Welcome to the UK Window Cleaning Forums

Starting or own a window cleaning business? We're a network of window cleaners sharing advice, tips & experience. Rounds for sale & more. Join us today!

Confused.com !

patrick

Member
Messages
56
As ive posted before im trying to decide what system to buy, im after a 350l one but im getting very confused at the different systems out there. The prices seem to vary so much, im a great believer in you pay for what you get but i havent got a massive amount of funds. Also some have Di vesels others have osmosis systems and i have no idea why. Can anyone offer some advice please

 
Ideally you'll just want to carry round pure water in your van tank to free up space for other equipment so do you have space (say 2/3 square metres) at home for a water purification device & a storage tank(not essential but easier)?

Regarding Reverse Osmosis & DI systems that depends on the PPM of your tap water which you determine with a TDS meter or check the Parts Per Million Map at bottom of the forum for a genera idea, let us know for recommended next step.

 
Im in manchester so its soft water if that helps, ive no inside space at home, small terrace with no garage. A shed could be bought though

 
We seem to have no WFP members in Manchester based on PPM Map but it looks like you're in a favourable area so I reckon you won't need to worry about RO systems but you should get a TDS meter (about £10-15 available from WC suppliers or eBay) to confirm a reading.

Hopefully it'll be around 125 at most so you can go down a Twin DI route so equipment wise you'll basically for home need a DI vessel (up to 25L, bigger the better to save on long term cost in resin) with bag of resin, garden hose for from tap to DI then either 1) long enough garden hose to reach your van from where DI vessel will be placed [this way your van tank will take 1-2hrs to fill] or 2) storage tank usually a 1000L IBC, electric submersible pump & suitably sized length of hose to reach van [this way your van tank will take up to 30mins to fill, depends on sub pump quality & hose's length] About a month or so later you buy another DI with resin to install after first DI.

For van you just need the tank (upright recommended) & either ratchet straps or metal frame bolted to van to secure it, 85-110amp battery with split charge relay, 80-100psi pump, pump controller, hose reel with up to 100m of 6/8mm hose, there's also some little pieces like connectors/tubing, pole.

The home kit you can buy cheapest yourself & set up, the van kit you can either buy it all from a WC supplier that also do van setups or buy yourself cheapest around & take to a fitter

 
Last edited by a moderator:
This will expand on RiceRockets reply. He got there before I did.

Before you make any system decisions you need to know what the TDS of your tap water is. Soft water isn't good enough to make a decision on.

So your first purchase is a genuine TDS meter off one of the recognized WFP suppliers.

The general consensus on the forums is that a TDS of under 70ppm is di vessel only, especially if you have a water meter. In this situation you will only be using resin to wash the impurities out of the water.

If you have anything up to about 115 ppm then a Reverse Osmosis filter would be a consideration if you aren't on a water meter. This is because it will cost quite a bit in resin to purify water of the TDS. (The higher your tap TDS the more resin you will use to purify it.) So one way of reducing the cost of the system is to give you a smaller di vessel which is false economy.

But……….

if you are on a water meter then you need to weigh up the cost of running your r/o against the cost of the extra resin you will use. An r/o uses a process of osmosis filtration to remove the majority of dissolved solids in the water. To do this some r/o waste more water in the process than others. A common r/o will ‘waste’ 3 litres of water to produce 1 litre of pure. If you are on a water meter this litre of pure has cost you 4 litres. The process is also slow, so this is why we process water into an IBC tank, usually when we are out working and process that water into our van tank when needed.

And…………..

an r/o isn’t 100% efficient at removing all the dissolved solids from the water. (Most r/o’s have an efficiency of between 94% and 99% depending on water pressure and water temperature.) So in our case the r/o’s pure gets put through a di vessel to ‘polish’ off the remaining dissolved solids. (What we are saying here is that at 115 ppm it still may be more cost effective to process water through di only especially if the extra water you use is going to cost more than the extra resin you will use.

And…………

convenience of a system over another is something else that also plays a relevant part in your decision making process. It might be just easier and less hassle to process water directly into your van through a di vessel for example.

Some suppliers will also supply you with a cheap fiberglass pole and horrible brush. Better to spend more once and buy a good carbon fiber pole.

Most will supply a good make of water pump and a good controller, but you still need to be aware that there are cheap alternatives available that won’t last as long.

Back to r/o’s. I have seen suppliers selling a system with a 50GPD r/o system. This will never supply you with enough water to clean windows with. The minimum you need IMHO is a 300GPD unit as a single operator, but it costs more and there are many who can’t resist buying on price.

Edited: IMHO any thing above 125 ppm is in r/o territory as the resin costs would be higher than the extra water used if you are on a water meter. Our tap tds is 115ppm and we use an r/o. We aren't on a water meter so using an r/o makes sense in our case.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Patrick, i'm in burnley so probably same water tds, i used 1 di for a bit, then 2 di,s for a year but found in the long run and just for peace of mind ro is better. The way i looked at it was how long a bag of resin lasts versus the outlay of ro

Last year i did 3 bags of resin equalling £210 ish using twin 9 ltr di's so if you include buying another di more like £300

i got my ro set up for £350 all in. But here comes the main point that i was after,.......

If i didnt upgrade to ro it would cost me another £210 this year and next year and the year after etc etc whereas hopefully because of our soft water the ro membrane should last years and years and years, and when the membrane is goosed i think they are £250, the sediment and carbon filters are relatively cheap and again last a good while

But the other thing is it saves me loads of messing about and time.......

I leave my ro on overnight which gives me 1000 ltrs it then takes just 4 minutes to fill my 350 ltr tank instead of hours and going to check it every half an hour or so.

 
patrick im in stockport which is pretty much manchester! and im getting 70-75 ppm here.

my plan is to use di only as i dotn want to have a holding tank to do ro and cant leave a pipe runing to van outside for hours !

 
yeah im currently building a system at the moment and have two 11 litre di's to go, i know some guys dont like carrying round the bottles and prefer to filter it as it goes in to the van tank but the way i see it is what happens if im out and about and run out of water then need to top up and left the di at home, im screwed!

you need to get yourself a tds meter first though pal as i know a few window cleaners around manchester and the tds seems to vary but none that i know are much higher than 100ish and i think people tend to say anything over 90ish you should ro as you will use more resin but i cant comment on that as im still building?

also i suppose if your only going to use 300 litres a week thats nothing so you wont go through resin that quick!

 
i'll be honest pal the hardest bit is working out what hose connections you need lol.

work out what tanks best for you, then pump generally most go for shurflow or flowjet, then controller is either analog or digital,you will find that most of them look the same but with a different companys sticker on, theyre the spring ones and ive not seen many complain about these?

then theres your filtering in the middle somewhere ro or di your choice but read up pros and cons.

and then power, you need a lesiure battery with a split charge relay and finally hose to pole.

now thats me putting it simple but you'll soon see whats hot and not on here and elsewhere, good luck pal!

 
Thanks. So am i right in saying with an ro system the water gets purified as it entering the tank and with a di system when its leaving the tank ?

 

Latest Posts

Back
Top