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Mike Wise wrote:
>"...R/O will waste a lot of water unless you get a professional pressurized >R/O unit, and you'll go through a lot of expensive membranes in the process. >Same goes for ion exchange resins (expensive)." While I do agree that ion exchange resins would be horribly
expensive in this case, I do
not agree when it is said that with a Reverse Osmosis unit
"you'll go through a lot of
expensive membranes". I purchased a Kent Marine R/O unit
(certainly not the top
of the line), and the rating for the membrane is 3-5 years or
up to 25,000 gallons. While
I realize that with water that hard, it would be less, you'd
still get a good 1.5 years at
absolute least out of a membrane. If you do
routine carbon and micron prefilter replacement
(these are rather cheap) and most of all, flush your unit
weekly (unscrew the flow restrictor
or buy a flush kit), you would greatly extend the life of the
membrane even further. I have
my unit on an extremely hard water line with a pH of 8.2...
and the unit is producing water
that meters at 2 degrees gH and 3.5-4 degrees kH. Using a
digital pH meter the water reads
out at around 5.9 (but I don't know how accurate this is with
such pure water). It has been
going for a year now with only one carbon and sediment
prefilter replacement (combined
total of $17). New membranes for my unit are less than $70. If
this person wants to keep
apistos, I see no reason to pass up a Reverse Osmosis
unit.
Also, figures like yours don't register well. Normally it
would be very hard to find water with
such a low kH and pH, but still having a HUGE gH. Perhaps your
testing went arye? I find it
hard to believe. I live in limey Minnesota and run off of a
community well, and my gH is at
around 26 degrees. Figures like yours just don't seem
right.
Good luck!
-- Derek Wingert
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