Calgary water pressure
 

Hi folks. I'm thinking of buying the "Water Saving 150 GPD RO Upgrade Kit" from BRS when I purchase my ro/di and I was wonder if anyone else here is running it? I want to run it without buying a pressure booster if possible and the website says it requries 65 PSI at the first membrane. Anyone know what pressure they're getting at their first membrane?

Not sure if the area of the city influences it much but I am in Evergreen in the south.

Thanks!

Im getting about 73psi in willowpark coming into my unit. Not sure how I would go about measuring the first membrane though.

So it would be less at the membrane I guess? I wonder by how much.

The first stage is the hardest for the water to get through (at least that my understanding) and there is no 73psi coming out the other end thats for sure. :lol:

I get around 96 I think. I can lend you a pressure gauge that fits on your hose if you want to do a quick reading but I'm pretty sure we're on the same outlet.

Oops, had a thought. I get 96psi but that's because I bypassed the pressure regulator. Most homes these days have regulators (if you have a bathtub and/or shower where you can't regulate the flow, ie., on or off and temperature, but no "more flow" or "less flow", then you have a regulator). In my case they dialed it down to 60. I chose to bypass it because at my old house I was getting close to 100psi, and had awesome RO/DI output, at this house I couldn't believe how slow it would trickle out.

I first tried opening up the regulator all the way - I don't recommend this approach - unless you happen to like painful showers (those little streams of water get supersonic at high enough pressure). I just T'd off a line before the regulator and this services my tank room and outside hoses (impulse sprinklers work better with some pressure).

I have just build a 7 stage 300gpd Ro/DI systems. It is hooked up to the down stairs bathroom sink. Pressure their is about 41psi. I suggest running a booster pump. It is inproves pure water out put. My system avarge 12.5gph. I am still have one more test on pure water and waste water ratio. Hopefully it is a 1:1. Still working on it.

Sounds interesting Tony. I'll have to take a peek at what you did. Is it just cutting some PEX and inserting a T?

Alberta Reef...Are you running 4 x 75gpd membranes!?

Yep, that's exactly what I did. I just checked on my RO/DI gauge tonight and I guess it's now >100psi.

Just don't do what I did, I should have filmed this and sent it into Discovery as my entry admission request into "Canada's Worst Handyman", when I hooked up the plumbing to the tank room a couple months ago, I put the regulator back in backwards. THAT was an interesting phenomenon: when you open a tap first a huge whoosh of water, then it would slam shut (reverb throughout the house) and then trickle up and down. I was all .. WTF is wrong with the water? Then I noticed the regulator had a little arrow on it and it was pointing the wrong way. :redface:

I gotta admit though, I love cutting pex pipe and crimping new crimp rings on them. Man I wish it wasn't $200 for a pex crimper. I'd go hogwild with one. Ker-crimp!! Ker-crimp!! ... Whee!!!!

Yeah that is one fun $10 rental. I'm looking forward to doing a little of that again. Those links are bulletproof!

I'm hoping I can find a PEX-john guest fitting somewhere so I can avoid those piercing saddle valves etc. Much rather CRIMP.

Alberta Reef...Are you running 4 x 75gpd membranes!?[/quote]

No I am running 2 x 150gpd membranes. The has the same rejection rate of the 75gpd ones.

Which unit and where did you get it?

I just took two ro units and build one big one. Filters and membranes came from bulk reef supplies.

water pressure is different in all area of the the city. if you are at the top of a hill its going to be lower than at the bottom of the hill. there also may be a PRV (pressure regulating valve) near you that drops your pressure more.

You can use standard compression fittings for tubing. Those are the brass fittings with the ferrule and nut, you just need to make sure to use the sleeves that slip inside the plastic tubing to reinforce it.

From my experience, the water pressure in Calgary varies from 70-90 psi on average with a few areas coming in as low as 45 psi, but that is uncommon. The maximum you should ever get is 100 in a residential area, there are pressure control valves in the water mains to limit it. Higher than that and household plumbing is more likely to have troubles, particularly the older it gets.

Hi Brett, small world. This is the first time I have looked at this site in a long time, and I too am in Calgary, in Evergreen. I was checking water pressure at our house when I put in the sprinkler system and found that depending on the time of day, the pressure was between 55 and 65 psi at the outside hose bib. We also have an adjustable regulator, so I could crank it up if need be, I suspect you likely have one too?

When I bypassed the regulator for my RO/DI, I figured I might as well do the outside sprinklers as well since those impulse guys work better at higher pressures.

Anyhow without the regulator, my pressure is right up around 100 (I'm in Evergreen as well). It varies between 96 to 104. The RO/DI works perfectly at this pressure. I recommend this bypass approach since it doesn't involve changing the pressure for the rest of the house, which is probably a good thing (especially if you have shower taps that only adjust temperature, not flowrate. Nothing like a supersonic jetstream shower! :lol: )

There is a caveat if you up the house pressure. Get those expensive stainless steel hoses for your washing machine! Or at the very least, shut them off when you go on vacation.

OR ... you could .. I dunno if this has been suggested or not yet, but if not .. my suggestions is .... bypass the regulator for your RO/DI and leave the rest of the house on the regulator! :lol:

Rak! Polly want a cracker!

In Vernon my outdoor faucets are on City pressure (measured around 120 psi static and 100 with faucet on) and I have a PRV inside the house to bring that down. I didn't like the pathetic pressure at my kitchen sink, need a little more oomph when rinsing stuff, so I looked up the info on PRVs and adjusted mine so I have just under 90 psi for the indoor stuff. It drops to about 86 psi and holds relatively steady around there whenever any tap is running. Not sure what type of regulators some of you are referring to, maybe some are fixed pressure, not adjustable and need to be bypassed entirely if you want more pressure somewhere. The PRV however is fairly easy to adjust and I believe even at full throttle, limits the output pressure to a pre determined value depending on the model you have. A wrench, a pressure guage and you're in business. The PRV has a strainer in it as well, which should be cleaned periodically.

I believe my PRV is a Watts Series 25AUB-Z3. I found a pdf document online with installation instructions etc... Great info in that file including different installation options, typical, series, parallel....

EDIT: Just checked and confirmed I have a model 25AUB which is apparently adjustable from 25 to 75 psi. Makes me wonder how I'm getting better than 80 psi downstream. Either inaccurate guages or surges exceeding the 75 psi limit??