Status 2016

I suppose we are now getting towards the end of the story. The whole installation works flawlessly. We have added a second membrane. It works like this: Instead of pumping the brine over board it passes a second membrane. So, with the same effort the output of fresh water has now almost doubled. Our fresh water tank is not bigger than before (65 liters / 17 gal.), but instead of one hour the watermaker needs 30 minutes to refill the water tank. This saves a tremendous amount of energy.

Finally, there is not much left to say. Our DIY watermaker works flawlessly. The Danfoss pump easily delivers 60 to 80 liters (16 to 21 gall.) fresh water per hour. It could make up to 120 liters (31 gall.), but we do have our restrictions in terms of energy. If you can provide 2.5 kW for a period of 1 to 2 hours constantly, you’ll get the maximum of the membrane’s capabilities. Our setup only allows some 1.2 kW, which simply means about half the performance.

The Karcher would be a good point to start with, and even a solution for ever, given that you buy a new one every now and then.

Some friends tried to power their systems with a medium sized portable genset (e.g. Honda 2 kW). They are, however, not really happy, as the noise of those portable gensets is quite annoying when running an hour or two.

In my opinion doing it the DIY-way has one major advantage: you thoroughly know your watermaker. Whatever happens, you’ll know what and how to fix it.

For us the WM is a major contribution to the quality of our 2 months’ holiday on the Adriatic.