Changing resin every 1000 litres... is this right?

[P4dstar]

Morning chaps... I need a bit of advice. I know everyone is gonna jump on the “you need to move to RO” bandwagon and I assure you that is in the pipeline for a few weeks time but for now I am using resin. My input TDS is 135-145. The last time I changed the resin at 003ppm and I use 2x 11 litre DI vessels so move the old resin to the back etc to prolong the life of it. Previously i’ve been a part timer doing just 2 days a week but over the last few days I’ve used 1000 litres or so and the resin is up to 001ppm already. Based on the last lot I’ve got another 200 litres left before it needs changing and I recon the last lot lasted roughly the same time but I didn’t look at it so closely.

The question is, am I doing something wrong or is that about right. I’m gonna be on resin for the next few weeks until I go full time with it at which point I’m sure I’ll come begging for some advice on RO systems haha

 

[spruce]

Morning chaps... I need a bit of advice. I know everyone is gonna jump on the “you need to move to RO” bandwagon and I assure you that is in the pipeline for a few weeks time but for now I am using resin. My input TDS is 135-145. The last time I changed the resin at 003ppm and I use 2x 11 litre DI vessels so move the old resin to the back etc to prolong the life of it. Previously i’ve been a part timer doing just 2 days a week but over the last few days I’ve used 1000 litres or so and the resin is up to 001ppm already. Based on the last lot I’ve got another 200 litres left before it needs changing and I recon the last lot lasted roughly the same time but I didn’t look at it so closely.

The question is, am I doing something wrong or is that about right. I’m gonna be on resin for the next few weeks until I go full time with it at which point I’m sure I’ll come begging for some advice on RO systems haha

What you need to work out is how many liters of pure you have used since you changed the resin. As best this is probably an estimate unless you have a separate water meter as an addition to your system for tax purposes.

Then you should be able to get an idea of where you are using a resin calculator.

https://www.windowcleaningwarehouse.co.uk/resin-calculator.html

This calculator will give you an idea. According to that calculator a 25liter bag of resin should make you about 5200 liters of pure. (Your 11 liter vessels are just less than half of a 25liter bag of resin so around 2300 liters.)

You also must consider that the tds of your water can fluctuate considerably. Ours does. I don't take daily readings but on spot checks I've seen it as low as 99 and as high as 147. In our case it depends on which reserviour the water board are drawing water from.

.

 

[Part Timer]

By the resin calculator you should get about 5000 litres from a 25kg bag 

https://www.windowcleaningwarehouse.co.uk/resin-calculator.html

 

[Den]

Personally I  don’t trust the resin calculators I use a lot more resins than these says, I have installed bypass valves to combat tds creep, when inputting my data into the calculators I overestimate I.e my tds is 009 and I input 012 and Still use more resin than the calculator states.

p.s. I have only ever used mb115 tulsion, never used any inferior resins. 

 

[P4dstar]

Yeah to be fair I moved to Unger resin last time as Gardiners we’re out of stock, definitely getting less from the Unger than I did with Tulsion, I’ve just tried the calculators and it seems about right... £9 a day on resin to use 500 litres of pure is a lot though.

To be fair I’m only using so much at the mo because I’ve got lots of first time cleans, that will drop but I hope to be on RO by then. The switch to RO seems to be a bit of a minefield though, the only solid advice I could find ended up telling me I needed the 5k under system... but I haven’t even got a clue how they work let alone what I’ll be looking for.

thanks for your help on this chaps, greatly appreciated as ever

 

[spruce]

Personally I  don’t trust the resin calculators I use a lot more resins than these says, I have installed bypass valves to combat tds creep, when inputting my data into the calculators I overestimate I.e my tds is 009 and I input 012 and Still use more resin than the calculator states.

p.s. I have only ever used mb115 tulsion, never used any inferior resins. 

The Gardiner resin calculator says that 11 liters of resin at 135ppm should do 2000 liters.

http://www.gardinerpolesystems.co.uk/Resin_Calculator.htm

You also make a valid point that different grades of resin will not perform the same way.

I can't comment about any other grade or make of resin as we also only use Tulsion. I also can't comment on whether the current resin isn't as good as years gone by as we use so little of it. A 6 liter di vessel lasts us a year so a 25 liter bag lasts us 4 years. 6 years ago I ordered a bag of Tulsions and split it with a fellow windie. He said it was rubbish stuff - didn't last - but it performed the same as it always did with me so I won't do that again. But it did teach me that perception doesn't also mean an accurate report.

I record the date of each resin and filter change and how many liters of water to r/o has used in total. I have an approx pure usage record as the r/o is set at approx 50% waste to 50% pure. I also appreciate that the resin that's been stored away for 3 years isn't going to be fresh and so I can't expect it to perform as well as it did when I bought it.

.

 

[P4dstar]

The Gardiner resin calculator says that 11 liters of resin at 135ppm should do 2000 liters.

http://www.gardinerpolesystems.co.uk/Resin_Calculator.htm

You also make a valid point that different grades of resin will not perform the same way.

I can't comment about any other grade or make of resin as we also only use Tulsion. I also can't comment on whether the current resin isn't as good as years gone by as we use so little of it. A 6 liter di vessel lasts us a year so a 25 liter bag lasts us 4 years. 6 years ago I ordered a bag of Tulsions and split it with a fellow windie. He said it was rubbish stuff - didn't last - but it performed the same as it always did with me so I won't do that again. But it did teach me that perception doesn't also mean an accurate report.

I record the date of each resin and filter change and how many liters of water to r/o has used in total. I have an approx pure usage record as the r/o is set at approx 50% waste to 50% pure. I also appreciate that the resin that's been stored away for 3 years isn't going to be fresh and so I can't expect it to perform as well as it did when I bought it.

.

How does it last you so long!!?? That’s an amazing return haha.

The other thing I forgot to mention is I’m following The guide I found and only filling the bottle just over 3/4 full of resin so it’s only about 8ish litres I’m actually using so it ties in somewhere near what the calculators say. When I break it down to 1.8p per litre it doesn’t seem so bad, I’m just a skinflint is all haha

 

[spruce]

Yeah to be fair I moved to Unger resin last time as Gardiners we’re out of stock, definitely getting less from the Unger than I did with Tulsion, I’ve just tried the calculators and it seems about right... £9 a day on resin to use 500 litres of pure is a lot though.

To be fair I’m only using so much at the mo because I’ve got lots of first time cleans, that will drop but I hope to be on RO by then. The switch to RO seems to be a bit of a minefield though, the only solid advice I could find ended up telling me I needed the 5k under system... but I haven’t even got a clue how they work let alone what I’ll be looking for.

thanks for your help on this chaps, greatly appreciated as ever

There are lots of questions you need to answer before you choose an r/o system or even choose to have one.

What water pressure do you have? If you need to produce water quickly, then how many liters of water a minute do you get from your tap? Can you store water? Are you on a water meter? What future plans do you have for expansion that will reflect an increase in water usage?

To begin with an r/o filter is like an old fashioned tea strainer. as the tea is poured into the cup, the tea strainer catches the tea leaves and allows the filtered tea to continue on its way into the cup. If the tea strainer gets too full of tea leaves then the tea strainer is cleaned under the running water from the kitchen tap. Our systems do the same thing but they flush the impurites (tea leaves) away as they are filtering the water.

There will always be help for choosing the right system closer to the time.

 

[spruce]

How does it last you so long!!?? That’s an amazing return haha.

The other thing I forgot to mention is I’m following The guide I found and only filling the bottle just over 3/4 full of resin so it’s only about 8ish litres I’m actually using so it ties in somewhere near what the calculators say. When I break it down to 1.8p per litre it doesn’t seem so bad, I’m just a skinflint is all haha

Our tap water fluctuates between 99 and 147 ppm from the occassional readings I take.

Our 4040 membrane removes about 98% of those impurities (minerals and salts) from the water. Depending on the incoming water quality the water after r/o is mostly at 2ppm, although I've seen it at 1ppm and also at 3ppm once. So to be fair I don't even need to put that product water through di, but as we are on the north sea coast I prefer to run at zero ppm all the time. But when the di filtered water creeps up to 1ppm I'm not desperate to change the resin. In fact last time it remained at 1 for a month before I changed the resin. It never went to 2ppm.

Now, those figures come from my inline tds meters that record water impurities on both sides of the di vessel. In the month we were running at 1ppm my handheld tds meter always showed the water in the tank at 0ppm. The tds meter was recalibrated a couple of years ago when I changed batteries in it, so is it more accurate than the inline tds meter - who knows?

 

[Skxawng]

 I use 2x 11 litre DI vessels so move the old resin to the back etc to prolong the life of it.

Just checking, do you mean that by moving the old resin to the back you are setting it up so that the water goes through the old resin first, then the new after?

 

[scottish cleaning service]

is it worth fitting an inline filter before the tap that is producing the water for our van tank? Don't know how much the reduction would be on the tds. Has anybody got a home filter and noticed any difference. thx m

 

[spruce]

Just checking, do you mean that by moving the old resin to the back you are setting it up so that the water goes through the old resin first, then the new after?

That's the way its done. If your are changing resin when the pure rises to 3, you still have some life left in the old resin. So to start with the old resin will take the hit of the water going through it and leave the new resin in the second di vessel to polish it off to zero.

 

[P4dstar]

Just checking, do you mean that by moving the old resin to the back you are setting it up so that the water goes through the old resin first, then the new after?

Yeah thats what I mean chap. I changed to this after realising how much having just one canister cost

 

[P4dstar]

Our tap water fluctuates between 99 and 147 ppm from the occassional readings I take.

Our 4040 membrane removes about 98% of those impurities (minerals and salts) from the water. Depending on the incoming water quality the water after r/o is mostly at 2ppm, although I've seen it at 1ppm and also at 3ppm once. So to be fair I don't even need to put that product water through di, but as we are on the north sea coast I prefer to run at zero ppm all the time. But when the di filtered water creeps up to 1ppm I'm not desperate to change the resin. In fact last time it remained at 1 for a month before I changed the resin. It never went to 2ppm.

Now, those figures come from my inline tds meters that record water impurities on both sides of the di vessel. In the month we were running at 1ppm my handheld tds meter always showed the water in the tank at 0ppm. The tds meter was recalibrated a couple of years ago when I changed batteries in it, so is it more accurate than the inline tds meter - who knows?

Yeah my PPM Seems to go from 2ppm to 60+ ppm in the space of a couple of houses. To be fair the first time it happened to me I was lucky enough to have checked my PPM at the end of the day and ran back to re-rinse all the windows I missed. I planned to keep my DI once I move to RO as well. Oddly enough I was going to ask if anyone does the same haha

 

[P4dstar]

There are lots of questions you need to answer before you choose an r/o system or even choose to have one.

What water pressure do you have? If you need to produce water quickly, then how many liters of water a minute do you get from your tap? Can you store water? Are you on a water meter? What future plans do you have for expansion that will reflect an increase in water usage?

To begin with an r/o filter is like an old fashioned tea strainer. as the tea is poured into the cup, the tea strainer catches the tea leaves and allows the filtered tea to continue on its way into the cup. If the tea strainer gets too full of tea leaves then the tea strainer is cleaned under the running water from the kitchen tap. Our systems do the same thing but they flush the impurites (tea leaves) away as they are filtering the water.

There will always be help for choosing the right system closer to the time.

Spruce you are always a real help.... so i'm gonna pick your brains and answer all the above for some advice haha.

The van has a 500 litre tank and would fill in 60 mins from empty... So I assume around 8 litres per minute. I have a garage that could fit a couple of 1000 litre tanks. Not on a water meter. I plan to have multiple vans on the road eventually. I currently work a full time job and do this mornings, after work, days off and weekends... About to go for it full time and give my resignation at the beginning of April so think it might be wise to go for an R/O system before then... What are your thoughts? How much does it cost to run an R/O?

 

[Den]

The Gardiner resin calculator says that 11 liters of resin at 135ppm should do 2000 liters.

http://www.gardinerpolesystems.co.uk/Resin_Calculator.htm

You also make a valid point that different grades of resin will not perform the same way.

I can't comment about any other grade or make of resin as we also only use Tulsion. I also can't comment on whether the current resin isn't as good as years gone by as we use so little of it. A 6 liter di vessel lasts us a year so a 25 liter bag lasts us 4 years. 6 years ago I ordered a bag of Tulsions and split it with a fellow windie. He said it was rubbish stuff - didn't last - but it performed the same as it always did with me so I won't do that again. But it did teach me that perception doesn't also mean an accurate report.

I record the date of each resin and filter change and how many liters of water to r/o has used in total. I have an approx pure usage record as the r/o is set at approx 50% waste to 50% pure. I also appreciate that the resin that's been stored away for 3 years isn't going to be fresh and so I can't expect it to perform as well as it did when I bought it.

.

I use a 11.7 litre Di vessel my RO is approx 98% effective but quite often when I change my resin it looks like a lot of the resin is unused, When it reaches tds 002 I shake the vessel each day that brings it down to 001. 

Think my vessel could be at fault maybe I will buy a 6 or 7 litre vessel below is a photo of my vessel can anyone recommend a decent DI vessel. 

 

[P4dstar]

I use a 11.7 litre Di vessel my RO is approx 98% effective but quite often when I change my resin it looks like a lot of the resin is unused, When it reaches tds 002 I shake the vessel each day that brings it down to 001. 

Think my vessel could be at fault maybe I will buy a 6 or 7 litre vessel below is a photo of my vessel can anyone recommend a decent DI vessel. 

Yeah I found shaking mine brings it back down temporarily, if it’s reading 002 it will read 001. The difference I have is I’m purifying tap water so the effort of unstrapping the canister to shake it gives me very little return.

I use two of these;

http://gardinerpolesystems.co.uk/all-products/pure-water-systems/water-treatment/de-ionisation/11-litre-di-resin-pressure-vessel-canister-3-4-bspt-ports.html

Never has an issue with them and Gardiners also sell 7 litre versions in blue.

 

[Den]

Thanks for the link ?

 

[spruce]

Spruce you are always a real help.... so i'm gonna pick your brains and answer all the above for some advice haha.

The van has a 500 litre tank and would fill in 60 mins from empty... So I assume around 8 litres per minute. I have a garage that could fit a couple of 1000 litre tanks. Not on a water meter. I plan to have multiple vans on the road eventually. I currently work a full time job and do this mornings, after work, days off and weekends... About to go for it full time and give my resignation at the beginning of April so think it might be wise to go for an R/O system before then... What are your thoughts? How much does it cost to run an R/O?

Somehow I lost the book I was writing.

May I suggest you slow the flow down through your di vessels to allow the resin to work more efficiently.

I also suggest you give the vessels a shake every so often as @Den advises as well. Water forms channels in the resin so shaking the vessels closes up those tracks.

Some window cleaners have their di vessels in the van and fill the tank with ordinary tap water. Filtering the water on demand at 1.5 or 2 LPM is better than 8 LPM.

With regards to r/o's this is my personal opinion and other cleaners may experience something differently.

We started with a 275 GPD r/o, upgraded it to a 450 GPD and then replaced it with a 4040. That has happened over a period of 7 years. The 4040 is now nearly 6 years old. So these are the 3 r/o's we have had in the nearly 12 years of wfp window cleaning.

I just managed with a 275 GPD processing water into my trailer tanks directly to begin with. It didn't work all that well. I upgraded the membranes to 450 GPD and purchased a used IBC tank. I found that the 450GPD was good enough for me, but when son joined me we had to plan our weekly water usage. I would fill my van on Saturday and his on Sunday. Only when I did this did we just manage to get through the week. (The r/o could have produced a little more water had I added a booster pump but I just didn't want the bother.) The system was and still is on a solenoid valve and float so when the tank is full the water to the r/o switches off. When water is taken it switches back on again.

In summer the 450 GPD took about 28 hours to fill the IBC tank and about 34 hours in winter. But once the IBc tank was full it became a little easier.

When we added a 3rd part time cleaner the 450 GPD wasn't enough. We battled on for a year before I called it quits and purchased the 4040. I honestly should have done that years before when son joined me.

The 4040 produces 2 LPM of water and sends  2 LPM to waste flushing the membranes. So at 50 psi water pressure and an HF5 membrane we use 4 LPM of tap water. So it was taking me 8 hours to fill an IBC tank with the 4040 where the 450 GPD was taking 28 hours to do the same thing.

We still had to plan when to fill the vans and I ended up filling mine in the evening. Both the lads had 500 liter tanks in their vans. The thrid cleaner always needed a full 500 liters but son only used about 300 liters of water a day so filling both those vans in the morning was ok. By the time I filled mine in the evening the IBC tank was full.

Because it was all automatic, the r/o switched off (and still does) when the tank is full, which might be in the middle of the night.

I would always go from the best you can afford. Water is a very important part of our equipment. Without it we don't earn. We are fortunate that we can use tap water and filter it through di in an emergency, but when I look back I held onto the smaller r/o's far too long.

How much does it cost to run an r/o? As @Part Timerhas said on a post recently, a 4040 isn't cheap to buy initially so the intial purchase costs have to be weighed against the cost and labour of replacing resin in your di vessels.

But long term it will save you money.

With 3 cleaners we were using about 13000 liters of pure a month. With a pure to waste ratio of 50/50 we were using 26k of tap water per month. As we have 20" prefilters a Fiberdyne carbon block filter will last us 3 months. We also used sediment filters. Depending on our water quality, we could use one of them a month or just 1 every 3 months.

A fiberdyne prefilter costs £24 + VAT

http://gardinerpolesystems.co.uk/all-products/pure-water-systems/water-treatment/sediment-carbon-filters/fibredyne-cfb-plus-sediment-carbon-pre-filter-20.html

and the sediment filter costs £4.75 + VAT

http://gardinerpolesystems.co.uk/all-products/pure-water-systems/water-treatment/sediment-carbon-filters/20-sediment-pre-filter.html

Ordering a couple of these Fiberdyne filters, a few sediment filters and other odds and ends gets us free shipping.

Then we have the annual resin change in the di vessel of £20.

We aren't on a water meter, but I do have a water meter on my r/o so I know when the 78000 liters of water is up to change the prefilters.

So per year my costs would be £115 for c/b filters, plus £45 for sediment filters and £20 for resin = £180.00 so lets say £200 if I need a couple more sediment filters.

The HF5 membrane costs £247 + VAT = £300.00.

http://gardinerpolesystems.co.uk/all-products/pure-water-systems/water-treatment/reverse-osmosis-membranes/axeon-hf5-4040-40-ro-membrane.html

My membrane is nearly 6 years old which is the same time my 450 GPD membranes lasted. So at £300 my annual membrane costs £50.

So the r/o cost me around £250 per year to run.

Hope that helps.

 

[Dave Shaw]

So glad I live in a soft water area. That sounds like a lot of work before you even get to work.


Sent using the Window Cleaning Forums mobile app

 

[spruce]

I use a 11.7 litre Di vessel my RO is approx 98% effective but quite often when I change my resin it looks like a lot of the resin is unused, When it reaches tds 002 I shake the vessel each day that brings it down to 001. 

Think my vessel could be at fault maybe I will buy a 6 or 7 litre vessel below is a photo of my vessel can anyone recommend a decent DI vessel. 

View attachment 13043

View attachment 13044

Before you replace it check an see if its working or not. The last resin change I did the resin looked as though it was the same as when it was first put in there the previous year.

Take some of the old resin in a container, fill it with water of known tds and see if the tds of the water is reduced when you mix the 2 together. Try it a few times.

At one time we got a batch of resin that changed colour as it was spent, but I haven't seen anyone selling a similar resin since Adam was a lad.