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Old 03-15-2022, 06:06 PM   #1
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Tankless RO System

Has anyone installed a tankless reverse osmosis system in their coach? We generally buy one gallon bottles of drinking water when we’re traveling in our RV. I don’t want to go with a standard RO unit with a tank because of the space it would take up. But, the tankless system might be a pretty good solution, especially if I can install it in one of my basement compartments rather than under the kitchen sink. It would be really nice to not have to lug around those gallon bottles of drinking water.

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Old 03-15-2022, 11:00 PM   #2
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Something like that?
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Old 03-15-2022, 11:30 PM   #3
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NO, that's not an RO system. it's a UV light purification system.
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Old 03-15-2022, 11:35 PM   #4
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Actually, that’s not what I had in mind. That product is a purifier and I was thinking of a reverse osmosis system. I gave one at home, but it has its own three gallon storage tank and takes up a lot of space. I saw recently that there are now tankless RO units available, and was wondering if anyone has installed on in a RV. Something like this:
Waterdrop RO Reverse Osmosis System
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08746M1NX...JQQT5N338E1CPC
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Old 03-15-2022, 11:47 PM   #5
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I grew up in a neighborhood where we all drank out of the nearest spigot/garden hose. Ive drunk water on the AT after putting drops in it that looked nasty as hell. I’ve lived 65 good years. RO system. Purified water in a plastic jug. Nope. I’ll drink what comes out of the tap and take my chances. I do sanitize my freshwater tank and water hose at start of each season. A small amount of bleach. WTH. I grew up across the river from Union Carbide’s chlorine plant.
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Old 03-16-2022, 12:26 AM   #6
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I grew up in a neighborhood where we all drank out of the nearest spigot/garden hose. Ive drunk water on the AT after putting drops in it that looked nasty as hell. I’ve lived 65 good years. RO system. Purified water in a plastic jug. Nope. I’ll drink what comes out of the tap and take my chances. I do sanitize my freshwater tank and water hose at start of each season. A small amount of bleach. WTH. I grew up across the river from Union Carbide’s chlorine plant.


I want to do it more for taste of the water. My home water is pretty crappy and tastes a lot fresher coming out of the RO unit compared to the tap. And, lot of RV parks I’ve stayed at have kinda suspect fresh water supplies.

As far as the chlorine plant you mentioned, I worked in one for several years as a young man. It didn’t kill me, but I got exposed to chlorine clouds on more than one occasion. Nasty place to work/live.
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Old 03-16-2022, 05:32 AM   #7
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I've had a home RO system for nearly 30 years. A true RO membrane has VERY slow throughput... how are they doing "on demand"? My current home system has a 2.5 gallon tank.

I considered an RO motorhome install. After researching we went with a Berkey filter system. There's controversy surrounding it considering the NSF certification, but I trust the reviews from engineers. It's an expensive unit, but handy... and closest thing to RO I could find.

A word about municipal and well water. I had a brother die from renal cancer two years ago. He drank water from an area very close to a known polluted ground water source... about 40 years ago. Speculate all you want, but the cancer rate for the areas population is near 100x the norm. AND... he's the only family member to develop cancer of any type.

There are farm fields all around where I live. The runoff goes right into wells. You make your own decisions... we shower and wash dishes with tap water, but we never drink municipal/well water unless it's been through the membrane at home. We trust the Berkey on the road for travel.
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Old 03-16-2022, 02:01 PM   #8
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Tankless RO System

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I've had a home RO system for nearly 30 years. A true RO membrane has VERY slow throughput... how are they doing "on demand"? My current home system has a 2.5 gallon tank.

I wondered about that too. But, the filters and RO element in the tankless systems are quite a bit larger than those in the regular under the sink RO systems. I’m thinking that’s how they achieve a higher on-demand flow. It also has an internal pump which increases flow rate.
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Old 03-16-2022, 05:53 PM   #9
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I have a 6 stage RO unit in the Tuscany and use a 3-gallon tank. One of the stages is the ultraviolet lamp.

Small RO membranes have 50-100 gpd ratings so yes, they need adequate feed PSIG (50 psig or higher) and time to produce good quality permeate. The only on demand units have a looser membrane than the TFC (thin film composite membrane) units and don't produce as high quality permeate.

Install a one-gallon tank if you're that space limited. The RO unit itself takes a bit of room.

We had very poor-quality water on the ranch and installed softeners followed by RO when the systems became available about 30 years back.

In our homes we have on demand sodium cycle softeners with RO for ice/fridge and drinking spigot.

I was involved in the first commercial RO units to hit the markets many years ago. Worked directly with Dow on several installations and later with many utilities. I worked with the Power and Water division of GE for 35 years and was involved when we purchased Osmonics.

With the water issues around the globe the future of water treatment continues to get better each year. At the same time more water is polluted or becoming scarce as aquifer's are pumped down lowering the quality of the available water.

I grew up drinking out of the hose as well but the quality of the water today is much less.
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Old 03-16-2022, 06:39 PM   #10
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I have a 6 stage RO unit in the Tuscany and use a 3-gallon tank. One of the stages is the ultraviolet lamp.

Small RO membranes have 50-100 gpd ratings so yes, they need adequate feed PSIG (50 psig or higher) and time to produce good quality permeate. The only on demand units have a looser membrane than the TFC (thin film composite membrane) units and don't produce as high quality permeate.

Install a one-gallon tank if you're that space limited. The RO unit itself takes a bit of room.

We had very poor-quality water on the ranch and installed softeners followed by RO when the systems became available about 30 years back.

In our homes we have on demand sodium cycle softeners with RO for ice/fridge and drinking spigot.

I was involved in the first commercial RO units to hit the markets many years ago. Worked directly with Dow on several installations and later with many utilities. I worked with the Power and Water division of GE for 35 years and was involved when we purchased Osmonics.

With the water issues around the globe the future of water treatment continues to get better each year. At the same time more water is polluted or becoming scarce as aquifer's are pumped down lowering the quality of the available water.

I grew up drinking out of the hose as well but the quality of the water today is much less.
I think the government agencies (EPA) would certainly dispute that, but who knows for sure. We certainly don't see animals falling over dead from drinking any kind of water.
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Old 03-16-2022, 09:28 PM   #11
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I think the government agencies (EPA) would certainly dispute that, but who knows for sure. We certainly don't see animals falling over dead from drinking any kind of water.
Animals can drink anything liquid and proess it

Much of the water in Africa is liquid mud

Domestic livestock primary issis nitrate or salinity

A few of the big stories of chromium, radioactive nuclides, salinity, nitrates, lead, arsenic, high sulfates mtbe, trichlorethlene, ecoli, gasoline, found in potable water have made the news

There are thousands of remedial sites in the midwest running as i type

Some efforts are being made to plug abandoned water and oil well with proper retards

New septic systems guidelines are much more stringent rightfully so

Water quality around the world and here is a huge issue and is certainly in need of attention

As you can imagine the water treatment business is growing exponentially institutionaly, industry wide, food processing and of course for homes
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Old 03-17-2022, 03:10 AM   #12
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As kids I remember the whole neighborhood gang drank from the hose at whomever's house we used to be gathered. Moms just didn't allow troops of kids dirtying glasses which needed washed by hand.

There is a actually a downside of RO purified water. Purity comes at the expense of removing EVERYTHING... including the "good stuff" like minerals and electrolytes. Although safe regarding bacteria and contamination, it's not the healthiest water you can drink. It's an added hassle, but adding electrolytes/minerals back into RO water as well as balancing the pH can make it nearly perfect for drinking water.

Of course like anything, it's whether it's a priority for you to go through purifying your water, or merely filtering it for taste purposes.
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Old 03-17-2022, 01:57 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by lwmcguir View Post
..

I grew up drinking out of the hose as well but the quality of the water today is much less.
You didn’t grow up around Lake Erie or anywhere around the steel belt in the 60’s or 70’s did you. I lived and grew up a few city blocks away from the shores of the “Burning River” (Cuyahoga).

Look at the facts for there and then and you will see how convoluted your statement is.

Quality of water is much higher today than in the past.
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Old 03-17-2022, 06:15 PM   #14
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You didn’t grow up around Lake Erie or anywhere around the steel belt in the 60’s or 70’s did you. I lived and grew up a few city blocks away from the shores of the “Burning River” (Cuyahoga).

Look at the facts for there and then and you will see how convoluted your statement is.

Quality of water is much higher today than in the past.
Apparently I didnt make clear what I intended to

Quality of water prior to treatment is much worse today than it has ever been across the country

Water treatment plants have done a great job of getting us potable water within the current limits delivered to our taps

I didn't intend to imply we were drinking bad water at all but the need to treat it is there.

If your immune compromised the tap water might be marginal but certainly save to drink.

Well water or unregulated water is another thing

I am well aware of the test and requirements of potable water and certainly again didn't intend to infer that they weren't doing their jobs except for perhaps places like Flint where they ignored the lead for many years. this is not typical by any means.

A lot of money is spent cleaning up and treating our water to keep it safe to drink.

However the TDS in almost all our water has increased significantly in the past years due to over usage and increased population.

There are thousands of plants operating daily remediating water and keeping our water safe to drink.

I will have to be a bit more careful on how I say things
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