ro system

bears

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How many of you use ro systems? And did you buy a ready to go setup? or did you piece one together yourself? I am currently in the market for one any pointers?
 
never heard of it....
 
reclaim? de-ionized water? what's ro?
 
not sure what he is talking about here, but I am into saltwater aquariums and RO stands for reverse osmosis.


That's precisely what it is. Water is softened, charcoal filtered, then forced through a membrane removing any and all particulate matter. Excellent for spot free rinsing, beats additives and DI hands down. The only downside to the system is it uses a lot of water...may take 2,500 gallons to make 1,500 gallons of RO water.

RO.jpg
 
its top secret operations over here. actually probably nothing that would work for fleets. I have just tried different rinsing agents and water softeners. No big deal really.
 
Far too expensive for the every day fleet washer. We go through 60,000 to 80,000 gallons of water on a weekend. Imagine what the cost of salt alone would be just for 1 month, not to mention the cost of the RO system. Plus, it limits us because then every truck would have to come back to our shop to refill on water instead of using the fill station in the local community.
 
WoW 60,000-80,000 gallons a weekend? How many trucks are you doing with that much water?
 
Roughly 2200-3000 on a weekend, depending on what's scheduled. We tried soft water for about a month, but we literally were delivering pickup loads of salt each week, adding to the expense of the wash, and we found that the advantages were miniscule to what chemically treating the water added, and at much less a cost. So that brought an end to the kinetico water softener being used at the shop.
 
One would not use RO water to wash or rinse, only as a final flush off. If you've ever used a coin op car wash and selected "Spot Free Rinse", you don't get much pressure or volume. Just enough to rewet the car once more. Heck, you could probably apply RO with a ShurFlo or similar pump.
 
Blaine,
RO and Kinetico softeners are totally different. The RO systems, if they are a good one, do not use salt.
How do you treat teh water chemically, and what is the hardness in your area that you can do it chemically?
 
Scott, the RO systems that I am familiar with require softened water for input.

Although there may be something new out there, but that's all I'm familiar with as well, Russ. Scott, I don't remember what our water's hardness is exactly (grains) but we are on a deep well and it actually is very good water with relatively low mineral and iron levels which is unusual for Minnesota. The well at my house is quite another story however, but I'm digressing. Anyway, typically we don't use the chemical style softener until the summer months. I'm sure there are many different products out there, but the one we and our "system" customers use is not cheap, but it is very concentrated so a person doesn't have to use a lot to achieve the desired results. For example, we only use 1 gallon to treat 1000 gallons of soap and it works very well. However, each persons water quality varies, so each person would have to experiment to see what the right amount would be for their type of water.
 
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