Anyone having condensation problem with thier R/O units?

[apollothesun]

"insulating the pipes under the house wont do much good in the PNW. The water coming from the street is just cold to begin with."

i agree. insulating the pipes will keep the water cooler. it will prevent condensation from forming on the pipes but if you want to prevent condensation from forming on your RO unit you need to remove humidity or warm the incoming water into the RO unit. IMO

just read your info. how about if i put the ro unit inside my sump water. will this work for condensation. i have 1/4th hose running from my kitchen to my ro unit beside my aquarium. maybe if i put the ro unit in my sump will that take care of the condensation?



need to warm the water before it goes into the ro....

 

[MC Lighting]

I think the drip pan is most likely the best solution as stated warming the water is pointless as it will just go downt he drain however the use of it for cooling the tank is an interesting idea I have often thought about a Geo-thermal system for the tanks when and if I ever get another house.

 

[DonW]

hey don, do you think the insulation foam on the cold water pipe will help?

The cold water is the issue. The water is still going to be cold and cause condensation. You wont be able to heat the water as fast as its passing through the rodi unit.
It take alot of heat transfer to change flowing water. Think about how a frige cools the water that come out the dispenser in the door. Once you use what is in the coil of tube all you get is tap temp water. This time of the tap water is just plain cold.

Don

 

[danno14]

You wont be able to heat the water as fast as its passing through the rodi unit.

Doesn't that depend upon the length of the coils, thermal efficiency of the coils, and the throughput of the filter? (ie 25 gpd, 60, etc.) I could see that a 120gpd would require longer coil length to supply the appropriate dwell time thatn a 25gpd.....

(too lazy to dig out my old thermodynamics books and actually look; ans it has been soooo long since college!)

 

[DonW]

Doesn't that depend upon the length of the coils, thermal efficiency of the coils, and the throughput of the filter? (ie 25 gpd, 60, etc.) I could see that a 120gpd would require longer coil length to supply the appropriate dwell time thatn a 25gpd.....

(too lazy to dig out my old thermodynamics books and actually look; ans it has been soooo long since college!)

5 gpd @ ratio of 4:1 25 gallons, 25gpd @ 4:1 ratio 125gallons, 75gpd @4:1 ratio 375 gallons.
500ft of 1/2" ID tube holds almost 8 gallons 1/4" is just over 1.5 gallons, thats alot of tube.

Here is an explanation of why it doesn't work. This explanation is opposite but is the same principal.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cap/raid/chillers/dormfridge/index.html

Don

 

[mmn_usn]

You will still have the condensation on the piping leading up to the filter. But if placed in the sump it will cool your sump when water is flowing through the filter.

Don.. very interesting read. thanks

Insulation on the piping will prevent the condensation on the covered piping and only there. Any piping and/or filters exposed to the humid air in the room will still condense that air. Just the way it is going to be.

 

[DonW]

What I do is heat the water with aquarium heaters but it was sort of a spendy venture. I have four rodi canisters that are empty with cland fittings in the bottom. Each canister holds a 250w heater / 1000w total. If the water temp is 50F I can get it up to about 60 on a good day, it does stop all the sweating but will not bring it up to the optimum 70F so it was sort of a wast of money and electricity.

Don

 

[apollothesun]

hey gonna revive this, i started putting my ro filters 5 inches from the output of my chiller and i noticed ive been getting more output from the ro unit. i noticed that my filter changing has noticeably been longer.

 

[Scooterman]

hey gonna revive this, i started putting my ro filters 5 inches from the output of my chiller and i noticed ive been getting more output from the ro unit. i noticed that my filter changing has noticeably been longer.

Can you explain that some?

 

[apollothesun]

the heat from the chiller exhaust warms the ro filters. reading somewhere on rf that you get low production of ro water when your water is cold. since im evaporating during the day when the halides are on my chiller kicks in and exhaust warm air blows on the ro filters and thats when my my autotop off from my kalk reactor kicks in. it basically warms the ro filters a little during my evaporation cycle. now i dont see condensation surrounding the filters and the ro line from my sink.

 

[Scooterman]

So what do you do about TSD creep?

 

[burning2nd]

i also get this..
i called the filter guys they said no worrys condinsation.

the thing that stumped them is where im geting CO2 from that is changeing brand new color changeing Di's

 

[apollothesun]

So what do you do about TSD creep?

whats tsd?

 

[Scooterman]

whats tsd?

TDS! Sorry!

 

[burning2nd]

i didnt know total desolved solids could creep