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ewaldsreef 
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 Topic: The leak part 2
Posted: October 18 2003 at 8:24pm |
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I am having a problem with my auto shut off vavle mounted on my ro unit. This is the manual( non electric) style valve. This valve is supposed to build up 10 psi on the good water side and then shut the supply to the ro unit off. The problem is that it keeps going on off constantly. I first had an obvious leak and then fixed it at my kent auto topp off float valve. There is now no leaks there at all. I also see no leaks at the ro unit but it is loosing pressure somewere. If anyone has experance with this please help. Its possible I may have hooked it up wrong but I dont think I did.
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Carl
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Posted: October 20 2003 at 8:34am |
PF, does your unit have a pressure relief valve or a bypass valve in it? I am not an RO expert, but I deal with water and valves quite a bit. Correct me if I am wrong, but a summary of what is happening is your kent valve is telling your RO that the tank is full. But, the RO will pass water through it's system? Where is this excess water going?
There is always the possibility of a miniscule leak somewhere that isn't noticeable. 10-psi isn't much and a bad fitting somewhere could do it. Without doing a line pressure test, you may never be certain of a leak. I would love to try and help... just a little foggy on the setup and circumstances.
PS... Sounds like Mark may be the resident authority here according to his post below. Good info Mark!
Edited by Carl
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In Syracuse
"I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting." - Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: October 20 2003 at 7:17pm |
Okay, so if I understand correctly, when the pressure on the purified water builds up to 10 psi, the supply is supposed to shut off? Here's my 2 cents. The waste water is open to the atmosphere correct? So when the supply shuts off, the pressure slowly relieves as wastewater moves backwards across/through the R.O. membrane and down the drain. At that point the supply is told to reopen because purified water has been lost. It repressurizes the system and then water leaks again and the cycle repeats.  Check the ratio of purified water to wastewater. If it is less than 1:4, in other words if more than 1 cup of purified water is produced for every four cups of wastewater, either there's a hole in the membrane or there's a misaligned seal/the membrane is not positioned correctly in the membrane canister! Another way to determine this is to check if purified water quality is lower than expected. Basically, tap water is leaking past the membrane. Of course this wouldn't matter to me since I use tap water (termed liquid rock by Jon Finch) in my aquariums!!!! 
Edited by Mark Peterson
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ewaldsreef
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Posted: October 21 2003 at 11:43am |
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I belive I have found the problem!! There is supossed to be a check valve in place which is not there. So the water is leaking into the wast side. I will update if this fixes the problem
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ewaldsreef
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Posted: October 21 2003 at 9:40pm |
The leak is fixed!!!!!! I did not know that there had to be a check valve in place but now I know. The top off is working great. Thank you guys so much for the advise you gave. pacific water supply was the only place in town that had one. I called about 15 places today in search of the vavle. $9 and the leak is fixed 
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: October 22 2003 at 3:30pm |
Glad you got it fixed and thanks for allowing us the opportunity to stretch our minds trying to figure it out. Pacific Water is where I buy the canisters and such for doing Kold-Steril water purification set-ups. They are always more than helpful. So 10 psi can move water through an R.O. membrane. Do you know what this means!  If a catastrophy ever hit where we had access to water but no electricity for pressure, we could put a tank on the roof with a line leading to the R.O. unit and slowly make purified water! Impractical perhaps? The mind is a terrible thing to waste! 
Edited by Mark Peterson
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inspector eric
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Posted: October 23 2003 at 9:08am |
I dont know about the whole make R.O. water by gravity.
I know (and Finch can back me up on this) that water weighs .433 pounds per foot. That's means every ten feet 4.33 psi. That would have to be an awfully tall three story home or a two story with quite a bit of elevation difference to make enough height for the minimum 10 psi to get water through the membrane...My RO unit's membrane prefers 50 or better to make a decent amount of water in a day...........
Just my .02 worth .. but it's the kind of useless trivia I use every day....
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just because it isn't leaking doesn't mean it's safe!!!!
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Carl
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Posted: October 23 2003 at 9:21am |
Correct me if I am wrong since I do not use nor am I an expert on RO but, do most if not all RO filters rely on the psi of the culinary water for the "driving pressure" through the system? Since most homes have culinary water pressure greater than 40-psi (40-80 psi is a general), there would not be a need to rely upon gravity to move the water through the filtration system. As a matter of fact, IME, gravity would not provide enough head pressure under normal circumstances to process the water through the membrane, the media is just too tight and requires pressure. Gravity flow-through systems need alot of room and avenues for the water to pass, like filter beds with loose media. However, even these need some pressure to ensure proper filtration and optimum usage of the media. IMO/IME
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In Syracuse
"I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting." - Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
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Diverdan
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Posted: October 23 2003 at 10:16am |
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I have the same unit as PF, luckily not all the installations problems. Mine came with the check valve. As should of yours, PF. Just a word of caution on the top-off device, make sure the point at the bulk that the float valve seal against is clear of any debris/caulerpa etc. Also, space is tight in my sump and I accidentally moved my skimmer too close to the float valve that did not allow it fully seal, in the morning the sump had filled all tha way to the top I felt really stupid when I figured out what I did, I thought the top-off unit was to blame, but it was just me.
The ten psi that is referred to is the amount of back pressure needed to make the solenoid close. The solenoid closes off the feed line of water to the ro unit. I think you would need more than 10 psi to get water through an RO unit.
Rich
Edited by Diverdan
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75 Gallon Reef
15 Gallon Reef
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ewaldsreef
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Posted: October 25 2003 at 11:09pm |
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Rich you are correct. I was refering to 10psi only to activate the vavle. My ro unit has a guage on it that reads roughly 55psi as supplied by my homes normall water pressure. I am under the understanding that ro units work better under higher pressure. That is why there are pumps availible for them.
Also you mentioned the float vavle. I am lucky. The set up in my sump has an isolated chamber for the top off and return so there is little chance for something to fowl the float.
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