Reverse Osmosis Compatible

Bigheadtodd

Were doing a house which all of the water for the whole house will be RO. All the water lines will be Pex, all the fittings will be plastic, etc.

The water heater will be an indirect and I'm wondering who makes a good plastic indirect water heater.

What would be a good choice for this application? My favorite indirects are the Phase III or a Buderus, but I'm not sure either of the above will work. I believe there is a waranty issue as well.

Could use some help here guys.

Thanks in advance, Todd

Bigheadtodd

Reverse Osmosis Compatible


Were doing a house which all of the water for the whole house will be RO. All the water lines will be Pex, all the fittings will be plastic, etc.

The water heater will be an indirect and I'm wondering who makes a good plastic indirect water heater.

What would be a good choice for this application? My favorite indirects are the Phase III or a Buderus, but I'm not sure either of the above will work. I believe there is a waranty issue as well.

Could use some help here guys.

Thanks in advance, Todd

Troy_3

Good luck

Nobody will waranty a tank with RO water going through it. I would go with a Viessmann SS.They use 316TI ss. RO water is very agressive. I don't know of a plastic indirect. The coil cannot be copper or the water will be blue from leaching copper. Why are they useing RO water for all uses? The toilet guts will not last. The inside of your valves won't last.

John Penwarden

Automag Valves

Troy, did you get my email yesterday? I was asking about how I would (if I could) wire up automag zone valves with Honeywell V4083E valves. The existing controller is the 40VA MB. I've called my local supply house and ordered an AVC-606 controller. The sales guy said that the honeywell will not work with the automag. I'm not sure if he's just trying to sell valves. The two honeywell valves can be removed if necessary. I just wanted to get some input from someone more experienced than this weekend warrior.

Thanks.

hot_rod

Plastic faucets?

tub wastes, sink overflows, etc?? RO for the entire home seems way overkill. Also RO's waste a lot of water in the filter process.

I'd have them get another opinion on this. Plenty of other treatments that are more "hosehold" friendly. What's in their water to concern them?

Maybe they could have Perrier pumped into the home

hot rod

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[Deleted User]

Health risks associated with RO water...

JAMA came out a long time ago and warned against the personal consumption of RO'd water. Seems that it is SO pure that it will strip the nutrients and vitamins right out of your body. Great ploy for vitamin selling companies though. RO water was originally developed for laboratory uses where pure water was essential. If they want some pure water and want to impact the environment minimally (especially during these drought years) I'd recommend they look at some other alternatives, like distillation.

If its hard on your plumbing pipes, its going to be hard on YOUR internal pipes too...

It's kind of like softened water. The reason they bypass the lawn faucets with a softened water system is not to conserve salt, it's to keep from killing the lawn and other plants that come into contact with it. That ought to tell you something about consuming softened water...

Talk to them Todd. You're in the drivers seat. Sounds like they got some "misinformation" from an over zealous water treatment salesman who doesn't have their best interest in mind.

ME

ScottMP

what product ?

I've never heard of a whole house R.O. unit ?

Who makes a unit that large and what is the cost ?

I agree with what HR, and ME say, it sounds extreme.

Scott

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Brian (Tankless) Wood

Heed the warnings,Todd.

Your client definitely does NOT need RO water in their home. Please talk them out of it.

The two companies below, make wonderful products, and if you have water that cannot be treated with a combination of these systems, you need to find an alternate water source (a pipeline to Evian...Wacko Jacko did it :O)

Disclaimer: I met with Helmut Irauschek (managing director) & German engineers from BWT yesterday, and am in the initial process of being their equipment representative here in SW Louisiana & SE Texas. I am very impressed with this company, so far. Their toll free # in CA. is 800 216 0201. Please tell Katie how you came to hear about BWT.

www.aquasuninternational.com is in Minden NV. Their # is 775 783 8566.

www.bwtusa.com is in Vista, CA and their # is above.

Good luck, and please stay away from RO water.

Brian in Swampland.

Troy_3

Whole house RO

They make them as big as you want. LA uses RO water in one of their water treatment plants. We installed a 600 gal/day RO system with 80 gal. of storage for a homeowner whose son is hyper sensitive to everything. He showers in it. Washes in it. Toilet is clorinated though. But to use RO water for the whole house just because they are paranoid is a stretch. You can't get much life out of the plumbing. Not everything is available in plastic. In fact the house we did has an RO under the sink being fed with the big RO. The small risidual was still too much so it is a double pass ro water that is consumed. Maintenance is excessive in my opinion. It takes a lot of money to keep everything working. If you got enough money anything is doable.

JimGPE_2

Who'd a thunk it?

I would have thought nothing in the world would be so benign as pure water. No ions to promote galvanic corrosion, no acids, no free radicals, nothing!

So why is RO water so aggressive on copper, etc.? What is it about pure water that does this? Looking at it from the other direction, what is in normal tap water that would pacify the water, making it more friendly to copper?

MAN you learn things when you hang out here!

Jim.

Troy_3

Water H20

RO water or any ultra pure water is very aggressive because it is devoid of any minerals. Like so many things in nature it will always try to equalize it's surroudings. Water is known as the universal solvent. Look at the grand canyon and you will understand how water will dissolve and wear at any thing. Water that is pure is like a sponge. The purer the water the more potential capacity it has to hold stuff. RO water will leach copper from a copper pipe very rapidly. You would think it was acidic. The more it grabs the less pure the water becomes. It is a circle. Most water treatment is a copy of nature. We use the same processes that are used in nature to clean water. Water that leaches through the ground gets filtered. Water that trickles down a river gets purified by many means. A water falls oxygenates the water. We use ozone to mimic this process. sorry about rambling on. I find water interesting.

hot_rod

Actually high levels of copper

leached into the water from the aggressive RO could be worse than where they started. This link has a good overview on water quality.

hot rod

http://www.ianr.unl.edu/pubs/water/g1360.htm

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JimGPE_2

Amazing.

I can see where what you are saying would be right, but it sure wasn't intuitively obvious until you explained it!

Thanks.

Jim.