Whole house RO (1 Viewer)

[decimal]

Anyone have a whole house RO?
Looking at options, maybe a softener?

I am looking to connect my fridge to the RO feed but the sink is on the kitchen island so no way to run RO lines to or from there.

I would prefer to move everything to the garage anyways so I was thinking a pre filter setup (like water softener or a larger sediment filter) then 200g vertical tank and a pressure pump to maintain 50-60psi at the tap through the house. I see some systems for 11k+ and they use RO units that make 2000gpd but I am wondering why I can’t have a 300gdp ro unit keep the storage tank topped off.

From what I understand, a nominal size hot water heater is 30-50g. When you take a shower, you normally don’t spend more than 15-20 mins in there and normal flow is about 1.5 gpm. (20mins = 30g) that gives us some idea of how much water is needed. So with washing machine, toilet flushes and so on a 200g tank should be plenty of water for even a family of 4. Obviously I would need to set up a bypass RO membrane exit to make 0 TDS reef water.

 

[BigRick]

Get a non tank hot water heater.

 

[Cody]

Get a non tank hot water heater.

I snapped a pic of him installing it today

 

[decimal]

Yea I’m familiar tankless water heaters. I’m not so concerned about how much hot water I have though. More as a gauge to quantify 40g of water since that seems to be a standard size. As in, will a 200g holding tank and a 300gpd RO be enough to supply the whole house. I guess the standard set up is prefilter and filtration, then the holding tank and a pressure pump. I suppose you might want a carbon and maybe a mineral stage at the sink (for drinking water). Just wondering if anyone has gone this route.

 

[Cody]

I must say, this is the most elaborate scheme to convince a spouse to upgrade your aquarium RO unit that I’ve ever seen. I just sold it on “high quality drinking water” and she bought it

 

[foos]

I would not run all water in the house through RO. Just going to be burning $ and asking for disease. When you setup an RO system for drinking you are supposed to flush it with bleach once a year since the carbon block removes chlorine and anything that gets in the lines when you set it up or change filters will not get killed.

Just move your RO/DI to the garage and hire a plumber to run a line to the fridge off the RO part for you. Might need to tear some stuff up to get to it, but that would cost less.

 

[decimal]

If I keep it all in the garage, how do I create enough pressure after the holding tank to push long ro line runs? I already have a booster pump to get pressure to 80 psi on the ro intake.

 

[BigRick]

If I keep it all in the garage, how do I create enough pressure after the holding tank to push long ro line runs? I already have a booster pump to get pressure to 80 psi on the ro intake.

You would have to run 1/2 cvpc /pvc to do the whole house. Forget about a holding tank and pressure pump. Your creating more of a problem then a solution. There is a reason whole house ROs cost so much. Are you gonna run a UV after the holding tank to kill bacteria?

 

[decimal]

Yes, definitely UV. Don’t need to the whole house. Just kitchen, fridge and tank.

 

[decimal]

problem was the sink is in the island. So rather than ripping out tiles and breaking concrete, I figured whole house might be adequate solution. Seems it’s not. I did find a conduit line that I should be able to snake to/from the island though so now I’m thinking of just the basic island (separate drinking) faucet, the fridge and maybe the tank if I want to set up awc.. either way, I will need some climate control in the garage as well so thinking about a ductless split unit.

 

[foos]

If I keep it all in the garage, how do I create enough pressure after the holding tank to push long ro line runs? I already have a booster pump to get pressure to 80 psi on the ro intake.

I have my system under my kitchen sink with a T before the DI for drinking water that goes to two tanks then to a sink faucet and over to the fridge and pressure has not been an issue for me. The RO/DI line for the fish tank is hidden in crown molding and goes across the entire house without issues.

Read the manual for your fridge. Some of them rely on the water pressure/flow rate to close the solenoid for the ice maker and will tell you in the manual they are not compatible with RO systems.

 

[decimal]

sounds like we have close to the same set up. The urgent need to relocate everything was driven by the fact that the sink is in the island. Normally it’s pretty involved to run anything to or from an island but I was told there is a conduit path that you can snake a hose through. That at least gives me the under sink option back as I would be able to supply drinking h20 to the sink outlet, 0 tds to the fish tank and refri. If I have to go through the process of messing with the lines though, I figured maybe I relocate it all to the garage. Guess I got lucky on the fridge thing. This fridge is brand new but the one it replaced was pretty much the same model and the ice maker worked flawlessly for many months and it still does.

 

[webster1234]

I just tapped into the RO side of my rodi setup and put a 15g tank with a float valve on it. It has a directional ball valve on it. One direction makes tank water and the other direction makes drinking water. It's in the laundry room vs the garage but I just use it to fill up a dispenser in the kitchen. I make ice cubes in the freezer with it and have a gallon pitcher in the fridge for cold water. Not over complicated. It would take a big system to have RO on demand for showers etc, not to mention a waste of water. All I care about is what I'm consuming.