RO membrane flush

When and for how long should i be flushing my membrane?

 

Don't waste your time or money, they have no proven value other than lightening your wallet and giving you a warm fuzzy feeling. If you want to flush something install a DI bypass valve and flush the TDS creep to the drain each time you start your system so it does not prematurely exhaust your DI resin. Waste kits or valves only flush the waste side of the membrane not the treated side where TDS creep resides and is a problem and do nothing for this issue.

 

+1; if you want to maximize membrane/DI resin life, do a good job of changing out your pre-filters and carbon blocks and install the DI by-pass mentioned above.

 

How would one set up a di bypass system? I cringe everytime I fire up my ro/di unit and see the tds a little on the high side coming into the first cartridge. You mean shut off water from the ro filter to the di cartridge until tds numbers from the ro filter are down to where they should be, then let water flow into the di cartridges right?

Not trying to hijack this thread at all, a little more in depth description may help other readers as well.

 

Yes exactly. All you need is a John Guset style tee, 1/4" ball valve and a few inches of 1/4" tubing. Cut or remove one end of the line between the RO membrane exit and the DI inlet and install the tee with the ball valve so it can be opened as a flush to drain. When starting the system you can either watch the inline TDS meter if you have one or I prefer to use the new valve as a sample point for my much more accurate handheld TDS meter as well as a point I can draw RO only water for things like drinking, pet water and cooking.