How to Build Drinking Water RO System For Self/Home

If you have an existing system, just use it as your pattern and source the parts from Ryan-Herco or Harrington or whoever.

Do some research on the web. Googling RO systems gives one much information about systems and sources.

It's not rocket science.

Just ran across this from www.freedrinkingwater.com.

Depending on your needs RO may be overkill.

Distillation Ion Exchange Carbon Adsorption Filtration Ultrafiltration Reverse Osmosis Ultraviolet (UV) Radiation Pulling It All Together

This gives a good overview of the various filtration types.

If you do build one for yourself, please note the costs of the filters. "We" have a 5 micron & a submicron filter set... They're failry expensive to change out.

Unless the drinking water in your area is extremely hard, I wouldn't advice drinking RO water regularly. The extremely high purity of the water means that it will leach out vital minerals from your body. Having said that though, if you have extremely hard water in your area, you'll need to soften it first to prevent the calcium from destroying your membranes. You'll then need to pass the softened water through the RO system to remove the sodium chloride and then use the processed water to dilute your tap water to an acceptable level.

Hello Guruji,

thanks for the reply, i live in kenya & the water quality is not that good it's boring water/river water/lake water & at the end of the day it seems hard to drink & taste is also different & if you boil & then use it after filtering then also taste is a problem, so we used to buy the drinking water bottle available in the market which is costly & we spend approx. 900 to 1000 USd/Annum so i thought of going for RO system which i bought from india recently & it cost me approx. 100 USD just for your info. i understand the concern about using pure water consistantly & i agree as i have experienced my self that due to continuous drinking of bottled water whenever i went to india or other country & every time i used to have a loose motion due to change in water but we do not have choice rather then to go fo bottled or RO water, & due to calcium & NaCl etc. if the RO gets damaged then also its manageable due to the cost at what i am getting it. at the end once again thanks for your reply & your further suggestions are most welcome if any, regards,

proride.

Reverse osmosis systems can be built from parts purchased through supply houses or manufacturers. If you are planning to build many such systems then you will need to deal with these types of wholesalers or OEMs. If this is for your own personal use then you should find your supplier in India and discuss parts to build the unit with their sales people.

From your information you are getting ground water (bored water?) and surface water (river, lake). It was not clear if all these sources of water are from a single supply (municipal) or if the intent is to treat water anywhere (all sources) with a universal reverse osmosis. In your described circumstance I do believe a good water analysis is required before reverse osmosis is applied. Your taste and odour issues may be something that can be treated more effectively with alternative methods. Disinfection may be critical or lacking. Reverse osmosis on a single residence is intended as an end source polishing treatment. It is necessary or best available technology (BAT) in some waters with elevated mineral salts.

Before one can comment logically about your application as described, a good set of accredited lab analysis would be required on the untreated water. As your source water is variable, it may mean sampling many sources separately. In the analysis, you should consider bacterial (total coliform, fecal coliform, E. coli, Heterotrophic bacteria), chemical ( major ions, metals, pH, colour, turbidity, alkalinity), some organic chemistry and nutrients such as total organic carbon, Kjeldhal nitrogen, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, total phosphorous. Other essential parameters may be provided by the lab if they are familiar with the area.

Water treatment is often very complex but everyone thinks they have a single panacea recipe of treatment. I would urge you to get the best information about your source water before considering such activity. Cost effective treatment depends on good base information. I would recognize that there may be many problems with water treatment in Kenya and disinfection would be a priority if one must chose between taste and safety. You may be able to get good potable water without the use of reverse osmosis but better information is required.

Regards

hello Kevinm,

i understand & agree with you fully what you have referred, my idea was to build more such system to sell once i can use it successfully for myself, initially i was just comparing it with the bottled water i was consuming understanding that this RO could be a good alternative to the bottled water, but i think the quality of the source water is really very very important & needs to understand first as what are we getting from the municipality as described earlier they are combining all type of water sources as per availability in the country.

the reason for buying this RO was that i have seen plenty of people & families drinking the municipality water after basic house hold filtering & boiling so i thought that the basic water can not be that bad but it can be made perfect for drinking with this RO.

based on above do you still suggest i should go to some lab & get this water quality tested before installing this RO in my home??

thanks & regards,

I was not clear on the problem and was suggesting that the BAT should have been applied to the problem. Understanding the raw water quality is essential in treating any water supply. In your case, where water quality is from multiple sources, it will mean that the water quality will undergo frequent change (day to day, season to season). The city utility operator may already have documented results from many samplings and that should be used in your application. I am assuming they will share such information with the consumers.

There are chlorine specific membranes as well as membranes that require the removal of chlorine. If there are suspected periods of time without chlorination then you should select the membranes based on no chlorination. In which case, the RO unit should have a means of removing chlorine prior to the unit (activated carbon cartridges are often part of the pre-filtering process) . When you are getting mostly ground water from the bored wells, the water should be assumed to be hard (review of the test results may give you a better idea). Hardness as CaCO3 will cause RO membranes to tear by having the hardness crystals precipitate on the membranes. Once the membrane is breached by a tear it will not be effective in treating the water. Softeners are designed to remove calcium, magnesium, and many of the divalent metals like iron and manganese.

So before you apply RO, pre-treat the water with a softener as well as remove the chlorine. If you obtain the results of testing, I will try to help explain them and fine tune the recommendation as required. Your idea to use RO is a good idea and something that I would consider under your circumstance.

Good Luck and stay in touch.

Er... not exactly. Typical daily electrolyte requirement for adult human: sodium 120 mEq; potassium 100 mEq; calcium and magnesium 15 mEq each. Content of typical bottled water: sodium 1 mEq/l; potassium <1 mEq/l; calcium 2 mEq/l; magnesium 1 mEq/l. However much water you normally drink, its contribution to the daily electrolyte requirement is negligible. Distilled water tastes a bit odd, but even in the long term it will do you no harm.

Greetings. Some good points mentioned. If I read it correctly you would be using all of your 'bottle' filters, inlcluding the one odour and taste, prior to entering the RO unit. Chlorine and other contaminates may harm the RO membranes. There is no point in filtering the clean RO water effluent.

Again you might ask yourself why you need to go RO?

There are two types of membrane process used for desalination: reverse osmosis (RO) and electro dialysis (ED). In the RO process, water from a pressurized saline solution is separated from the dissolved salts by flowing through a water-permeable membrane. The permeate (the liquid flowing through the membrane) is encouraged to flow through the membrane by the pressure differential created between the pressurized feed water and the product water, which is at near-atmospheric pressure. The remaining feed water continues through the pressurized side of the reactor as brine. No heating or phase change takes place. The major energy requirement is for the initial pressurization of the feed water. Both domestic type and industrial types are available in the market. Membrane is the critical part in the system.

hi Proride

is there a way you can scan the assable manual pic of your RO and paste it your reply?

sure,

i can take a pic. & try n attach the same for undertsanding. give me a day or two.

Just an idea, which may not be quick enough, but have you thought about
distillation? Make a large still, possibly powered by magnified sunlight, to collect
distilled water, maybe in the ground or a water surrounded container?

I use an ultraviolet system, but the water is "drinkable" to start with, so that
would not be much help with your water, being the quality you say.

Any thoughts on distillation from the experts?

jt.

Hi Jt

can you brief us on how to construct the distillation and how is it powered by sunlight.

regards

bright

Proride, please get in touch with me privately so we can discuss this. I am at e-mail address mauricejoduor@yahoo.ca

GA Guest IF you're not selling something to proride though he seems to know enough to not be dooped. I'm hoping you have the same kind of good advice for proride you gave in "Why go after my husband" to Joyce, I'm positive about things like this and seen many other unrelated things in Africa end up coming out good because of the good people involved.

Sustainable water purification, small scale, is something that seems to be working for NGO's in West Africa where I do a lot of work but none is based on a still, solar or gas, that I've heard of. Don't know the details but looked like pumps, filters [bigger than RO], UV and/or chemical treatment. Hope you have the knowledge to help proride with this, I don't, and this is an issue that needs to be explored in the open on CR4 but whatever works now for proride.

Hello MasterBlaster,

is it possible to post the clear pic. of the system as the descriptions are not readable in the dia, pls.

thanks & regards

There are many different types of RO systems on the market including simple 12 VDC systems that can be run with a battery bank and solar panels and/or wind generators.

The marine industry produces many economical systems for small sailboats to expensive systems for mega yachts. This technology is easily adapted for land based applications and has. I installed one in a remote island house that was powered by batteries, panels and wind.

When the membranes are periodically chemically cleaned they can last many years.

As someone said earlier in this thread chlorine will damage the membrane so a clean source of unchlorinated water is needed for cleaning and system storage.

Hi bright.mcanyana,

Not really. My comment was only a suggestion. I am sure you can find far more
about it on line. It depends on the scale of your intended plant and all that entails.

Kenya was "hot" (I thought) and envisaged:

1) The water flowing through a collection of pipes or coils (of pipes) heated by
the sun, with the final pipe(s) or coil (of warm water) being possibly heated by
magnified sunlight into steam? This steam reverting to water in a condenser,
maybe much like the old whisky stills of the USA? Alternatively,

2) A large glass cylinder(s) or tube, the sun providing a "greenhouse" effect, and
containing absorbent material hanging down into a water trough at the base. The
vaporised water (by the sunlight heat) again condensed to provide distilled water?

Please accept these are just ideas. I have no formal knowledge of water treatment
and have no calculations to back them up. I was looking to help with a cheap and
cost effective way to obtain distilled water. The hygiene of it may be questionable.

jt.

Home-made solar distillers have been around for a long time. You are right about the hygiene of the water as these distillers do not actually achieve the boiling point. Pasteurization will likely be achieved but it will not be enough to kill all pathogens in some raw water. Some caution or disinfection should be applied before drinking the resulting product.

There is even a small solar distiller that can be made from 2-liter soda pop bottle (cut open) with a dark container placed inside. Very effective and cheap in a real survival pinch. I think your idea is with merit.

My opinion we hv to by RO from good company and tofix the AMC.IN LITTLE BIT WE SHOULD HV A KNOWLEDGE TO REMOVE THE fillter for replacement.Now RO company not giving prompt services, they drag coustemer to hv AMC .