RO water

I had an eliminator RO system from a garden supply store, and I broke it. I currently buy Culligan RO water from wal-mart, but hate lugging 15 five gallon jugs in there every other week. I want to buy a good quality RO machine, but not spend an arm and a leg. Anyone have any good suggestions??

i saw something for a home-made one on og once, ill have a search.

homemade RO unit

i'm sure you could customize it to your liking or whatever.

oh and, Cheap ro unit.

The main thing you are trying to do with the RO is remove all the TDS (Total Disolved solids) from your water to give you a 0 starting point for your chems. The home units are ok, but most do not remove everything. If you want something that is going to last and produce (PURE) 0% TDS water you are going to have to spend a couple of bucks. This is the cheapest unit I have seen on the market that will do just that. Remember, like I said home units do not produce 100% pure tds water. I know I deal with pure water on a daily basis. You can look on ebay and find some of them for cheaper than that. But that little sucker is portable and can be hooked up directly to a garden hose or any like type fitting. No need to hard line it in the house.
Get a cheap TDS meter, read your tds comming from your house. If it's fairly low, (Under 100). You can get away with a DI tank also avalible from your Culligan guy. Ask him how much for a DI tank monthy rental. Most are very cheap, if you are in cali I belive it's $40 per month and that will zero your tds. There is a charge for recharging, picking up and droping off the tanks though. National average is $100 for recharge, pick up and drop off.
Here is a rough chart you can use:

tds chart ---TDS---Gallons -
----50-----3,012
---100-----1,506
---200--------753
---300--------502
---400--------376
---500--------301
---600--------251
---700--------215
---800--------188
---900--------167
1,000--------151


These figures are for a full cube Di tank.. I believe he has a half cube so you would technically cut the #s in the right column in half.
Reach Higher Ground

Hey juggernaut, thanks much for the insight. My home water comes out at 448. I have gottne a full breakdown, and the calcium is way high. A DI system probably is not what I need. I am prepared to spend some bucks for an RO system. I had a cheap one, and my water was ppm 020 from it. I buy it now from walmart~thru culligan~and it is ppm 005. I want to get something low ppm's at home.
Can you recommend a system for me.....$$$$ not a real issue, but 600 to 700 is a bit much.
And Sub, thanks for the links......although I am not a DYI guy! LOL!
Peace and rep to you both!

Well the sad part is with TDS like that you are going to have to spend some money. I have a commerical unit that cost 5 grand. It will put out over 700 GPD at a zero tds constantly, until my filter need replacement. Which would be 6 months with tds averaging 100 around me. But money is an issue. So here is what I would do.

I would contact the local Culligan man and ask for a home 5 gallon unit. I think this is your best and cheapest bet in the long run. Everything else is going to cost you some money. Or go to your local Homedepot and by an inline unit. Most of the parts for these things are fair easy to come by in any plumbing supply house. You can look into fixing the system. If it were me, I have some plumbing skills so I would dig a well in my back yard. Most well water is very low tds. I have seen some homes that run under 10 tds from the tap and they are on a well. I was kind of shocked to see it as according to science, those numbers cannot be reached without some kind of mechanical device. But I have seen it a few times.
But back on subject. I would call the culligan man. Or put an inline in my house. With high TDS like that, I would think seriously about putting an inline for my entire home. Even if you are not drinking the water from the tap, I can bet you are still showering in it. Those numbers are high, very high. Numbers over 500 tds are not allowed by the EPA. Well they are but they are considered very dangerous. Something like this would do the job, nicely.

Reverse Osmosis 5 Stage DI Water Filter FREE SHIPPING - eBay (item 220267061088 end time Aug-15-08 18:06:33 PDT)

But one thing you should look into is the cost of the filter replacement. Some of these cheaper units filtration cost is crazy. $300 or more. In the end you would have been better off buying a more exspenive unit. With TDS that high I would not be surprised if you had to change your filters once ever 3 months. Also with a HIGH TDS like that you will want a DI in the line. RO will only do so much, and DI alone will also only do so much. But both combined will make water zero.

So if you want it just for you plants. Call the man. If you want it for your whole house to be safe install a unit.

i have a hydrologic stealth 100

With the residue that is left behind from my tap, I would LOVE a whole house unit. I think my best bet is Culligan. My water is so full of carbonate that if you let a glass of water set out for about an hour, it will have a thin film of white on the glass that you have to scrub off. I know that my water is considered very poor, knew that moving in, and in fact, in 2007 my county was cited for not releasing a full water quality report. It is really fucked here in the south, east or west or wherever I live.

platypusmann said:

With the residue that is left behind from my tap, I would LOVE a whole house unit. I think my best bet is Culligan. My water is so full of carbonate that if you let a glass of water set out for about an hour, it will have a thin film of white on the glass that you have to scrub off. I know that my water is considered very poor, knew that moving in, and in fact, in 2007 my county was cited for not releasing a full water quality report. It is really fucked here in the south, east or west or wherever I live.

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I would still look into the units listed. The hydrologic stealth 100 looks nice. Those are very high TDS levels and I'm not looking to scare you, but who the hells knows what's the in water these days. That shit can kill you. If not now maybe years down the road. Not just a death but a painful disease type death. CAN YOU SAY CANCER. Keep in mind the average human will take a 10 minute shower using only 10 gallons of water in the process. That's if your flow rate is at 1 gallon per minute. Most homes in the USA will average 30 to 60 psi from the tap, most I see are around 40 to 45 psi. Totally fine to run a large house. So if you had a 6 person house and everyone showered that day, that still leaves you with 40 gallons of water for the day, for cooking, cleaning etc. You might run into issues with doing the laundry a couple of times per month. But you can store pure water for a certain amount of time. I'm not sure how long as I don't store mine at all. I don't even drink it, but have thought about filling the 5 gallon despenser we have in the kitchen.

I called Culligan, and I have a rep coming over Monday AM. Starting at 25 a month up to 5K. I am looking into a whole house unit.......I am scared of my water....I only use it for showers and laundry, and that is because I have not had the $$$ for a full house unit, but I am thinking CREDIT and safety today.

a whole house unit would be fucking sweet

but i know they cost a fucking grip!

I use a Whirlpool WHER25 RO system, $120 at Lowes. My normal tap water is at around 550PPM, it comes out of my RO at 7 PPM. pretty dang close to perfect. Only problem is that is only makes about 30 gallons/day at the most. Has a 3 gal res, but that goes fast when trying to use 30 gal at a time. I have to turn it on a day in advance of nute change day so the water is ready. Has pre and post filters too.

I spent about $200 recently for a 6-stage RO unit with a 10 gallon tank. Got it locally from these guys. The unit listed there comes with a smaller tank, though.

Cr8z13 said:

I spent about $200 recently for a 6-stage RO unit with a 10 gallon tank. Got it locally from these guys. The unit listed there comes with a smaller tank, though.

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Nice. What is the GPD on that unit?

100GPD, but of course that depends on your household pressure. I get about 75GPD, which is fine for me, but I'll be upgrading the unit with a booster pump when I can.