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Pure water from rainwater

RealKidJoker

Active member
Messages
116
Hopefully I can pick a few brains with a situation I've got.

If I was wanting to collect rainwater using a 25l rainwater hub and transport 1 or 2 static 1000 litre IBC tanks, would it be better to have a DI vessel making the rainwater pure before it goes into the tanks or just gather the rainwater first and have the DI at the other end making pure water when needed?

Does anyone do anything like this at the moment? If so how is it going?

Cheers

 
I use to but don't bother anymore as I find it's less hassle just using a static ro/di filling up 1000 ltr ibc's with pure. Maybe if they make me have a water meter then I will probably start using it again.

The way I use to do it was to put a fine mesh filter made out of an old net curtain over the hub plastic filter to reduce the amount of crud going straight into the tank. Then when wanting to transfer water to the van the sub pump hose was connected to pre-filtters then a di to make pure.

 
Thanks Smurf.

The business is getting marketed as a "Green Company" hence the situation with the rainwater etc. With there being no water meter's up in Scotland I know it would just be easier getting it straight from the tap as the water is excellent quality anyway.

There's a lot of funding to be had for new small businesses, especially with green credentials, so hopefully something can come of it.

 
You could also use unger green rubber lol

Seriously it is a good selling point nowadays with all the eco warriors mentality

 
Thanks Smurf.
The business is getting marketed as a "Green Company" hence the situation with the rainwater etc. With there being no water meter's up in Scotland I know it would just be easier getting it straight from the tap as the water is excellent quality anyway.

There's a lot of funding to be had for new small businesses, especially with green credentials, so hopefully something can come of it.
We stayed in a cottage just outside Fort William a few years back. Water was direct from a mountain stream running next to the cottage off the hills. TDS of 25. They had a small box filter higher up the stream which they changed every couple of days to catch any muck. The water went through an ultraviolet light purifier and then directly to the tap.

For some reason, the soap lathered better with that water than 0 TDS from my r/o machine. Never could work that out.

There was once a post on another forum where a rain water harvester believe treated rainwater off his roof cleaned better than the water from his r/o via the tap - both 0 tds.

 
Interesting, this is what I am going to look into in the New Year. I really want to do this as much as possible. Ae there many videos out there or write ups on whats needed. The one thing that gets me is how do you get the rain water pumped in to the RO units etc....Going to have to read up on this as do not want to use to much water at home on the meter, will part buy in water from local supplier and part make my own, so even it out.

 
Have just started collecting rainwater off my shed. Set the guttering up & it goes straight into a 25ltr can. It goes from the down pipe into a hose you would use for collecting water for a water butt. On the end of this hose is a stocking to stop the **** going in and also a stocking at the start of the hose. I filled the hose with resin. It goes straight into the container at 000ppm of which I then w fit a lid on it with a tap & put it straight into my water butt or my backpack. Have cleaned windows with it & they came up brilliant.

 
I think you need to first find out if you can collect sufficient water from your collection area, ie roof.

The water that comes off our garage roof has a tds of between 3 and 8, depending on the cleanliness of the gutter.

The roof is a felt roof painted silver.

The house roof is concrete roof tiles but, being about 50 years old have deteriorated. So the water that comes off the house roof has a tds of around 30 ppm.

We live in the north east along the coast and although it seems damp we don't get enough water off the roof to use for window cleaning. According to my rain gauge, we have had 55mm in the past 2 months.

http://robinson-solutions.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/rain-water-harvesting-make-your-own-for.html

 
Interesting, this is what I am going to look into in the New Year. I really want to do this as much as possible. Ae there many videos out there or write ups on whats needed. The one thing that gets me is how do you get the rain water pumped in to the RO units etc....Going to have to read up on this as do not want to use to much water at home on the meter, will part buy in water from local supplier and part make my own, so even it out.
June from GAPs water once told another poster that an r/o system will not work on a low TDS water input. I don't understand that, but that's what the experts say.

Most who do rainwater harvesting just pump the water through a DI vessel only, using the resin to polish off the few impurities in the water. So you might consider pumping debris free harvested water from your collection tank, ie. IBC tank directly onto you van. Then pump the water from your tank through a DI vessel, then your hose reel to the brush. This way you are purifying water on demand.

This also has the advantage of processing the water slowly, ie, 1.5 to 2 LPM, so your resin is more likely to last longer as you are processing water more efficiently.

The negative is that you have to carry the di vessel with you on the van and you need to keep it frost free in winter.

 
I've been collecting rainwater for a couple months now, from a customers house. Tds varies between .07-.15. I only use a sediment filter to transfer water to van, then DI polish it on demand. I haven't changed resin for at least 3 months.

I got some black sheeting from wickes to cover the IBC tank, so it wouldn't become full of algae.

 

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