RO for shower/washer recirculation?

[Riley]

Have anyone used these products to reuse water from showers and washer?

Would it be realistic to use RO to reuse your water, and you won't need to refill your tank for months?

I feel what can go wrong is that the filter could be dead just in a few use, or the 100 psi water pump would cost too much electricity, or they just won't filter out soap.

 

[dweick]

View attachment 75052

Have anyone used these products to reuse water from showers and washer?

Would it be realistic to use RO to reuse your water, and you won't need to refill your tank for months?

I feel what can go wrong is that the filter could be dead just in a few use, or the 100 psi water pump would cost too much electricity, or they just won't filter out soap.

What are you trying to accomplish?

RO uses more water than it produces

 

[Riley]

What are you trying to accomplish?

RO uses more water than it produces

You can feed rejected water back, I am trying to reuse the water from the shower and washer, so I don't have to fill fresh waters so often.

 

[MurphyGuy]

View attachment 75052

Have anyone used these products to reuse water from showers and washer?

Would it be realistic to use RO to reuse your water, and you won't need to refill your tank for months?

It could be done but not with that piece of crap. Those little under-counter systems are designed for city water.. they won't even handle well water very well..

Reverse osmosis is a polishing process, not a treatment process. While they do make brackish water membranes, you would need to process your waste water before going through the RO system or your membrane life would be very short.

I feel what can go wrong is that the filter could be dead just in a few use, or the 100 psi water pump would cost too much electricity, or they just won't filter out soap.

Yup.


What you'd want to do is to take the gray water and run it through a series of sand filters first.. then adjust the pH of the stream to drop out the soaps, then through another sand filter, then neutralize the acid, then through a mechanical filter, and then through a brackish water membrane, and then through either an RO system or a DI system.

Practical? Probably not at your scale..

If you want to save water, use the shower water to flush the toilets and the rest to water your garden or wash your car.

 

[dweick]

You can feed rejected water back, I am trying to reuse the water from the shower and washer, so I don't have to fill fresh waters so often.

You aren't going to clean the membranes by trying to flush them with recycled RO waste water which is going to be particularly nasty if you are trying to run gray water through the membranes.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

Have anyone used these products to reuse water from showers and washer?

Would it be realistic to use RO to reuse your water, and you won't need to refill your tank for months?

No, haven’t tried it.
Is water scarce where you are? (where are you?)

With a low-flow showerhead and turning off of water while soaping up, shampooing etc a shower can be done with as little as 2gal. I typically use 3-4.5 gallons doing this. It’s not much of a compromise.

For the washing machine: it’s hard to escape that water volume. Some front-load machines ‘self recycle’ but they still use a bunch of water.

I don’t have a well here. 7-8months of the year I use a 275gal tank on a trailer and fill at my buddy’s periodically. Right now it’s below freezing for months so that won’t work.
I have three 6gal water jugs and just stop by a public roadside ever-running spring on my way home and that is 5-7 days. It’s a pain but living out here saves me $1000+ every month and that’s why I’m choosing the inconvenience.

In 2020 I actually used the springs 12gal- 18gal at a time in the summer some and never moved the tank trailer. I collected rainwater which most of the time yielded more than my use, but I did go low on water a couple times when rain was not happening and used the spring water solution.

Your region may not afford the same benefits or resources.

 

[newbostonconst]

No, haven’t tried it.
Is water scarce where you are? (where are you?)

With a low-flow showerhead and turning off of water while soaping up, shampooing etc a shower can be done with as little as 2gal. I typically use 3-4.5 gallons doing this. It’s not much of a compromise.

For the washing machine: it’s hard to escape that water volume. Some front-load machines ‘self recycle’ but they still use a bunch of water.

I don’t have a well here. 7-8months of the year I use a 275gal tank on a trailer and fill at my buddy’s periodically. Right now it’s below freezing for months so that won’t work.
I have three 6gal water jugs and just stop by a public roadside ever-running spring on my way home and that is 5-7 days. It’s a pain but living out here saves me $1000+ every month and that’s why I’m choosing the inconvenience.

In 2020 I actually used the springs 12gal- 18gal at a time in the summer some and never moved the tank trailer. I collected rainwater which most of the time yielded more than my use, but I did go low on water a couple times when rain was not happening and used the spring water solution.

Your region may not afford the same benefits or resources.

How do you say you live alone without saying you live alone.....

Good Luck....great ideas...Thought of hand drilling a well?

 

[12VoltInstalls]

How do you say you live alone without saying you live alone.....

Good Luck....great ideas...Thought of hand drilling a well?

Ha ha ha. Alone yes. Not forever I hope but it’s now for sure.

If this was my own property yes: I’d have figured out a well. Of course, when I purchase my own property water- preferably HOPEFULLY gravity fed- will be a driving factor. Although Vermont has both made it very difficult and essentially illegal to have a dug well - unless your property is roughly square and like over 350 acres. (Septic permits: I believe it’s something like you can’t get a septic permit within 800’ of a ‘permitted’ dug well, and no new dug wells are permitted, only drilled/bedrock aquifer wells)

 

[Jack Rabbit Off Grid]

You

It could be done but not with that piece of crap. Those little under-counter systems are designed for city water.. they won't even handle well water very well..

Reverse osmosis is a polishing process, not a treatment process. While they do make brackish water membranes, you would need to process your waste water before going through the RO system or your membrane life would be very short.


Yup.


What you'd want to do is to take the gray water and run it through a series of sand filters first.. then adjust the pH of the stream to drop out the soaps, then through another sand filter, then neutralize the acid, then through a mechanical filter, and then through a brackish water membrane, and then through either an RO system or a DI system.

Practical? Probably not at your scale..

If you want to save water, use the shower water to flush the toilets and the rest to water your garden or wash your car.

You are a genius!

I am going to separate my shower from my septic system and have it fill a 50 gallon tank under my house. then I am going to instal a pressure demand pump to fill just the toilet and a overflow from the tank back to the septic system.