Whole House Reverse Osmosis - Not a Great Idea

Sometimes, at first glance, you might wonder why you shouldn't just get a whole house RO system.  I thought the same.

RO for drinking water only can be the preferred design for many, it does make sense.  When it is the size of a whole house system, the benefits begin to diminish, unless you have very specific needs or are running a commercial process.

RO systems have varying performance depending on total dissolved solids in the water, water pressure, and water temperature.  Most specs state performance at 77 deg F.  Only if you are in Miami, is your ground water that warm.  So the performance is going to be less than the stated gallons per day.  See the map below for your location.

A whole house RO system will also require a HUGE tank, possibly up to 500 gallons.  This is very large and very heavy.  This probably won't go in an attic space.

Another huge shortcoming, there is A LOT OF WASTE WATER.  Approximately 4 gallons of water are wasted for every 1 gallon produced.

Simple math, 100 gallons/day/person. 4 people in the house.  That's 400 gallons of water wasted every person day or 1,600 gallons wasted per family.

Environmentally, this is terrible, and your water/sewer bill is going to be ASTRONOMICAL! 

It also removes the calcium and magnesium, which are essential minerals to the human body and we get up to 30% of our daily value from our drinking water.

image from hotspotenergy.com