numbers on my membrane first.

Taz

 

[Phyl]

You can add a second stage to your existing RO/DI. You don't need to replace it, just expand it!

 

[ricwilli]

With the cost of your RO/DI and the cost to expand it, as well as the filters/membranes, you might as well buy a Kati Ani. You are still going to produce a lot of waste water at the end.

 

[thefilterguys]

Hey Jim,

Welcome to the site. Thanks for speaking for us. I hope you enjoyed NJ.

All I can say is thanks. I have been attending conferences as a hobbyist rather then a vendor for over four years now and this was the best one yet. Your group went the extra mile to bring some new and interesting speakers into the mix. You get an Double A+++ for effort you can be proud of.

Jim

 

[Henrye718]

You could mount your waste bin up above 4ft or so and plumb your washing machine to it, the presure from the gravity of the water being higher then the machine will fill it. You can valve it so if its out of water you can just switch over to the normal supply.

Could also just fill the machine by hand with buckets or a small pump right from the top where you load the cloths before starting the machine up, just put the water in the machine. It has a water level sensor and will not add more water than it needs. Instead of filling it will see the water is already there and go right to washing.

Now you have 0% water waste. You could also use the water for flushing the toilet in the same way if your creative.