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Fao Spruce 4040 ro on low water pressure

johnny bravo

Well-known member
Messages
2,754
Location
teesside
Hi Buddy

I once asked advice on getting a 4040 ro,      I remember you saying with my water pressure 23 psi    1.5 bar        you said my pressure was too low,   a Booster pump would find it hard to get the flow as its too low

I messaged vyair regarding a good booster  pump for my 450 Ro.    

Regarding a 4040 Ro  they sent me this [SIZE=11pt]https://www.vyair.com/continuous-operation-4040-reverse-osmosis.html[/SIZE]

telling me this would be fine with a booster pump with my low pressure

You also mentioned during the live chat session (with my colleague) that you were interested in a 4040 system.

We do have a pumped 4040 RO system that would operate at your incoming water pressure.

[SIZE=11pt]Please view the link below to this on our website:[/SIZE]

This seems a high price for a 4040 Ro         What is the difference with this 

@ a £1000+      and the likes  from daqua  for around £500  + booster pump

is it possible  to get a 4040 setup on water pressure as low as mine with a heavy duty  booster pump for a 4040

 
Hi Buddy

I once asked advice on getting a 4040 ro,      I remember you saying with my water pressure 23 psi    1.5 bar        you said my pressure was too low,   a Booster pump would find it hard to get the flow as its too low

I messaged vyair regarding a good booster  pump for my 450 Ro.    

Regarding a 4040 Ro  they sent me this [SIZE=11pt]https://www.vyair.com/continuous-operation-4040-reverse-osmosis.html[/SIZE]

telling me this would be fine with a booster pump with my low pressure

You also mentioned during the live chat session (with my colleague) that you were interested in a 4040 system.

We do have a pumped 4040 RO system that would operate at your incoming water pressure.

[SIZE=11pt]Please view the link below to this on our website:[/SIZE]

This seems a high price for a 4040 Ro         What is the difference with this 

@ a £1000+      and the likes  from daqua  for around £500  + booster pump

is it possible  to get a 4040 setup on water pressure as low as mine with a heavy duty  booster pump for a 4040


Hi Johnny,

There are a number of criteria you need to consider before looking at a 4040.

1. Water pressure.

2, How much water your tap delivers when fully open?

3. Where you are going to house the 4040 system and booster pump.

4. How you are going to control the system? Electrical power point for booster pump and controller.

5. Where you are going to store the water you are producing.

6. Booster pump noise levels.

At your low water pressure you will need a booster pump which you accept.

You need to find out exactly how much 'free' water your tap is delivering. I believe it was Gardiners who advised that you need a free flow of around 9 liters per minute from your tap minimum. (I'm sure @doug atkinsonwill be able to enlighten you more on the exact figure as he deals with this sort of thing regularily.) Vyair state in their specs that with their boosted system you can expect  in excess of 3lpm of pure. If your setup was producing 3lpm of pure and you have a pure to waste ratio of 45% pure to 55% waste your waste element will be 3.6 lpm and your tap will need to supply 6.6 lpm of water. If your r/o produced 4lpm of pure with the same ratio the your waste element will be 4.8lpm and your tap will need to supply 8.9lpm of water. This is theoretical but it gives you a direction. If your tap is only delivering 5lpm then you have a problem. Water authority rules now start to come into play, as you are only allowed to draw 12lpm of water (from memory) from a mains supply, hence why these Salamander shower pumps don't boost water pressure by much.

If your tap delivers 9lpm of water and your r/o is using 8.9lpm then there is no water left for the household to use whilst you are producing water. If you decide to produce water overnight into an IBC tank or directly into your van's tank, then what about noise and the neighbours?

 If you went for Vyairs system then where would you house it? Your current setup is taking up space on a kitchen counter top. You also have a front covered outhouse/coalshed if memory serves me. Would you use that? Or would use fit the whole system into your van and process water directly into that? If memory again serves me, I think you once did mention that an IBC tank wouldn't fit in that space as it was rather narrow. Producing water into 2 water butts as you do now isn't an ideal solution for a fast water producing r/o.

How would you control this? Vyair haven't included a controller that will allow you to automatically switch the system off when the storage tank is full. Their booster pump is manually operated. You have to switch the pump off yourself.

Gardiner's solution when they sold this was to supply a booster pump with an electronic flow controller that automatically cut the booster pump off  when the water flow was stopped. They also supplied an automatic shutoff kit with a float switch and solenoid valve to cut the water flow. Machine Mart also sell a booster pump with one of these electronic controllers. You can get them cheaper elsewhere. (In the days gone by, the Machine Mart pump was the only option to 4040 users who wanted to boost water pressure.)

Could you consider a 4021 which uses half the water or have you considered double di? (I know that doudle di is an expensive alternative at 150ppm tap water, but a new r/o system will all the bells and whistles is also a costly investment. Can you buy water in?

On a side note, what does Vyair mean when they supply a commercial grade 4040 reverse osmosis membrane?

 
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@johnny bravo tagging @spruce maybe better otherwise he may miss this post


 ? Always good to tag me. I'm usually on this section but not elsewhere on the forum. I did see @johnny bravo's post last night but was involved answering the Boxer tank fitting problem so didn't have time.

We still collect on a Friday evening as most windies do in our area. We haven't collected for 3 weeks so got in quite late last night as we had a fair lot to get in. Fridays are usually a busy day.

 
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Thankyou Spruce,    im hoping to buy a bit of spare land around my front     then I will add a 1000 ltr water tank beside outhouse and get a setup plumbed in there.    otherwise its still in house      I contacted northumbrian water hoping they could turn it uo,      but that's a no no,   its the normal pressure around here  1.5 bar.        im  ok atm   but 450 ro needs to be on nearly every day to  keep my water  levels ok for work.    ill look into a 4021 on daqua site,  see what they suggest.

I remember you saying you cant  boost the water if its not there,  cause damage somewhere .

thanks for advise   always appreciate them

might get another booster pump and ro      to use alternatively after each other 

 
Ive got the 4021 from daqua and its great. needed the booster pump though but that will pay for itself. With that, gets the pressure up to 110 psi and get easy 2 litres a minute and say 60 waste to 40 pure. So glad got the booster though, makes all the difference in my case.

 
ill contact them on Monday to see what he says regarding my low water pressure from nap outlet   to see if a booster pump will get it up to psi needed.      is the booster pump loud.     atm  im using a purefreedom aquatic 8800 booster pump and its noise is fine.,  if he asures me it will be ok    ill get one ordered

 
Thankyou Spruce,    im hoping to buy a bit of spare land around my front     then I will add a 1000 ltr water tank beside outhouse and get a setup plumbed in there.    otherwise its still in house      I contacted northumbrian water hoping they could turn it uo,      but that's a no no,   its the normal pressure around here  1.5 bar.        im  ok atm   but 450 ro needs to be on nearly every day to  keep my water  levels ok for work.    ill look into a 4021 on daqua site,  see what they suggest.

I remember you saying you cant  boost the water if its not there,  cause damage somewhere .

thanks for advise   always appreciate them

might get another booster pump and ro      to use alternatively after each other 


The trouble is Johnny that you have one of these very boarder line cases where you don't actually have enough water available to run a big r/o system if you just have a trickle of water from your tap.

I guessing most of the genuine suppliers won't want to make too many promises that the equipment you want will actually deliver what you expect. Yes, there are others who will tell you anything to sell you something. Once you have it they don't want to know.

Northumbrian water seem to have a script that the telephone operator reads from to answer a question. If you ask a question or report a problem the answer will always be that the service they provide is within the water authority guidelines even if it isn't. They are very good at blocking a conversation from developing into a query they have to deal with.

I've had a look on South West Waters website and they provide some interesting facts about minimum water supply and Ofwat.

We have a statutory requirement to supply water by gravity continuously for domestic purposes at a pressure that will; ‘reach the top of the top-most storey of every building’ (Water Industry Act 1991 Section 65)

We also have service standards which are agreed with Ofwat that require a minimum supply pressure of 7 metres head (approximately 10 psi or 0.7 bar) , measured at the point where our communication pipe joins your supply pipe. You should be able to fill a 2 litre bottle in less than approximately 13 seconds.  

We try to improve on this and provide at least 10 metres head (approximately 14 psi or 1.0 bar) at the end of our communication pipes

This indicates to me that the Ofwat standard is 9 liters of water per minute at 10psi. So at 23 psi you should get more. You have never stated what your lpm of water is from your tap as far as I can remember, but if you get less than what I think this is saying then you may have a case against Northumbrian water not meeting standards to your house. Yes, your water pressure does exceed that minimum but if they aren't delivering the volume then they have to be specifically told to sort the problem with a threat to involve Ofwat.

But also tread carefully if you aren't on a water meter because they might try to force this if you complain that you can't process enough water through your r/o for your business.

See OFWATS  advice for low water pressure

https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/households/supply-and-standards/water-pressure/

 
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the chap actually came out and tested my pressure   saying this was the allocated pressure in bar in my area.  if I annoy them they may  get nosy and wonder why I need more pressure,ill see how many litres a minute tomorrow from tap on full

 
the chap actually came out and tested my pressure   saying this was the allocated pressure in bar in my area.  if I annoy them they may  get nosy and wonder why I need more pressure,ill see how many litres a minute tomorrow from tap on full
I see Ofwat doesn't specify a volume requirement, but clear pipes at 10 psi should give you 9lpm of water if i read into South East's Water's manifesto correctly. The pressure can be there but if the orifice is tiny for the water to get through then the flow isn't going to be there. Flow and pressure aren't the same but flow does rely on pressure at the end of the scale we are concerned about.

 
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