RO/DI to Drinking Water Setup

[RogersCG]

I've got my 5 Stage RO/DI from Two Part Solution set up in the laundry room in the basement which happens to be right below the kitchen. I'd like to feed the water up to the fridge and add a drinking water dispenser on the sink. I have read it's best to tee off prior to the DI section for drinking water but I'm not sure where I go from there or what all I need. I am assuming I need a pressure tank of some sort and some auto-cutoff so the water doesn't run constantly but I am not sure how that works. I've only had the RO/DI for a few weeks so I'm kind of in the learning stages with this equipment.

Anyone have some links, diagrams or information on how this needs to be hooked up and what I need to get?

Thanks!
Chris

[Taklu]

Is it required to T off before DI for drinking water?

[patent]

DI filtered water sometimes tastes funny. You can add another filter to remove that taste after it or T off before it.

Can't help much with the original question.

[hypertech]

Plus you don't want to waste the resin on your drinking water.

I've been thinking about trying something like this, but I'd probably need to add some kind of pump and then things will get complicated.

[Goldpony75]

The best and easiest place to tap into the system for drinking water is after the membrane and before the di resin, just find the line going into the di canister and follow it back to the membrane and tap into it anywhere on that line. I beleive the reason that after di resin taste so funny is it has no tds. and we are so used to drinking water that has some tds even low tds that pure water taste funny to us.

[Taklu]

Besides tasting funny (metallic taste?) anyother reason why the water after DI not be used for drinking?
Just curious.....this is how an accountant learns science lol

[coldwaterreefer]

i believe it is that di water does something to your teeth.

[hypertech]

IIRC - since the water is so pure it is very aggressive with wanting to absorb minerals, etc. If you drink a large enough quantity of it you could give yourself a deficiency of those elements.

Still, to me the biggest reason is the cost. Why waste the DI resin on drinking water when it tastes equal or better not to run it through there.

[Taklu]

IIRC - since the water is so pure it is very aggressive with wanting to absorb minerals, etc. If you drink a large enough quantity of it you could give yourself a deficiency of those elements.

Sounds more like acid...is it anyworse than pop soda? co**, Pep**

Just being a pest lol :laugh:

[REEFSTOCK]

Personally I drink tap water, The city water is great in most of our municipalities.
I understand that DI is bad for the reason hyper has stated. RODI has nothing, your cells have something, the world prefers to be in balance, and it will strip you of your goods to get there.

I'm not talking about social imbalance, I swear.

[DwightKeenan]

I have a 44 gallon water storage tank that I keep RO water running to. That supplies my fridge and my kitchen ro spout. I split off before the final stage of the RO stystem which is the tase and odor filter and send that to the double DI filters for making water for the tank. It works great and depending on the size of the water lines running, you shouldnt' need a delivery pump at all.

[David Grigor]

I once tried to feed from RO unit to the fridge icemaker. But becuase it produces water relatively slow it doesn't fill up your ice trays fast enough. The trays will be half empty / paper thin ice cubes.
Here are the parts your going to need to do what you want:

2 X 1/4 Tee
1/4 check valve
pressurized drinking tank ( or non pressurized storage tank that is higher than your icemaker to produce storage via gravity much cheaper but most people don't have room above ).

additional feet of 1/4 tubing.


If you want to do this you need to do:

1. T off the ro output before the DI
2. One side of the T will do to your DI which goes to your reef quality storage tank/bucket.
3. The other side of the T you will put the check valve. The check valve is required to keep the pressurized water from going back out to the reef quality / DI side.
4. After the check valve place a second Tee
5. One side of the T goes to the pressurized tank
6. The other side goes to your icemaker.


You can confirm the parts from Jim at filterguys.biz can and get better explaination if mine doesn't make sense.

What I found it wasn't cost effective for me because the pressurized tank itself is $89 purchased seperately yet you can get a whole drinking water unit from WaterGeneral on ebay for $125. I just ended up with 2 RO units one for Tank ( Higher quality ) and one for drinking water ( lower quality unit since not needing 0 tds water ).