What factors determine the quality of an RO system?

 

Buying a new reverse osmosis system can be a bit of a minefield. There’s so many different products available, numerous brands and it’s ever so easy to just purchase based on price alone. Subjective reviews and feedback are important in deciding which product is the best one for your needs. It’s good to see other users comments about the pros and cons of their own system and not just what the salesman is telling you. This was our idea to write about reverse osmosis reviews pros and cons, to give our thoughts on this matter.

 

Overview of RO systems

A high quality Reverse Osmosis system is a healthy way to purify drinking water, which is decontaminated against all kinds of waterborne impurities, but yet retains all the healthy minerals and salts essential for human body. Quick access to clean, drinking water is a primary right for every human being and a Reverse Osmosis system is an efficient and economical way of providing for this benefit whether at a large scale or domestic level. A good quality reverse osmosis system aims to kill 99% of germs present in the water and provides the purest form of drinking water in the most competent way.

A reverse osmosis system consists of 2 or 4 filtration stages and each filtration stage serves its own purpose of removing certain kind of impurities from the water before passing it through the RO membrane. The primary determinants of an RO system are the number of filtration stages sufficient for purifying your tap water and the type of RO membrane of the system.

Some of the considerable features of a quality RO system include:

High quality filtration:

A premium quality RO system must have 3 or 4 filtration stages to properly purify the water from all kinds of dissolved salts and impurities. These systems last longer than 2 stage filter systems as the RO membrane is well protected due to pre-inline filters. Moreover, the 4-stage RO system contains a de-ionization stage, which purifies the water from micro-level impurities and provides the purest form of drinking water.

Use of quality membranes:

Modern Reverse Osmosis System comes with various types of membranes according to the quality level they are built for. The CTA membranes are the organic membranes, which can only purify only 88-94% of water impurities. You may also need a de-chlorinator to the filtered water, if your water contains chlorine. The TFC Membranes gives 94-98% of purified water and a carbon pre-filter takes care of chlorine present in the water. The High Removal Membranes purifies water to up to 99.9% and are designed particularly for removing silicates from water. These membranes work well, for chlorinated water and are used with standard quality reverse osmosis systems. So, do keep it in mind and never ignore to check what type of filtration membranes are there in the filter you are going to purchase.

Size and design:

Size and structure of a reverse osmosis system are also critical and greatly depends on the space available for installing the system. These systems are mostly installed under or beside the kitchen sink and require average space for proper installation. As RO systems are available in various configurations and sizes, you can choose an appropriate system from a wide variety. You should choose the one that has the maximum possible to get installed and remain at its best functional state where you want to install it. For this, RO system that give you maximum opportunity to install it at any required space and does not need any special treatment that may or may not be possible for you to arrange, would be your best shot.

Time to process:

An RO system must be quick processing and energy efficient to save you on energy requirements and provide and economical water filtration system particularly for large scale utilities. So, do look or ask for the estimated time required for a filter to purify the required amount of water. Definitely a good one will take lesser time and would give you more economical solution to the water purification needs.

Maintenance and cleaning:

Most RO systems are easy to clean and maintain on a regular basis and require changing of filter films and RO membranes on a yearly basis. An efficient RO system must be easy to assemble and clean so that a technician is not required for every cleaning process.

Reverse Osmosis systems are well known for providing superior grade drinking water. The quality and features of a Reverse Osmosis system can vary according to the quality of resource water and the priorities of an RO system change accordingly. If you are getting salted sea water, which might also contain chlorine as well as numerous micro-level impurities than a 4-stage RO system ( or 5, 6 or 7 ) must be the priority. However, cleaning, regular tap water may only require a 2-stage or 3 stage RO system.

 

 Reverse osmosis reviews pros and cons final thoughts

 

It’s tempting to buy an outdated model because it’s cheap, but then what prices are the spares and consumables? The newest brand that nobody has heard about also looks tempting thanks to the introductory promotion, but how many engineers are there who can install or repair these? Do you stick to the market leaders? There’s a case that they’re the top dogs because they’re popular. They’re popular due to their products being good.
At the end of the day, a salesman from a company is hardly going to tell you all the weaknesses in his products and suggest you buy a competitor’s products. Independent reviews are a must in choosing major purchases. Reverse osmosis reviews pros and cons look at the good and the bad and help you decide through impartial feedback.