Warming RO water?

[Black Phantom]

Your pressure loss using a 1/4 inch line versus 1/2 should be almost the same. Being that friction loss is directly tied to flow rate it seems to me that the flow rate for an RO unit is very small. A 50 gallon per day RO unit delivers about .03472 gallons a minute. This translates to a very small pressure loss regardless of the size of your line.

[JDigital]

Originally Posted by KrazyKuch

Correct they work best in that 25 degree Celcius temp range and the last time I checked the temp of the water coming out of my tap it was like around 16 degree's celcius

Agreed, Definitely needs to be warm... There is a build thread I was watching on another forum, and the guy is in colorado and his RO in line was sooo cold that his RO was produing VERY little water... Was more of a drip that a constant flow.. I think it took him close to a full week to fill 140G tank.

[Black Phantom]

Since this last came up I have taken the line out of my sump. It was just too hard to keep the tank temp up. I looked around for a constant heat supply and decided that my MH ballast would work just fine. My ballasts have the metal fins for cooling. I just ran the water line back and forth under the ballasts. I'm not sure how much my line temp has risen but it's definately warmer to the touch. And it keeps my ballasts a little cooler as well so thats a bonus. Of course it only works during the day but what the heck, it's free heat.

[mseepman]

Running through the ballast...a very interesting idea for the future for me. Unfortunately, RO is no-where near my tank right now...so I'm still looking for good ideas.

[Alberta-newb]

Tagging along with this one as well since my first RO had very poor performance and I was looking for ways to heat the input. I know the industrial RO unit at the local Exxon/Mobil plant uses steam to pre-heat their lines and the performance is supposedly much better the hotter it is. I was going to use a heat tape (used to keep pipes from freezing) and wire in my own thermostat but looking at my electric bill decided against it

[Gools]

I ended up doing a 100' of 3/8" RO line and put it in my sump. And worked perfect. I haven't checked the temp lately of the water entering the RO but last time I checked it was around 72-73F. I also did not lose any pressure going into my RO unit.

[mseepman]

In keeping along the lines of using the reptile heater...I see zoo med has a heater cable (11.5') at only 15 watts. I could tape this to the supply line and I would get at least 6' of warmer cable. If no-one has any other suggestions...I think this is what I will try.

[banditpowdercoat]

But, does the sump/tank loose any temp? Personally, with the amount of waste water made, even with the benifits of warmer water. I would think the cost of the electricity to heat the incoming water to the membrane would outweigh the benifits because most of the warmed water just goes down the drain.