Water Purification Question

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Hi, Any water system experts out there? I have, under my sink, a water purification system which uses the reverse osmoss concept. I see that there are several filters involved that eventually filter the water into a 7 gallon holding tank. My question is, "Can I convert this unit into a stand alone gravity feed water purifier?" It gives a water quality rating of an S-300 whatever that is. I looked for a name on the unit but found none. I purchase my main unit, which is down cellar and supplies the entire house from the same place I got this under the sink unit. The long round unit in the cellar says, EPS Manufacturing.

My intent is to build a container to house the osmoss unit and hook some funnel or something to pour in rain and snow water to be filtered. Any ideas? Thanks!

Duane

-- Duane (Duane24062@aol.com), January 02, 1999

Answers

You need water pressure. Gravity will work, but has to have a big gravity "head" (height). Look at the water towers in small towns. They pump water into the ovalur tank on some stilts way up there, as required. The gravity head of that height creates the constant tap pressure.

Some way you will need to have equivalent to tap pressure to get your unit to work.

-- z (z@z.z), January 02, 1999.


I would not rely on reverse-osmosis, because the filter will clog quite quickly, and can be easily damaged. Go with ceramic, carbon & chemicals. Having said that...

I too would like to use a filter which required pressure. My plan is to build a sealed tank (5-gallon?) with a screw-off opening on top for adding water, and the filter plumbed to the bottom. Now the trick... to get pressure to drive water out the filter, the "tank" (5 gallon bucket, with some sort of cap on top) will have a valve-stem which allows use of a bike-pump to add pressure.

Will take a lot of pumping, but should work...

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous.com), January 02, 1999.


Hi Anonymous99

Thanks for your input! So do you really think rain water and boiled snow would plug up this unit? There are things one can do to simulate pressure but I can't even think about that yet until I can determine if the reverse osmoss concept is valid. I understand what you are saying if the water came from a creek or something but I don't believe rain or snow will be that contaminated. Maybe so.

Please take no offense if you feel I am questioning your reply. I am just trying to learn. What are you thoughts of a pre-filter first before it goes into the osmoss unit?

Thanks 8-)

-- Duane (Duane24062@aol.com), January 03, 1999.


I'll have to refer you to the experts:

http://www.idir.net/~medintz/surv_faq/waterfaq.txt

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous.com), January 03, 1999.


Duane, I'm of the opinion that rainwater and snow would be good quality to be used in a reverse osmosis system. Depending on where you live, you should even be able to drink water from both without treatment. I think the idea of a pressurized tank to create the head is also an excellent idea. I would recommend that all such ideas be implemented and tried now, to leave time to address any unforseen issues. I plan on collecting rainwater and I'm currently designing a solar distillation process to use with my well water (which is terrible). Your roof with a gutter about the perimeter would allow for collecting large quantities of rainwater. I'm going to keep the roof and gutters as clean as possible and channel the water into some type of collection tank. A clean water source has been the toughest issue that I've had to address yet with Y2K. Goodluck and stay networked.

-- Bob (RDMarquiss@aol.com), January 03, 1999.


Bob- " rainwater and snow would be good quality to be used in a reverse osmosis system. Depending on where you live, you should even be able to drink water from both without treatment."

In a well-ordered world, I would agree with this. But both rain and snow carry down atmospheric pollutants with them, including insecticides, fungicides, and radioactive dust.

"The physical and chemical characteristics of RWH [residential wood-fired heater] emissions has further accentuated problems in this source category. RWH generated particulates are virtually all submicron-sized organic condensate materials. In addition, several of the organic compounds found in woodsmoke have demonstrated carcinogenic and mutagenic properties." (from http://mha-net.clever.net/html/p-tieg02.htm)

I've read that major chemical producers in the U.S. intend to shut down for the Y2K roll-over, and start up gradually thereafter, looking for and fixing any problems. Whether or not similar facilities in the rest of the world will do this is unknown. I believe there's also some Y2K-related uncertainty about the integrity of some nuclear reactors in the rest of the world. And -- excuse the expression -- what goes around comes around, especially in the case of radioactive dust.

I wouldn't drink unfiltered rainwater or melted snow now. And it's not certain that they'll be cleaner after the rollover.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 04, 1999.


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