RO DI setup in Florida with well water anyone using.

joekool · Apr 17, 2014

I'm currently on city water but plan to move to a home with well water in North Port FL. I currently run a BRS 6 stage for chloramines. Obviously I won't need the chloramine block but what should I change and do you have any suggestions. If your from Florida than you know we have phosphates in our water at least central and south Florida.

Should I run the RO/DI before or after softener.

Also thinking of adding a kinetico system to the house for clean sent less water at every tap.

Any help would be grateful.

AZDesertRat · Apr 17, 2014

Always use softened water with an RO, it acts as pretreatment and makes things last longer and work better.

If it were me I would take the extra housing now occupied by the catalytic carbon and convert it into an additional DI. My filters would be a 0.5 micron sediment, a single 0.5 micron extruded carbon block, the RO membrane then 2 or 3 vertical refillable DI's.

One thing I would caution you on though is incoming pressure. Many well pressure switches operate around 35 psi which is sufficient for most household needs but low for a RO to function efficiently. Dow Filmtec and all the others recommend a minimum of 40 psi and 60-80 or higher is optimal. You may need a RO booster pump.

joekool · Apr 17, 2014

Thank you for the reply. I do plan on getting a booster pump for sure. I use a .5 micron sediment filter then a .5 micron carbon block then catalytic. I will probably go with another .5 micron carbon block so I will have too. I will also add in some whole house filtration on top of that.

Would like to hear from somebody if lower Florida area with well water too

AZDesertRat · Apr 18, 2014

With the well system an additional carbon may be more harm than good. You don't need nor want it unless you suspect groundwater contamination from leaking underground fuel tanks, herbicides or pesticides. Other than that is adds additional headloss in front of the membrane where you do not want it. Keep things as minimal as possible on the pressure side and replumb the empty canister for other uses like DI. A single 0.5 micron carbon block is good for up to 20,000 gallons of tap water chlorinated at a 1 ppm disinfectant residual and you don't even have that so if the carbon stays well protected by the 0.5 micron sediment filter it should last seemingly forever. A pressure gauge will tell you when it needs replacing from headloss due to plugging or fouling.
Dual carbons go back decades when carbon and even particulate filter technology was not what it is today and carbon did not last long so two were installed, one being sacrificial and one functional.