scrubbedexpat008

Our place only has borehole water, pumped through a simple sediment filter and then a Kinetico water softener for the house.

After some initial investigations into filters, reverse-osmosis units etc. when we first moved here, I've continued to buy bottled water for drinking, tea, coffee, etc. The expense isn't an issue but I've now got through an awful lot of plastic bottles over the years.

The reverse-osmosis units waste an awful lot of water so I'm not keen on them.

I wondered if anyone has used domestic water distillers (e.g. Megahome) on borehole water, or come up with other solutions to purify their water.

Any thoughts / opinions?

Thanks

chawkins99

Why do you care about waste water from a RO unit? Presumably the waste will go straight back into the water table and recycle to your bore hole.

If you were paying for your water by the gallon, then I can understand the waste concern.

We use RO for cooking and drinking water and our water bill is usually less than $20/month for the whole house.

scrubbedexpat008

We care because our water table can only just keep up with demand. We have a hotel less than 1km from us tapping the same source and watering their lawns etc. as well as supplying guest needs. Other houses around have run dry in recent years. Also, electricity is really expensive here and our bore hole pump costs quite a lot (on top of the irrigation system pump, the house water pump and the pool pump).

So we are - indirectly - paying for our water by the gallon.

I note that you are located in Florida (at least some of the time) where I suspect things are a bit different.

chawkins99

I doubt you would use more than a couple of gallons of water a day for drinking etc. Even with 50% waste, I can't believe the cost of pumping a couple of gallons of water is going to be more than buying bottled water. Or that the same couple of gallons a day is going to have ANY impact on the water table.
RO systems only waste water while they fill the storage tank. Once full, there is no waste.

carvoeiro

we're currently investigating getting a tourism licence and have been told that you cannot use straight borehole water for guests - we filter through the old style carbon- string filters
our Camera rightly or wrongly have told us that we must install a uvfilter to comply with the new rules
i've investigated them and they do look good - but very expensive

scrubbedexpat008

There seems to be some confusion in this area, and I don't profess any knowledge other than what I've read / watched on the net.

An often-quoted metric for RO systems is that they typically "waste" 4 gallons of water for every gallon of drinking water produced. A couple of sites do, however, refute this allegation for "properly designed" systems (i.e. theirs).

Distillers appear to do a better job of purifying but are by no means perfect - they don't "waste" any water, but they do consume electricity while operating - typically 500 Watts for 4-5 hours for 4 litres of water. And you still need a charcoal post-filter to remove the stuff that survived the distillation process.

Maybe it's just horses for courses . . .

MrBife

The rope filter and the plastic (spun polyolifin) equivalent only remove sediment and larger particles. Bugs, microbes and all smaller organisms pass straight through.

The right frequency of UV kills the bugs and active organisms if the lamps are maintained & changed frequently to keep them efficient.

liveaboard

I've had UV filters in the past; they were not expensive at all.
They generally use another filter for sediment and a charcoal filter for chemicals [these can be naturally occurring or due to pollution].

All of these require regular maintenance and cleaning or they stop being effective.

Much depends on exactly what you're trying to filter out. A lot of borehole water has dissolved metals or salts, so only reverse osmosis or distilling will do the job.
Borehole water is usually free of dangerous bacteria, but anything can happen. You need to have it checked to know.

Distillation might waste less water but will waste more electricity; and as you can use the discarded water on your garden [which you're irrigating anyway] there is actually no water wastage from reverse osmosis. You could also feed it into an overhead tank that feeds your toilet reservoirs or whatever.

Water usage for drinking and cooking is a very minor portion of household water use, even for homes without pools or gardens.

Given your situation, I would also suggest installing a really big cistern to hold rainwater.

Humans can live anywhere there's access to clean water. It's sort of important.