price of water comparisons

Just got a spotless depot in Littlehampton.

They charge 3p a litre plus vat, that's 3.6p a litre.

I've been looking at the southern water web site to try and compare prices, bloody awkward to understand!!

Bearing in mind it takes me 3 litres in to get a pure litre out ( two go to waste) and the cost of filters and membranes, do any of you geniuses think it's cheaper to buy from spotless or should I keep on making my own?

I've got a 1000lt ibc and 450gpd system in my garage at the moment if that helps your decision.

1 cubic meter (1000) litres from spotless will cost you £36. I'm with southern water and reckon it costs a max of £6 for the same amount that's including the service charge filters & resin. What water you use is tax deductible. Just fit a simple meter before your ro to get this. If your water pressure is good maybe invest in a better ro like a 40/40 or 4021. These will produce water a lot quicker. With a mains pressure of 60psi I run my 4021 at a ratio of 50% pure 50% waste. Water tds is 170 ppm and after ro its 4/5 ppm.


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I have a tap reading of 68ppm and was wondering if a RO system would reduce it down to zero?

scottish cleaning service said:

I have a tap reading of 68ppm and was wondering if a RO system would reduce it down to zero?

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Probably about 1 or 2ppm with good membranes. But that's fine to clean with.

Where I live, if I buy it, it costs £3.50 per 100 litres, so 3.5 pence per litre. I sat down and worked out my costings a while ago and to me then, it worked out at half the price to make it myself. This is taking in to account resin, prefilters, membranes, water bills and all that jazz. But, buying it is a lot less hassle. And where I can buy it from it is kept in a lock-up and is heated all winter so none of the hassle of trying to decanter frozen water.

I make my own pure but do sometimes toy with the idea of just buying it in. I use about 300-350 litres per day so its going to cost a fair whack over the course of a month. But £10-12 per day if you're pulling in £180ish per day isn't so bad...... Decisions ? 

The biggest cost you have is resin. Currently i have an input TDS of nearly 400 which gives me an output of just over 20. That will burn through a bag of resin in around 3/4 months. I use double DI and i'm not on a water meter. To be able to answer properly we would need to know what TDS your RO is giving you and what your input TDS is and if you're on a meter or not.

RO is the way to go if you are not on a meter, I guess. Don't need to pay for the waste water. Why doesn't a group of windies in an area not chip together and buy a RO that they can all use?

P4dstar said:

The biggest cost you have is resin. Currently i have an input TDS of nearly 400 which gives me an output of just over 20. That will burn through a bag of resin in around 3/4 months. I use double DI and i'm not on a water meter. To be able to answer properly we would need to know what TDS your RO is giving you and what your input TDS is and if you're on a meter or not.

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Hey bud, i thought you'd get the output after ro lower than 20. I get down to 12 off tap of 530, then your resin would last longer. A reason i would consider buying it in if we had one local is the time factor faffing about with it. I know you can go and leave it, but for me at the mo just doing 300 litres a week part time, seems like if I bought it in would save bother. Probably be different if was a larger user.

ks789 said:

Hey bud, i thought you'd get the output after ro lower than 20. I get down to 12 off tap of 530, then your resin would last longer. A reason i would consider buying it in if we had one local is the time factor faffing about with it. I know you can go and leave it, but for me at the mo just doing 300 litres a week part time, seems like if I bought it in would save bother. Probably be different if was a larger user.

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I only get 30PSI through the RO. I've considered a booster pump but to be honest sometimes it drops to less than 150 and I get an output of 6/7. I'm sort of waiting for things to settle down with it as it keeps changing basically hour by hour.

wow yeh thats a big contrast, 6/7 is great. when my work increases im def gonna go into rain harvesting too. I get 3 waste to 1 pure which aint a big deal now, but may be later. i know this new age travellers site near us ( well, they dont travel far nowdays, just sit on their site and get smashed) and was gonna use their site to put up a big load of plastic sheeting to collect masses of rain, trouble is they may bath in it and then it would be totally contaminated  :1f910:

For anyone interested in rainwater harvesting I have been told by a friend down Southampton way (he's way more invested in numbers and stats than I am)  that the total amount of rainwater you could harvest from a 3 bed semi is 88'000 litres per year.  

That would cover about a quarter of our usage so definitely worth some further consideration. 

This is good news, I anticipate only ever using a max of around 700 litres a week. Obviously I'd need to keep enough holding tanks to cover dry spells, and then eventually do away with either di or ro. Not sure which would be best on that front. around 18 say for the rain tds, but putting it through ro not sure if there would be much waste?

ks789 said:

This is good news, I anticipate only ever using a max of around 700 litres a week. Obviously I'd need to keep enough holding tanks to cover dry spells, and then eventually do away with either di or ro. Not sure which would be best on that front. around 18 say for the rain tds, but putting it through ro not sure if there would be much waste?

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If I could get input TDS to 20 or less by harvesting I would then simply run it through 2 x 25 litre DI vessels as this would last an eternity.  

Green Pro Clean Ltd said:

If I could get input TDS to 20 or less by harvesting I would then simply run it through 2 x 25 litre DI vessels as this would last an eternity.  

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Like it, thats the option for me I reckon.

I saw someone on here once put out the idea of putting a bag of resin in the final down pipe to bring it down to 0TDS.

Anyone got any ideas of what damage moss would do to the TDS?


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yeh is an option ive heard, but I think someone else had suggested putting like some tights on the end of the downpipe from gutters to collect bits of debris etc, then clean/change it every so often. Also keep the gutters and roof fairly clean.

I'm sure watching Bear Grylls or Ray Mears or one of them survival bods that you should squeeze water from moss as it helps remove the particulates. 

P4dstar said:

I saw someone on here once put out the idea of putting a bag of resin in the final down pipe to bring it down to 0TDS.

Anyone got any ideas of what damage moss would do to the TDS?


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Sorry to 'poo poo' your suggestion but if you pack a downpipe with resin, then when we get a decent downpour the water will build too quickly on the top as it wont have time to filter through and it will just overflow loosing much valuable water.  May be OK in a drizzle but that would be about it I would think 

Green Pro Clean Ltd said:

For anyone interested in rainwater harvesting I have been told by a friend down Southampton way (he's way more invested in numbers and stats than I am)  that the total amount of rainwater you could harvest from a 3 bed semi is 88'000 litres per year.  

That would cover about a quarter of our usage so definitely worth some further consideration. 

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Yeh my friends dad (here in Bournemouth) also Harvests rain. He’s been doing Wfp for 15+yrs, so don’t think he does 5 full days a week now, just 3-4 days. But I remember him saying he gets at least 90% of his annual water from rain harvesting. Think he had 3 or 4 1000L tank around his down pipes. Then just straight through the D.I.

If I was on a metre that’s what I would do. 

Unless you use very little water it will always be way more cheaper and more convenient to make your own.

Spottless may get resin cheaper as they probably buy pallets of it but they will incur the same cost for filters, resin etc just the same as you and I would.They will also have to pay rent and wages as well as make a profit for the business spotless aren't selling water for fun.

I'm on a meter with hard water around 380-400 I use a 4040 with booster and use between 400-600 litres a day and the cost are still minimal.

Green Pro Clean Ltd said:

Sorry to 'poo poo' your suggestion but if you pack a downpipe with resin, then when we get a decent downpour the water will build too quickly on the top as it wont have time to filter through and it will just overflow loosing much valuable water.  May be OK in a drizzle but that would be about it I would think 

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I thought it might have been your idea, I'm sure I saw it on here. Can't see it was the other forum, I'm not even a member on there. I think the idea was to pack some stockings with resin and pop them in the top of the downpipe. It would be an interesting experiment but I think you would be right.