Tap water concern

[tjudy]

Here is a picture of the micron sleeve prefilter on my RO/DI unit. The cartridge on the left is the one in question. About an hour before this picture was taken I inserted a new filter into the chamber and ran water through the unit for the first time since moving here to Wisconsin. When I placed the filter in the machine it was as white as the carbon cartridge (plastic bottle) to the right in the picture. That lovely color was filtered in only one hour and about 5 gallons of RO/DI.

I am wondering if I need to add another prefilter to the unit. I cannot imagine what this will look like after 1000 gallons. I am worried that I will not even get 100 gallons out of the prefilter! The water coming through the unit tests ok. Conductivity is reading 8 mS (the tap water is 1350 mS), which is 99.6% efficient. Not bad for a 3 year old membrane. Waste water : ro water ratio = 3.15:1 at a psi of 40. I will probably get a booster pump to take the psi up to 70+ and try to improve the ratio. The pH is lower than it should be, but I am using water coming through the water softener. I will bypass the water softener tonight and see what the differences are. I cannot test the KH until tomorrow.

 

[Mike Wise]

Do you have black iron water pipes? It looks like iron rust to me. If it's iron you might be able to clean the micron filter with a solution of oxalic acid (or would that damage the filter media?)

 

[Woody]

Iron in the water

I agree with Mike, it looks like rust from iron in the water. Your water is probably clear but when it is exposed to air it oxides, thus causing the reddish coloration.
Your water softener will remove up to 2 mg/l of iron but you must backwash often and use a resin cleaner
You could set up a manganese greensand filter before your water softener, this will remove iron, manganese, and other metal's from the water, just keep it refreshed.
Would you happen t know if it is the water itself, or the piping system, those black iron pipes are nasty.

Let us know

Woody

 

[tjudy]

I doubt it is black iron pipes... at least not close to or in the house. The house is eight years old, and the neighborhood is about the same.

 

[cootwarm]

Hi Ted,


I see that you're in Packer territory now! I've been a Packer fan since I was at least 10 yo.

Perhaps that's what is afflicting Bret Farve right now. He's been looking a bit rusty lately.

But seriously...I wish you good luck with your water problem. Probably not much you can do about town supplied water.

How is your ground water?
A friend of mine lives in a house that has town water, but he found it had an old well. So he revived the well just for watering the lawn and garden and washing the car etc. I always thought that would make a great setup for frequent water changes done cheap! Depending on the water parms and quality of course.

Michael