Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Rob_Mac on July 12, 2008, 06:06:16 pm
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We stopped cleaning windows on a residential level back in March but as I have posted recently have picked up a nice 6 weekly run of nursing homes in the stoke on Trent area.
I am quite concerned about the amount of waste from reverse osmosis systems and have been looking at ceramic filtration, steam distillation and ultraviolet options amongst others.
I am looking for a system that can either be bought and or adapted to create reverse osmosis quality water with zero reject of waste water.
Ceramic filtration will produce high volumes of water but to what purity level?, steam distillation looks like an expensive option ad I have not looked into ultraviolet enough to know what I am saying.
There must be a way with prefilters to produce a zero waste set up with all the options available. I do not want to use DI vessels.
Have any of the suppliers or anyone else got experience of looking for alternatives to the RO units
Rob ;D
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ceramic filtration is much like ro in quality although I think it uses waste water too.
uv is for killing bacteria - it won't remove dissolved solids.
Ionics do a zero waste ro.
Why are you so worried about waste water?
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Because I feel that even at a ratio of 1:1 which the 300 gpd RO Man unis I have been using produce I would like to have a system that has no waste output.
I have been looking into ceramic filtration for some time now and I feel that it is a useful alternative. Have not seen that it produces waste anywhere. Can you point me in the right direction if this is the case.
I have had some water stored for the period between selling our residential work and now and with the sale of the residential work I also sold the RO units. This water was used on the cleans and I do not have enough to do the next cleans.
I have a 4 week period now to invest in a set up that will give me what I am looking for, before the next cleans are due.
Rob ;D
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You are quite a large company with quite a lot of clout I would imagine. You are dealing with nursing homes - businesses that (i) operate in large buildings with large roof areas and (ii) I would imagine are run by intelligent and caring people.
Go for rainwater harvesting.
Could you somehow get an agreement with the nursing homes to clean their roofs and gutters in return for collecting rainwater from their roofs.
That way, collecting from a clean roof, you would be collecting water at 002 to 004 ppm tds. That's good enough for cleaning windows without any treatment - and you don't even need to transport it, as it's already there, on site for you.
All you need to do is turn up and pump the water directly from the storage butt(s) directly to your operators.
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have you seen how much water goes down storm drains every day?
up to yourself but sending 2500ltrs of waste water down the drain every week doesn't bother me.
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have you seen how much water goes down storm drains every day?
up to yourself but sending 2500ltrs of waste water down the drain every week doesn't bother me.
I'm not going to enter into any debate about this as it would be pointless, however ...
I can quite understand m-clean's point. Any saving is worth making. It's also a stance that he's taking and I, for one, applaud him for it. Well done.
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Wally
I would like to be the business that you see, probably bigger than some on here but not capable of asking commercial clients for favours like this.
I have looked at rain water harvesting from our roof, though this is old corrugated asbestos and of a good size it would have a good yield - and we are certainly getting enough of the wet stuff.
I will set up a rainwater catchment system on Monday and see what purity I get. You watch now it will stop raining!!!!
Alan
I know what you are saying and I drive past a persistent leak on a local road every day but I genuinely want to reduce waste water and to offer this as a marketing tool.
Rob ;D
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Alan
I also feel that sending 2500 litres per week down the drain is not important but when you put that 2500 litres of water into the bigger picture, when people are dying of thirst then I feel somewhat obliged to look for alternatives and solutions.
Your 2500 litres with my 2500 litres and a few others, with all the waste from the behemoths of the water industry who ought to have more of a conscience than smaller operations then we waste far too much water in the west.
Doing my bit and looking for an alternative will assuage my guilt that there are thirsty people in the world
Rob ;D
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You've got to buy what you got rid of.
There is no clever answer. Don't you think the Isrealis or the Arab's would have found it if there was. It's life and death to them and these are countries that produce the greatest nuclear physists and mobile phone technicians in the world.
The RO thing was hit on in the seventies during the space race.
Water can't be wasted or destroyed- rivers carry thousands of gallons out to sea and it comes back as rain.
Saving water in the UK is pointless.
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Has anyone every tried putting see water though an RO ?
I dont live near the sea anymore so cant test it.
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Discount
Again I don't disagree with you but senseless waste is a real bugbear and there ought to be a solution of the combined filtration systems that could create a waste free set up.
At whatever cost water is per tonne - approx £1.20 every time I yield a tonne I throw atonne away £1.20.
Over a year that adds up. 5 working days per week (approx) £6.20 per week x 50 weeks per year!!!
Rob ;D
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You can buy salt water systems
Rob ;D
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You can buy salt water systems
Rob ;D
I would need a very long hose Rob I live in bedfordshire, if you need some water your welcome to have some off me if you passing ;) also have an ro I think its a 300gpd and pump etc sat in lock up.
Ian
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Was that info any use the other night
Rob ;D
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Depending on the TDS of the waste water you could always refilter it back through your RO.
I live in a very soft water area and use to use an RO but I would store the waste and then pump it back through the RO with the waste still going back to storage.
I use to produce around 2000L to about 100L waste. Not quite 0 waste but a very big saving.
I now use DI only purely because its quicker, easier and takes up less space.
Regards
Mr H
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Hi Rob,
Dont worry about the waste mate :o
Hows business?
Dean.
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I did something the other day that may surprise people.
Went to look at some commercial council work - quite large scale. Started off with a lttle bit of graffiti removal and ended up being reclamation clean on several streets around Middleport - They are knocking the area down but because they have a few, 3 or 4 people still in the terraces they have a duty of care to maintain the area.
I had been called in by a chap that I have been pestering for some work and the initial graffiti removal was his part of the job.
The contact when I turned up was not the guy I had been pestering but someone from the council, it turns out he is the purchasing manager for Stoke on Trent council - the man to know!!!!.
He asked me to go direct for the reclamation clean and to ignore my contact. Completely against my ethics despite the works being worth about £7000.00 - 9000.00.
I told my contact and hopefully have created a little bit of trust but still feel a bit awkward about the whole situation.
Have just come back from a supermarket clean at Finchley Rd - London so I am keeping the bailiffs from the door but it is much quieter this year!!!!
Always worry about throwing money literally down the drain !!!
How about you?
Rob ;D
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Has anyone every tried putting see water though an RO ?
I dont live near the sea anymore so cant test it.
Total no-no by comparison to tap-water sea-water is as full of minerals as your every going to get, except for the water in the dead sea..
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Was that info any use the other night
Rob ;D
Yes Rob was very helpful cheers for that ;) I will reply I just need to think a little more what I want to put ;)
Ian
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Ian
I always need constructive criticism on my approach so if there is something there that needs addressing then I am happy for that.
Rob ;D
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Have you considered rainwater harvesting? It may only supplement your water needs,.. but every little helps.
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Come on Nat
Keep up ;D
Quote from earlier post - I have looked at rain water harvesting from our roof, though this is old corrugated asbestos and of a good size it would have a good yield - and we are certainly getting enough of the wet stuff.
I will set up a rainwater catchment system on Monday and see what purity I get. You watch now it will stop raining!!!!
Rob ;D
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I do like the idea of rain water harvesting but am also looking for a permanent system to be reliant on.
If when I set up the rain harvester it will have sufficient purity levels and I can keep micro organism levels low then I am confident that this may be what I am looking for.
I have a dirty roof - I think but I have 4 IBC tanks and would like to store water rather than wait for it to rain for my requirements.
I will do a test next week - the rain water is not going to be a problem - storing may be
Rob ;D
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LOL,.. sorry,.. speed reading again!!
I get approx 30 TDS off my cement tile roof,.. still have to use DI, but the resin lasts ages.
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Do you store the water or use it quickly
Rob ;D
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Water companies waste more water than anyone else. If you have a meter fitted and it's outside your boundaries they couldn't give a monkeys. If it's on your side of the boundary, they can't come out fast enough.
I have my water switched off on a regular basis because of the 32 tonne trucks that are forever damaging the pipes under the road nearby. I have 2 x 2000 litre tanks and 4 x 1000 litre tanks which I always keep topped up (from the mains and rainwater harvesting) so at least I have enough water for work for a couple of weeks to be on the safe side.
Midas: .............. what's stopping you buying an Ionics 100% waste free RO system (7 series)? Is it the cost of the system and the cost of the replacement zero reject filter?
We'd all like to waste less water. I'm doing my bit although I don't use it as a marketing tool, perhaps I should. At the end of the day, most of it all boils down to saving money first.
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A couple of points here. First of all, as I understand it you cannot have a waste-free RO system. Think about it. The dissolved solids that aren't in the water you collect have to go somewhere. They are swept away by the waste water. If you measure the tds of the waste water you'll find that it's about double the tds of the tap water.
Secondly, purifying water takes energy. Purifying sea water takes more energy than purifying tap water. The energy comes from the pressure drop across the RO membrane. Purifying sea water can be done - and IS done on a very large scale in many middle eastern countries - where energy is relatively cheap. In the UK the cost would be prohibitive.
Going back to my days in Africa, I seem to recall that ceramic filters are used for filtering of micro-organisms. (I never used them for this. I was lucky and lived in places with good groundwater.) I'm sure that they wouldn't remove ions.
Distillation would be, as stated, prohibitively expensive.
Rain water is, of course, distilled by the Sun and wind.
I have three containers of rain water in my garden right now. Two are collecting from the roof. One is collecting directly from the sky!
Roof 1 - 002
Roof 2 - 006
Direct - 004 (also collects a lot of dust from the trees which explains why it's so high.)
And I haven't had my roof cleaned, but the gutters ARE clean.
(I'm going to look into the Ionics zero-waste RO. It sounds fascinating.)
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I have never given factory units a thought. - how much are they, Alex was meant to be bringing out an add on to existing systems but that has not appeared.
We have a large trading address that is not open to customers coming to us - more storage for the vans and equipment, I have never felt the need for shiney systems. From my point of view what goes on in the background is less important than what the customer sees and I am more than capable of setting my own systems up and putting different pieces together - but I don't want to waste money on ceramic filtration etc if it is not going to give me what I am looking for.
I am on a meter at my address and want a better solution than throwing water down the drain
Rob ;D
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Midas, the water you would normally throw down the drain could go into a below ground level soakaway/storage tank and be recycled for flushing toilets and the like. For more information, look at rainwater harvesting ideas on google search. :)
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I've had a quick look at zero-waste RO and it seems to be, as I suspected, a system that simply recycles the waste into another part of the system.
I found some really good information on RO systems. Check it out:
www.watts.com/pro/divisions/waterquality/support/support_faq.asp
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Sounds to me like it all boils down to cost in the end.
Less waste/less total quantity/less cost.
Come on we live in a mainly wet country, thats why the grass is green. If everybody saved water do you really think it would help arid countries, we wouldn't ship the excess to them and just because we weren't using it it wouldn't stay in the sky and fall elsewhere, any excess over the level of the reservoirs would go as runoff and be returned to our rivers and rtreams.
And if you think that the water companies would charge us less for using less then get real you would be charged more for each litre you use 'cos they want to earn the same amount as before but will be selling less product.
Just my humble opinion.
Steve
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Steve
I agree my little bit do nothing for the thirsty millions in Africa but my quest for an answer to the original post is about senseless waste and this is one area where there is far too much.
It cannot be that difficult to loop an additional couple of filters from the waste outlet and then re pipe the waste oultet back into the supply outlet.
I know there will always be a need to have some waste but not at a ratio of 1:1 and above. I would be happier spending additional money on extra filters to do this but I just don't know what filters I would need and if you looped back into the supply feed there would be no option to have a waste at all.
Rob ;D
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There is an alternative to the r/o ;)
Looking into it, but will be some time before we decide it is a viable option. As you know costs is the main issue so need to see if it is worth while.
Doug
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D. A
Any chance I can have a bit more info
;D
Rob
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Sorry mate, too many suppliers on here ;D
Have to do a lot of trialing before we introduce it into the market so will be a long time. Cost is the biggest factor.
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Is it anything to do with any of the options I have mentioned, could this be discussed over emails or the phone or is it something completely out of the box that you are developing to be an alternative.
Rob ;D
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This is something new, will see it next week to see if it is a vaible option for our Industry.
Let's say it will be an alternative to the r/o. Saying nothing else now ;)
Cheers
Doug
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da
are you on about the low pressure ro which doesnt need a booster pump ?
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hiya.
m-clean, what is your tapwater tds? if you're more bothered about waste water than cost, how about backpedalling a bit and just using resin.
if you bought it in bulk quantities, and if your tds isn't too high, maybe it's an option.
I suppose it depends how much water you use.
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da
are you on about the low pressure ro which doesnt need a booster pump ?
Dave,
No totally something different, a top person in the water industry knows the set up we use in our industry. He gave us some info on an alternative method, this I will discuss next week to see if it is a feasable option.
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da
are you on about the low pressure ro which doesnt need a booster pump ?
Dave,
Rob is near me and the tap water is hard! :'(
No totally something different, a top person in the water industry knows the set up we use in our industry. He gave us some info on an alternative method, this I will discuss next week to see if it is a feasable option.