cengland117 A question for anyone else with a Skuma or other RO machine, I am getting 0.8L of waste for 1.75L RO water. Is that typical?
For the way the Skuma system works with it’s combined cartridge, yes. Had I reviewed the unit, I would have made that point crystal clear. However if I was a “influencer” with little knowledge but a lot of chat, I might not have known any better. having 20 years experience of RO units and over 5 with the Osmio Zero, it gives me some valid perspective.
- The combined cartridge has to avoid getting blocked/bogged down. It does this by not recirculating waste water from the membrane to turn into more permeate (filtered water).
- This means the membrane waste water rate could be around 1:1, you are getting almost 2:1 which is very good. It might be that your in a lowish TDS water area?
- An Osmio Zero will generate 4 litres of water for every 5 litres used because it recirculates reject water back to the supply pitcher. Then filters it again. This is harder on the membranes and carbon block, but it doesn’t use a combined cartridge, so it copes.
- A specific RO membrane has a reject %, the Skuma is able to keep the TDS lowish because although it’s a combined filter, the input water TDS is always constant. With the Osmio, the TDS of water in the supply tank continually increases. Fortunately the reject % is low enough that TDS never really rises much above 50, even when filtering that last litre from the supply tank and averages around 30.
Here endeth the basics of countertop RO systems.
dutchy101 They did send pre production units out to get feedback from users (IIRC one was sent to Lance Hendrick). They took feedback on board and made some changes.
I was hoping to get a unit when I came back from WOC (Italy) in may, but unfortunately that fell by the wayside. Although had I had a unit, I would have definitely covered all this stuff. I’m surprised none of the reviewers found these problems, or perhaps they did find some, but for whatever reason stayed silent.
I think it has the potential to be a great product for the right people, the ability for the Micropump to make filter mixtures on the fly, or be turned off on the fly is very interesting. Of course this can be done on conventional systems with a bottle and eye dropper solution kept in the fridge after filtration. The high waste water ratio is an issue, but it can be used for plants, washing up or even cooking….as long as you are happy to empty the waste pitcher often and it’s conveniently placed to do so.
The temperature and volume control is something they can hopefully solve soon, assuming it’s a firmware and not hardware issue.
