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Old 10-06-2010, 02:42 AM   #1
pbahlin
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Join Date: Jun 2009
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Watts RO Filter

I've installed an RO filter made by Watts. It is called Watts Premier model RO-Pure. It has four filter cartridges and a 3 gallon holding tank. The filter can make 50 gallons of water per day and requires no electricity. It has a nifty little high neck dispenser spigot that I mounted on my counter top right next to the sink. I have the peninsula style kitchen with a vacuum cleaner installed at the corner of the peninsula. The whole works fit inside the corner.

I got this unit at the Madison Wisconsin Costco for $169. Love the unit. It makes great water. My dogs were getting bad belly, seemingly with each new campground and that's over, yeahhh. Even bacteria can't get through this thing.

One caution if you're interested in getting one is that it uses a lot of water. It takes 4 to 5 gallons of fresh water to make each gallon of filtered water. I didn't know that going in. Now of course, after I bought it, I've done my homework and found that this is the nature of the beast. It has to pass this much water past the RO filter to get clean water out.

It can fill my galley tank in one day. Yikes! Have to remember to leave the dump valve on it open or flooding the kitchen is a real possibility.

I was out on the beach this morning taking in the sunrise when I got a call from the DW letting me know the sink was full to the top.

Don't have the open valve thing down yet in my setup routine.
 
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Old 10-06-2010, 07:30 AM   #2
Art-n-Marge
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This is the main reason I wouldn't use RO in my RV. I will stick to filters that provide one to one water ratio. So far, this is working great for us.

I knew about this at the stickhouse and use it along with line filters at the fridge and faucets.

I'm not so sure RO is worth the effort any more. It does use a lot of water and one of the water filter housings cracked late one night and right before we were about to go to sleep. Water was flowing! Fortunately, we caught it quick and turned off the water. It would have been a lot worse if we were out or it was middle of the night. A few bucks and days waiting for the new housing (and a spare) and another day for the stupid gasket they forgot to include and it's back together.

I hope it works great for you. I hope you remember to keep that galley valve open, then to close it when you dump your black tank!
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Old 10-06-2010, 11:38 AM   #3
pbahlin
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I close the galley valve 24 hours before dumping the black tank. This gives enough time to build up the galley tank volume to flush the lines with relatively clean water.

My dump sequence is: black, grey, galley. Then fresh water rinse of the sewer lines before storing.
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Old 10-06-2010, 12:39 PM   #4
Art-n-Marge
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I installed a shut off at the input for my stickhouse RO system. If not done so, I'd recommend it in case you have a problem with the RO you won't have to shut off the water to the RV.

If you are already using the 24 hour rule with the RO system installed and haven't had a problem then it sounds like it will work out just fine - unless you host a big party at your rig during that 24 hours and too many persons enjoy your RO water and fill up your tank.

There are enough others that use RO systems in their rigs and have learned to live with its attributes.
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Old 10-07-2010, 01:02 PM   #5
KTManiac
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You could route the RO waste water to your fresh water holding tank, fit the fresh tank drain hose with a garden hose fitting w/ shut-off valve, and attach a garden hose to it to drain it to a suitable location, or just store it there until it gets full and drain at your convenience.

Me, if I were to do the RO thing, I would install a water softener in front of it, operate the both of them on the city water pressure, eliminate the silly filtered water spigot and small RO storage tank entirely by routing the filtered water to fill the RV's fresh water storage tank, and run the entire RV with its electric water pump. That way, every faucet in the RV will be filtered and usable, plus, the hot water tank won't get all calcified up with hard water deposits.

Of course, the RV park might get [s]a little[/s] very upset at me pouring 300 gallons of water down their sewer hookup so that I could fill my holding tank with filtered water!

That being said, I most likely will continue to just use a dual filter cartridge set-up and live with the crummy water like always.

It's just that I like to whack the hornets nest with a stick every once in a while!
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Old 10-09-2010, 07:59 AM   #6
pbahlin
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This is why I only go to big parks now. When I use my 300 gallons it's just noise in the system. I'm gone before they're on to me.

Kidding! We only use thing to make tea, coffee, and doggy drinks so I'm not even close to being detected.
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Old 10-09-2010, 04:55 PM   #7
clutch
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We have been using RO water for two years now in the trailer. Our system makes 24-30 gallons per day and we use it to keep the fresh water tank full. When ever we get down to half a tank I turn it on and keep the tank topped off. We also use it to keep our one gallon jugs full so we have cold drinking water in the frige. The water here in Az is terrible and the RO system makes it usable. We bought our system at Home Depot.
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