RainDance Water Systems Whole House Reverse Osmosis
Frequently Asked Questions & More

 

Welcome to RainDance Water Systems!

Lets get started learning how a whole house reverse osmosis system works:

Whether you want bottled water quality at every tap or want to remove specific contaminants such as arsenic, chromium, uranium, high sulfates, nitrates, chlorides, sodium, GenX chemicals or total dissolved solids from your water supply a whole house reverse osmosis system may be your best solution.

At RainDance Water Systems, we specialize in custom-built whole house reverse osmosis packages using your most recent water test or water analysis to achieve optimum production and water quality results. Additionally, we customize any needed pre-filters or post filters with filtration media that best matches the problems in each customer's water. Below you can find a comprehensive list of Frequently Asked Questions & Concerns about our specialized Whole House RO Packages and reverse osmosis systems in general.

Have a question you don't see answered below? Let us know! Our Online Live Chat System is available from 5am to 10pm PST - 365 days a year - Emails are also answered 7 days a week 365 days a year or if you prefer to call,(1-877-788-8387) our office hours are from 9am-5pm PST Monday-Friday.

NOT ALL RO SYSTEMS ARE CREATED EQUAL! We invite you to compare our quality, knowledge, and support with any others on the market today. We receive many phone calls from customers who have purchased whole house reverse osmosis systems from other companies and now regret it. Many of our competitor's RO systems are generic, massed produced and show up right off the shelf. Unfortunately, these systems have very low filtering parameters and can rarely be customized to treat water outside their listed parameters. 


Our custom-built whole house RO systems are specifically designed to treat municipal city-treated water sources as well as brackish salty well water sources with a range of accommodations for every individual water source. We can also run an estimated RO water quality projection on your untreated water to let you know what to expect before you make a purchase. Contact Us Today.

Is A Whole House Reverse Osmosis System The Right Choice?
Will A Reverse Osmosis System Filter Everything In My Water?
Will I Still Need A Water Softener Or Iron Filter?
How Does A Whole House Reverse Osmosis Work?
Why Is The Electronic RO Control Panel Important?
Is RO Water Corrosive To Copper Plumbing?
Does A Reverse Osmosis System Remove Healthy Minerals?
How Do I Size A Whole House Reverse Osmosis System?
Can I Save Money And Install My RainDance Whole House RO Myself?
What Is The Filter Maintenance For A Whole House RO System?
Does An RO System Waste Water?

 Trending Now - What Whole House Reverse Osmosis Systems People Are Buying:

RainDance-1200 1200 Gallons Per Day	RainDance-1500 1500 Gallons Per Day	RainDance-2000 2000 Gallons Per Day	RainDance-6000 6000 Gallons Per Day

Q: Why Buy From RainDance Water Systems?

A: 20+ years in the whole house reverse osmosis water treatment industry - From high salts & TDS to arsenic, sulfates, chromium and other impurities we design you an affordable, reliable whole house reverse osmosis water treatment packages built to last - Free delivery within the continental USA - Installation kit included with most systems - Free water testing for as long as you own your water filter - 365 day expert technical support / customer service - After hours, weekend and holiday support included - Safe & secure online shopping experience or order over the phone - Tons of happy and satisfied customers worldwide - Check out our reviews to see why our customers love our products - We do not buy or solicit reviews or testimonials. 

If you need your water to be of a higher quality than your private well water, then an RO system might work for you.  As there are many different RO water filters to choose from, it is worth having your water analyzed. Before you purchase any whole house reverse osmosis water filter for your home we recommend that you obtain a water quality test report for your well water supply, which will help identify any issues that are essential to deal with and those you may wish to improve. If you have a water report please email us at Support@RainDanceWaterSystems.com Attn: Home RO System - Or contact us about our FREE well water testing.

Read our latest success story on how our Whole House Reverse Osmosis System transformed brackish well water in rural Colorado! Check out the detailed case study here.

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Q: Why do I need whole house reverse osmosis (vs. under-the-sink RO)?

A: There are many reasons why a family needs or wants purified water at every tap in their home. The primary benefit many consumers enjoy is the pure, clean drinking water. This is why compact, inexpensive, and simple under-the-counter point of use (POU) RO systems were introduced. With a new shiny separate faucet installed next to your kitchen sink, your family can fill their cups, bottles, bowls, pots, pans, or anything else used for cooking and drinking with pure RO water. But what about the other areas of the house - do you really need pure RO water at every tap? A POU drinking water RO system is limited to one faucet, very limited in capacity & flow rate, and some models can waste up to 7 gallons of water to make only 1 gallon. What are the benefits of expanding this simple filter into a complete water purification system for your entire home?

Every customer has different needs for reverse osmosis purification besides great-tasting drinking water, whether it's for problematic levels of arsenic, chromium, nitrate, or uranium, corrosive levels of sulfates, sodium,  chlorides, or other salts, undesirable levels of fluoride or minerals, or varying concerns that can be best treated by a whole house RO. Do you have a little one that likes to drink the bath water, or is it convenient for you to grab a drink of water from the bathroom sink before bed? Are you noticing corrosion on water fixtures, appliances, or does excessive salts make your hair dull, skin pasty, or clothes stiff? You'll notice the difference immediately when you take a shower, run a load of laundry, or shine up your faucets with purified whole house RO water.

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Q: Will an RO system treat everything in my water?

A: The very first question we get from our customers is if reverse osmosis is the cure-all for their water problems and will take care of every contaminant that may be in there. The short answer for this is absolutely not. Reverse osmosis membranes are highly efficient at reducing or removing salts, dissolved minerals and metals such as aluminum, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chloride, sodium, sulfate, uranium, chromium, copper, fluoride, lead, mercury, nitrate, selenium, silver, and zinc. RO is also effective with asbestos, many pharmaceuticals, bad taste, color and odor-producing chemicals, particulates, total dissolved solids, turbidity, and radium. Technically, these membranes can take care of pretty much anything in the water, but it'll last about a day or two before the membrane fouls and needs replacing if proper pretreatment is not in place.

Reverse Osmosis & Nano Membrane Purification Systems have been found to be extremely effective in removing Gen X and PFAS such as PFOA & PFOS Chemicals.  

For this reason, certain contaminants must be pre-treated before the water touches the RO membrane. The most common and problematic contaminants that can foul a membrane and need to be pretreated are chlorine, rust, iron, manganese, hydrogen sulfide gas and hard water.

You can use your own existing water softener or backwashing filter as pretreatment or choose from our selection of advanced pretreatment systems.

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Q: How does your whole house RO system work?

A: To start, reverse osmosis is a separation process in which dissolved ions, heavy molecular weight compounds, and particulate matter are removed from a liquid. The process splits the liquid flow into a purified stream of liquid which has passed through the membrane (permeate) and a concentrated stream of liquid which has passed over the surface of the membrane (concentrate).

With our custom TSM-RO Packages, pressurized water from your city treated or well water source enters a pretreatment system, typically a water softener to remove hard water, iron, manganese, rust and hydrogen sulfide gas - this soft pretreated water then enters the attached dual prefilter cartridge system to remove sediment, debris, rust, and chemicals. This pre-filtered water enters the reverse osmosis water purification system to treat and remove numerous contaminants. This purified water then enters the pH neutralizer / remineralizer then begins to fill a near-by storage tank supplied by you or us. The purified water will continue to fill the storage tank until the tank is full and the integrated RO float switch closes and shuts the entire RO system off. When there is a demand for water a re-pressure delivery pump is activated and draws purified water from the storage tank to your taps. If enough purified water is used to the point where the float switch is reopened, the RO system is automatically reactivated and begins to replace the purified water that has been depleted in the storage tank.

Our specialized whole house reverse osmosis systems are computer designed utilizing the latest up-dated element data including our Electronic RO Control Panel. This insures maximum recovery and optimum water quality while minimizing capital and operating costs. We can provide estimated post quality information along with operating cost and projections on future production and water quality. In addition we provide custom built pre-treatment as required to provide the most economical and environmentally friendly operation of the entire system.

 If you have a water report please email us at Support@RainDanceWaterSystems.com Attn: Home RO System - Or contact us about our FREE well water testing.

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Q: What does the Electronic RO Control Panel do and why is it important?

A: The Electronic Control Panel provides hands-free and worry-free operation of several functions of the RO system. The basic RO functions include the "feed pressure switch" and "tank float switch" which regulates the system operating. The "feed pressure switch" ensures that your incoming water pressure is high enough for the RO system to operate (typically above 25psi). The "tank float switch" tells the RO system to shut down or start up based on your storage tank's water level. These basic functions are built into the RO control panel for smarter regulation and eliminates external switches.

A bonus feature included in our Electronic RO Control Panel is automatic membrane flushing. Most whole house/light commercial RO systems on the market today do not provide a membrane flush, which helps extend the life of the membrane by removing the concentrate brine (extremely salty water expelled by the membrane) sitting on the surface. Our whole house and light commercial RO systems included a manual membrane flush that allowed the user to flush the membrane as they wanted to. With this Electronic RO Control Panel, our customers no longer need to worry about remembering to flush the membrane constantly; this control panel automatically activates a membrane flush both at start up and shut down, ensuring longevity of your RO membrane.

The most important feature on this control panel, however, is the low pressure shutdown. Both public city water users and private well water users can suffer from periods of low pressure which can have a great negative affect on any RO system. If you experience a period of low pressure, a standard RO system would cycle on and off until the pressure is regulated. This can cause wear and irreversible damage to the RO pump motor and external feed pressure switch, resulting in costly and labor-intensive repair. Our RO control panel prevents this from happening by automatically shutting down the RO system if your feed pressure remains low for an extended period of time.

An optional feature on our RO control panel is pretreatment lockout. When pretreatment is needed to protect the RO system, a backwashing filter or water softener is used. When these pretreatment systems shut down to clean themselves, they allow unfiltered water to pass by the system and get into the RO if it's running at this time. To prevent possible exposure to unfiltered water a pretreatment lockout switch can be used to shut down the RO system when the water softener or filter is regenerating. Once the pretreatment system is finished regenerating, the switch will reactivate the RO system again. Both the RO system and the pretreatment system will need to be specially fitted with pretreatment lockout. This option is included free of charge when you add any of our pretreatment water softeners, iron filters, or backwashing systems to your whole house RO system!

Each function of the control panel is displayed with varying indicator lights to let you know how the system is running. You won't have to wait until it's too late and there is no water when you turn on a tap. Our Electronic RO Control Panel prevents potential RO malfunctions from happening and allows you to catch the culprit in time, before it has a chance to harm your system. This fully automated control is a must-have for any home owner that wants a hassle-free solution to many water problems.

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Q: Is reverse osmosis water corrosive to copper plumbing?

A: The reverse osmosis purification process can end up lowering your pH levels, resulting in acidic water that can cause corrosion of copper pipes and metal water fixtures, but this is dependent on your water chemistry. If your starting pH is around 7-8, the RO system can lower your pH below 7, which is where the water can start to become more acidic. If your pH is 8 or greater, the RO system can lower your pH to a more neutral level and won't be acidic. For our customers who fear acidic water, we offer a pH correction remineralizer system as a standard feature in our Whole House RO Packages which is designed to go right after the RO system to raise your pH back to neutral levels, effectively protecting your home from acidic water corrosion.

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Q: Is the RO water unhealthy to drink?

A: The second most-asked question is if reverse osmosis removes all the essential minerals from the water, making it unhealthy for our bodies. Reverse osmosis does remove a variety of minerals and elements from your water, but this does not make RO water unhealthy or unsafe. Our bodies receive essential minerals and vitamins from the food we eat, so drinking purified RO water is not depriving your body of these.

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Q: What size RO system do I need / How many gallons per minute can I get from an RO?

A: Our Whole House Reverse osmosis systems are sized based on your gallon per day (gpd) usage. They should not fall under the sizing rules of inline filters such as backwashing filters and water softeners, which are designed to accommodate the gallon per minute (gpm) flow rate you have going through your pipes. Rather, a reverse osmosis system is designed to produce a set capacity of purified water per day. For example, a system rated at 800 gallons per day (gpd) is only capable of producing 800 gallons of purified water within a 24 hour period and nothing more. So it doesn't matter if you have an 8gpm or 40gpm flow rate going into this system, it will still produce 800 gallons.

The purified RO water comes out as a small stream, which is why you have to have a storage tank and repressure pump to collect and deliver your purified water to your taps. The delivery pump will then provide the flow rate needed for pressure throughout your home.

When shopping for a whole house reverse osmosis system, take into consideration your expected gallon per day usage as well as the hours in which you need purified water. If you plan on using 400 gallons per day, you could go with a 400gpd RO system. However, if you end up using that 400 gallons within 8 hours, a 400gpd system would not be able keep up. To get 400 gallons in 8 hours, a 1,200gpd RO system would be much more efficient. When in doubt, don't hesitate to contact a knowledgeable representative who can walk you through the process to ensure you purchase the right system for you.

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Q: Can these systems be installed by the home owner?

A: Yes, Our whole house reverse osmosis packages can be installed by the determined do-it-yourselfer with considerable plumbing experience or is easily done by a professional plumber or contractor. We provide detailed installation instructions, pictured diagrams, patient & knowledgeable support (our support staff is your support staff!), and information on how each component of our whole house purification systems work. Most importantly, you can get reliable tech support via phone or email to ensure everything is running smoothly. If you want to find out if you can tackle this project, contact us to discuss installation tips and guides.

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Q: Is there a lot of maintenance with a whole house RO system?

A: Typical maintenance is highly dependent on your water chemistry and typical water usage, and not every RO system is built the same. Our RainDance 400-1500 Whole House RO Packages include the following typical maintenance schedule which has been easily handled by our customers themselves:

Q: Do RO systems waste a lot of water?

A: It's not a secret; reverse osmosis systems use water to make water, which means there is a concentrated discharge water containing the contaminants that were removed by the purification process. Reverse osmosis technology has come a long way since it was first introduced to include higher recoveries for less waste water. Where RO systems used to waste up to 7-8 gallons for every 1 gallon of purified water, they can now achieve 33% (3:1) recovery rate or even better. As with other RO components, recovery and waste/product ratio will vary depending on your raw water chemistry.

Our TSM Whole House RO Packages include a recirculation valve which can achieve a high recovery rate of 50% or better. This translates into an incredible 1:1 waste to product ratio! If you venture into our upgraded high capacity 2,000gpd to 12,000gpd TV-RO Systems you can find recovery rates go up to 60% and even 70%!

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Q: Do you use blending valves with your whole house RO systems?

A: We do not use blending valves with our whole house reverse osmosis systems as they add contaminants back to your water supply which could be potentially dangerous. For example, our RO systems will remove the majority of arsenic and other contaminants but it would not take much feed water blended in with the purified water to kick arsenic and other impurity levels back up. For this reason alone we offer a separate pH remineralizer and not a blending valve!

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Before You Order Your New RainDance Whole House RO System Check List:

• Have you talked to one of our knowledgeable staff members? If not, email: support@raindancewatersystems.com, use our Live Online Chat to talk with a live team member and get your questions answered swiftly and thoroughly, or use our Online Tech Support Form - There's no sense making such a big investment with unanswered questions or hesitation!
• If you need your water to be of a higher quality than your current private well water, then an RO system might work for you.  As there are many different RO water filters to choose from, it is worth having your water analyzed. Before you purchase any whole house reverse osmosis water filter for your well we recommend that you obtain a water quality test report for your well water supply, which will help identify any issues that are essential to deal with and those you may wish to improve. If you have a water report please email us at Support@RainDanceWaterSystems.com Attn: Home RO System - Or contact us about our FREE well water testing.
• Have you sized your whole house RO system to adequately meet your needs? Reverse osmosis systems are not like point-of-entry (POE) water filters that treat all incoming water. All RO systems are rated at different gallon per day (GPD) capacities, meaning they can only purify a certain amount of water within a 24 hour period. For example, a whole house RO system rated at 1,200gpd can produce 1,200 gallons of purified water in 24 hours, or approximately 600 gallons in 12 hours, and so on. This is important to keep in mind so your RO system is able to keep up with your demand.
• Do you have the space required for a complete whole house water treatment system? For purified water at every tap in your home, you'll have to take into consideration the other equipment needed with a whole house RO system. Our complete TSM Whole House RO Packages include our compact wall-mounted RO system (of varying widths and heights depending on the model), a pH correction & remineralizer system (20"H x 4"D), and a 10gpm repressure pump (13"H x 23"L). A separate storage tank of at least 200 gallons is needed to supply your home with on-demand purified water, and these storage tanks can come in a variety of sizes. These RO systems must be installed indoors to protect from nature's elements as well as kept from freezing temperatures. A simple plumbing sequence diagram can be provided upon request to help you visualize your new whole house RO set up.
• Whole House Reverse Osmosis Package Discount/Rebates: Periodically we offer discounts & rebates for new and existing customers as well as special discounts for military, veterans, first-responders and teachers - If you would like to request our current discount please contact us via our Online Live Chat - Phone 1-877-788-8387 - Email: Sales@RainDanceWaterSystems.com or Contact Form - Contact us today as Whole House RO Discounts change often and without notice.

Note: Water Totalizer Meter & Automatic Electric Panel Not Shown

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