Rain water barrel transfer

[UncleAlbert]

What's the easiest way to get water out of my rain water barrel and through my RO + DI filter

In order to create pure ?

 

[Smurf]

I've tried a submisersible pump connected to a 300 gpd RO that did not work as you need good tap pressure of 40 + psi and a high volume of water so the ro can work efficently. However using a decent submersible pump with inline filters acttached connected to di tanks will produce pure from havested rainwater. Downside to that if the harvested rainwater tds is high which mine is normally about 045 ppm then will cost more in resin than I would use just using an RO connected to a tap.

 

[RiceRocket]

You could just put the rainwater through the DI vessel, ideally you'd need the barrel to be higher than the DI & a strainer in the hose in between. Although it's only worth doing this for 25L drums filling.

 

[Smurf]

Not tried that myself but maybe the di tank needs to be higher than the 25ltr drum too to work properly if the water is only gravity fed.

 

[Dodger]

I use a shurflo 16psi pump full speed its just right to go through di mate.

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[Dodger]

Oh and 45 ppm smurf you need to clean your roof mate. My 2 butts this week ones full at 4ppm other is 3ppm.

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[Smurf]

Well my gutters need cleaning too @Dodger /emoticons/biggrin.png

I did a little experiment just now on a head of harvested rainwater water being approx 600 ltrs in a 1000 ltr ibc with a ppm of 12. The tank is sat on the ground so just to have a play I connected via the bottom tap a hose with a sediment filter, carbon block filter & a 10 inch di canister which also was sat on the ground. Flow rate was good through the pre filters but when I fiited the di canister the water flow was reduced to a trickle. It took approx 7 mins to make 1/2 litre of pure so not brilliant but in priciple if the holding tank was higher than the filters & di tank also the outlet of the di tank is below the holding tank outlet you can make pure without the need for an electric pump. However the 25 ltr barrels of water you want to fill will also need to be lower than the outlet of the di or will take forever to fill.

 

[Smurf]

My second experiment just now was using the same prefilters & 10 inch di canister but this time powered by a submersible pump that took 27 seconds to produce 1/2 ltr of 000 ppm pure. /emoticons/biggrin.png

 

[Smurf]

If using a sub pump and inline prefilters don't use a 10 inch di canister as the resin won't last long. Instead use one even better two di tanks also maybe best to add a flow valve before the twin di tanks so you can adjust the flow rate if need be.

 

[UncleAlbert]

All sounds expensive to me :sad:

 

[Smurf]

You need to invest in kit that will make you loads of dosh.

1000 litre ibc's you can pick up for about £30 that I use for holding tanks.

A decent submersible pump costs about £50 but you can get them cheaper. I've tied an old bit of fine weave net curtain around it to act as a filter to help stop crud in the bottom of the rainwater holding tanks being sucked into the 5 micron sediment filter.

You could also use a bilge pump that you can get on fleebay for about £15.00 but is a 12 volt pump so will need a leisure battery to run it which is not cheap.

10 inch filter housing & 5 micron sediment filters are also cheap to buy.

Some 1/2 in hose and hozelock connectors are cheap also

11ltr di tanks you can either by new or used from fleebay for about £30 each or whatever size you want.

A 25ltr bag of Tulsion mb-115 di resin will set you back about £80

So yes it all soon mounts up but that is the best way I've found to produce pure relatively quickly from rainwater.

After saying that now I can't be arsed with rainwater harvesting as I'm not on a water meter so use tap water & RO instead.

 

[Tuffers]

I can't work out if you harvest rain water or not @Smurf from reading this thread.

 

[Smurf]

I use too harvest rainwater in a big way @Tuffers but now just use an RO as is less faffing around.

 

[Tuffers]

Thought you did. You had tanks under the lawn?

 

[Smurf]

I'm way too tight to be spending thousands on below ground tanks @Tuffers /emoticons/biggrin.png

 

[Dodger]

To store it yes you're gonna need tanks ibc will do but you'll need to store a lot. Rest is cheaper than it sounds. Cheap garden hose low psi pump 12v transformer if its 12v pump used 5l di vessel and 5l of resin 40-50 quid tops. I run my pump from a leisure battery with no. Controller is its only 16psi but a transformer would power it. 25l 000ppm from 3-4 ppm rain in approx 3-4 minutes. Job done.

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[spruce]

I can't work out if you harvest rain water or not @Smurf from reading this thread.

Rainwater harvesting is great if you live in an area where you get rain frequently, ie. Wales. If you are using it to supplement your existing supply to reduce water costs (on a meter) then you can ride out the dry spells by using your r/o. I personally thought that we needed to invest in a number of IBC tanks to keep us going so I disgarded the idea due to storage.

I also couldn't be bothered with the time needed to maintain the system. I spend enough time at the end of the day filling the tank, charging batteries, doing maintainence repairs on equipment already without adding more to the list.

At the moment the r/o is 'plug and play' so that's one less thing to worry about. If I was on a water meter, then I may have to reconsider and look into this a bit more.

Rain water comes off the garage roof at a tds of 2 or 3 with clean gutters. (The roof is flat and has been painted silver.) Water off the main house roof with old concrete tiles is around 35 ppm. So I would only be interested in using water from the garage roof, but there's a lot less of it.

 

[UncleAlbert]

lots of good information - cheers all /emoticons/smile.png