Tired of topping up my reservior

[metalfab]

Running a fan so i am losing 2+ gallons a day. My ro reservoir is 1 floor down and about 40' run. My current top off is 3 gallon container w/ gravity feed to a float valve in my sump. 3 gallons will never overflow my sump if my float fails, if I want to fish a 1/4" line from basement to reservoir what is my safest way to feed it with min. flood risk. I have a spare ato unit avail.
Any recs. on a pump that would work with the footage using the 1/4" line?
TIA

 

[Bill Nye]

I have seen alot of people wanting to run their RODI directly to their top off but its not recommended. If I were to do this I would use a professional grade float switch and run into either your current ATO reservoir or a larger one. This way it will fill the bucket and not go directly into the tank in case of float switch malfunction. I would probably run at least a 3 float switch system. The first would obviously be in the bucket so that when the bucket got to a certain level it would call for water into your reservoir. The next would be in a place in your sump where the water level changes with evaporation. This float switch would be run in reverse so that it is in a down position and will turn off the first float switch if it reaches an up position. The third would be in a similar area as the second but this one would be the one which controls water being pumped into your tank.

 

[The_Godfreys]

What I am planning to do is run the RO though a solenoid valve controllerd by my APEX. (could be a timer) them into the reservoir with a float valve. That way once a day it gets topped of to the right level regardless of the previous level (could be more or less often). Timer duration should be such that in the event of a float problem, the res will only overflow for a little while
My reason for doing this is not because of the inconvenience of topping off the res but because about 50% of the times I turn on the RO to fill the res, I forget and end up with water on the floor. hehe

 

[metalfab]

I may be off, but what I am thinking is my ato unit will shut off after so many mins., so could I run a slow dosing type pump (peristaltic, sp?) or would that run too slow. another thing I was wondering is can I have that type of pump up stairs and just run my 1/4" tube to the basement and pull the ro water up? That would save me from running the wire to the basement to run the pump and sensors.

 

[Bill Nye]

Ya I actually didnt think of that. Having it on a timer would be a great way to assure you wont flood your tank with RO in case of float switch malfunction.

Edit

I dont think a peristaltic pump would be needed for this application. They are pretty expensive and are typically used for dosing so exact amounts of liquid can be added. I think you would be able to do it using a big enough return pump like a mag drive or something.

I honestly dont know if a peristaltic pump would have enough head pressure to pull water up that far but I may be wrong. You might be able to find one large enough to do so but it will be very expensive.

 

[Jocko]

Peristaltic pumps don't have much of an issue with head pressure. They just push the liquid wherever, so I don't it would matter at all unless maybe you want to pump to your roof or something. And even then I bet it would still work.

I personally just have a ~15 gallon plastic container with a float switch that controls the inflow of water from the RODI, so the container is always full. Then I have a little maxijet that is turned on via a floatswitch connected to my RKE with salinity probe as an emergency shut-off just in case. This is for a 150 tank with 150 sump in the basement.

I am actually planning on switching over to a peristaltic pump that I already have. It has a higher RPM and larger diameter tubing, so it can move enough water to be an effective topoff. The maxijet is fine, but it will just be nice to not have to worry about a siphon forming ever no matter what. And I already have the pump... so yeah.

 

[JohnK]

I don't think it's been mentioned so I will...

If you connect your RO directly to a float valve so the auto shut off turns it on and off, you should not leave it running that way continiously. The problem is that the unit will constantly be turning on and off as it makes tiny bits of water at a time. The constant on and off is very bad for membrane performance and leads to what is called "membrane creep", which essentially means that although your membrane is fine, the product water will come through with increasingly higher TDS levels which will burn through DI cartridges really quickly, and you end up with product water that is far less pure than you might expect.

If you run the same set up, but manually shut off the RODI in between batches of water you will not have this problem. Personally I run a barrel as a RODI resivor, and just make water once a week, all in one batch.

 

[dcforester1]

I run my top off from a peristaltic pump from my basement to the second floor. I evap about 2gal/day. Its the best way to go nice and slow. You might want to keep your eye open they come up for sale, and sometimes Greg H has them.

Derek