What To Know When You Buy An RO Water Purifier
When it comes to water filtration, using a reverse osmosis filter will give you the purest water quality possible with a home system. Reverse osmosis, or RO, is a style of filtration that uses a special membrane to remove even the finest contaminants to offer you incredibly crisp water. If you want to enjoy the cleanest water in your home, there are a few things you should know before you buy an RO water purifier.
Reverse osmosis is a filtration process where water is forced through a fine filter membrane. These membranes are designed to mimic the biological properties of cell walls. Cells can lose and gain water to maintain the proper balance of water and salt inside the cell. An RO membrane contains thousands of tiny holes to allow water through, though they are far less permeable than other filter media. In function, your RO purifier will use this membrane to strain tiny particulate from your water.
This is based on the natural process of osmosis where solvents move through a semipermeable membrane to a region of higher solute concentration. So what does this mean to the layman? Basically, a solvent like water will move across a thin membrane toward whichever side of the membrane has more particles to dissolve until the concentration of dissolved particles is equal on both sides of the membrane.
One famous example of osmosis is salting a slug. This practice harms the slug because it puts a higher concentration of salt outside of the slug’s membrane than what the slug’s body contains. This draws water across the slug’s outer membrane until the salt concentration is equal inside and outside of the slug. Because they contain so little natural internal salt, almost all of the slug’s internal water needs to be drawn out in order to reach an equilibrium on both sides of the membrane. This process dehydrates and kills the slug using osmosis.
For purification systems, instead of allowing water to use osmosis to reach this kind of equilibrium, reverse osmosis uses pressure to force water through the membrane, leaving clean water on one side and the contaminants are left behind. The pressure is required to avoid the natural osmotic effect, as water will naturally want to flow towards the intake side if no pressure is applied.
So what makes this process so special? Well, a typical water filter uses activated carbon as its main means of water filtration. Fine activated carbon can effectively remove particulate as small as 0.5 microns from water. This is about 1/10th the thickness of a human hair. While this is effective at removing most waterborne particulate, it is nowhere near as effective as an RO purifier.
Our Everpure RO systems are designed with openings as small as 0.0001 microns in size. This is barely large enough to let water through the membrane, meaning that any larger molecules will be left on the other side of the filter. This will not only remove any biological contaminants, but it can also effectively filter out heavy metal ions including lead. A traditional filter can reduce levels of metal contaminants, but they work more like a sponge, soaking up what they can. RO purifiers use more of a square peg and round hole model. Water fits through these holes, while other particles are unable to pass through the filter membrane.
Reverse Osmosis filter systems feature a more complex setup when compared to a typical carbon-based filter system. As water is passed through the membrane, pure water is collected on one side while the water on the intake side accumulates more and more contaminants. Eventually, this water is disposed of as waste, while the filtered water is moved to a storage tank. RO purification takes longer, as the flow rate through the membrane is slow, so these systems use a storage tank to ensure that you always have clean water on tap.
Adding an RO filter to your home is a relatively simple process. These filters fit easily under your kitchen sink, with most of the space going to the water storage tank. The filter itself mounts to the inside of your cabinet in order to save space. RO systems are incredibly efficient for their size, offering superior water quality to other bulkier systems.
When you install your systems, you should not need any professional help. These systems can be installed with a few simple hand tools and a power drill with a ⅜ inch bit. However, you will need to complete two tricky tasks. The first is adding the dedicated filtered water faucet. These systems require a small faucet to dispense your RO filtered water. Many sinks feature the required 1 and ⅜” hole needed to mount this additional faucet. If your sink lacks this feature, you will have to add a hole of that size to your sink or countertop. Once this is completed, the faucet installation is simple.
The next challenge will be attaching the system to your drain pipe. The system comes with a collar that attaches securely to the drain pipe. Once you know where the collar will be installed, you have to drill a hole in the pipe so the system can drain into it. Once this is complete, you mount the collar to the drainpipe and attach the red waste water hose from your faucet. This hole will allow the water to move into the drainpipe while the collar prevents leaks.
If you can complete these two steps, the rest of the installation process should go smoothly. Simply follow the instructions and always double-check to ensure that the color-coded water hoses are attached in the proper orientation. As long as you have the hoses properly installed, once you insert the cartridges and run the system to purge any air from your lines. After this, your system should run regularly to keep the storage tank full of fresh filtered water.
When you buy RO water purifiers, you will notice that these systems typically feature several filter cartridges. This is because filtration must occur before the water reaches the RO membrane in order to remove large particulates and chlorine that can damage the filter membrane. Only one of these cartridges actually contains the RO membrane. Here at efilters, we carry three residential RO water purification systems. These include the ROM II, ROM III, and ROM IV systems. Each of these filters contains unique features that offer different levels of filtration. Let’s take a look at each system and their features
ROM II The ROM II system is our most cost-effective model. This filtration system features two filter cartridges paired with a 3-gallon storage tank. The first filter helps remove the potentially damaging chlorine as well as any particles large enough to damage or clog the membrane. While this prefilter will need to be changed periodically when the water flow of the system decreases. Failing to replace this cartridge can cause irreparable damage to the RO cartridge. The RO cartridge itself should have a longer lifespan, but should be replaced if water quality noticeably decreases or water flow seems severely slowed.
ROM III The ROM III system adds an extra level of post-RO filtration. These systems use 3 filter cartridges and feature the same 3-gallon storage tank as the ROM II system. The first two cartridges are identical to those used in the ROM II system. The third cartridge is designed to remove volatile organic compounds. Common volatile organic compounds include benzene, ethylene glycol, and formaldehyde. While RO filtration can remove as much as 80% of volatile organic compounds from water, this final filtration stage helps to remove any compounds that managed to make it through the membrane. Because these volatile organic compounds are tied to causing health issues, this extra filtration step helps to ensure that your water is safe.
ROM IV The ROM IV is the latest Everpure home RO system. If you want to buy an RO water purifier with the latest filtration technology, this is the option for you. This system uses three filter cartridges paired with a large 4.5-gallon storage tank. This system is designed to be the most efficient RO water purifier on the market, with more water being filtered and less waste water production than the previous ROM systems. The system can produce up to 14 gallons of clean drinking water per day. Like the ROM III, this system includes a VOC post filter cartridge. The prefilter and post filter cartridges should be changed annually, while the RO membrane cartridge should be replaced after two years of use.
No matter which RO filter system you choose for your home, you are sure to love the amazing water quality you will receive from these systems. Aside from distillation, an extremely slow and energy consuming process, reverse osmosis is going to give you the purest drinking water possible. We know that once you install one of our RO systems, you will wonder how you ever drank unfiltered tap water.
When you visit our site, you can also buy RO water purifiers for your business. If you own a food service business, you know how important it is to offer your customers clean water. Cloudy water and water with off tastes or odors will ruin the palate and influence your customers opinions about your food. Drinking clean water before eating is like priming before you paint, it cleanses the palate and helps all of the flavors in a dish come through clearly.
Because our residential water filters are only designed to provide water for a single family per day, they will not handle the volume a restaurant might require. Luckily, we offer two filtration systems that will filter large volumes of water per day so you will always be able to provide crystal clear water to your customers. We currently offer our Everpure HE3 and MRS600HE systems.
HE3 The HE3 system uses Everpure’s high recovery technology to limit wastewater production by as much as 80%. This system can also filter 440 gallons of water per day with the option to add another RO filter cartridge to double that yield to 880 gallons. The device includes smart monitoring so you can see your water quality and filter status. You can also use the water from this system to feed into multiple devices including ice makers, espresso machines, and steam based equipment.
MRS600HE This system can deliver up to 600 gallons of water per day. It includes an internal 6 gallon holding tank so you will always have some RO filtered water available. The MRS600HE uses the same high recovery technology to limit wastewater output and can also be used to feed into multiple devices. This system is unique in its ability to mix the RO water with filtered water to offer the user total control over the amount of total dissolved solids in the water. This can me used to further minimize environmental impact or to add some mineral content back to the water.
Both of these options can offer your customers incredible water quality. They will also help lower your environmental impact over a conventional RO system. While a standard system may be about 20% efficient, our Everpure systems can reach efficiency as high as 80% in terms of wastewater production. This means you will be able to save on your water bill while also only offering your customers the best.
So if you are looking to buy an RO water purifier for your home or business, let our team help you find the perfect option. We have spent years working with these systems and we are more than happy to help our customers find the filter that will be the best fit for them. If you have any questions about reverse osmosis filters, the systems we carry, or questions about water filtration in general, feel free to reach out to a member of the efilters team by email at info@efilters.net.