Tds 535

[ks789]

Hi all

first post on here, did trad many years ago, ladder slid, hospitalised, metal plate in wrist and so left the job as lost my nerve up ladders. Now ive decided to try it again with wfp upstairs, trad down, for starters at least.  Got fed up of dead end monotonous jobs you see. Anyway, from what ive read its sure I will need RO and di.  my tester came down from daqua today and first reading was 225 then 3 other readings  around 535!!! Id filled a jug with tap water, making sure it was clean and followed the instructions. I live near Ipswich and I had heard we had the worst tds going, but it seemed a bit of a jump from 225 to 535. It certainly tastes ok , but I know that is irrelevant. Id heard that as well as a RO and di, round here we really need a standard water softener going first. Any advice greatly appreciated. Also, after much looking and  reading what people say, I thought for my smallish scale cleaning a PRF RO from gardiners, and is it 1 or 2 10 inch di? Maximum I dont think Id need more than 350 litres a day, just got car at mo but will be getting van etc, long ol process lol.

 

[Part Timer]

Sounds very high to me, Cambridge area runs around 410ppm, run the tap for 30 seconds and then take a few samples whilst it's running.

 

[Nudel]

You could consider collection rain water. Or maybe you can buy water nearby and spend money on the van equipment instead of the stationary, then setup a proper RO system down the road.

 

[ks789]

Yeh mate, just tried it. omg what've I been drinking all this time lol. but seriously i'd been told  someone round here had heard it from an anglian water bod that this is the hardest water in the country. No wonder loads of people have gallstones out round here, think I'll start drinking evian or buxtons spring water.

 

[ks789]

You could consider collection rain water. Or maybe you can buy water nearby and spend money on the van equipment instead of the stationary, then setup a proper RO system down the road.

yes that is an idea, I think it can be sorted. cheap water softener, then Ro then Di. Be worth it in the end.

 

[spruce]

Personally I would head off in the 4021 direction rather than the old Merlin predecessor. The PRF is not renowned for its efficiency  although it appears to be better than the old Merlin was. It was designed as an under counter r/o in American Kitchens. It didn't need to be efficient.

In window cleaning we need the r/o to remove as much tds from the water as possible. The higher the tds is in the pure produced, the more resin you will need to polish it off, especially with a high tds you have.

My mates Merlin runs at about a 90% efficiency where my 4040 runs at 98% on the same water supply with the same pressure.

You are going to use a lot of resin removing 53ppm of tds from the tap water where a better r/o will leave about 11ppm to be remove with resin.

Last time we checked Hartlepool was 550ppm and that's a nightmare for window cleaners.

 

[ks789]

yes will look into that more. Wanna get it right so would make sense rather than having to adjust later.  will check out 4040 and 4021. Will be a great feeling to finally get that liquid gold. Is a bit awkward to buy ready pure as nearest place I found is over 20 miles away on country roads. Is handy to be able to get these good opinions, much appreciated.

 

[spruce]

yes will look into that more. Wanna get it right so would make sense rather than having to adjust later.  will check out 4040 and 4021. Will be a great feeling to finally get that liquid gold. Is a bit awkward to buy ready pure as nearest place I found is over 20 miles away on country roads. Is handy to be able to get these good opinions, much appreciated.

A decent regenerative water softener isn't cheap either, but the heavy calcium and magnesium ions in the water are removed and replaced with sodium ions.

The water softener will not bring the tds down but sodium ions are kinder to membranes than those metal ions are.

 

[steve garwood]

535!!! Nothing to do with my r.o set up, but we had a kinetico water softener put in our house and the guy who fitted it said that the only water with a higher tds in the country than ours (Thames water) was the east of England, which tallies up with what your saying 

 

[lbcleaningservices]

Im in norwich area and tap reading is about 350 ish
I have a ro 4040 unit takes it down to about 22 ppm then a 7 litre di works fine [emoji3]

Sent using the Window Cleaning Forums mobile app

 

[Jon Grainger]

Hi mate, just a few miles north of you in Norwich. I have the same kind of TDS reading. I use the RO from SoapNational (also based close to you so you can collect) the 300GPD system with the DI vessel. I think it's priced around the £200 mark. From what I've heard the Gardiner system doesn't have a flush (not my experience but another friend who is a window cleaner in Diss) so he was changing the membrane every few months. 

With the DI to polish the water it's going into the IBC Tank at 1-2PPM. I also use a cheap booster pump as my water pressure is awful, just helps me make a little more.