Sorry for the delay, I've been pretty busy. Here are pics of my install process.
I installed this unit under my sink, running two lines to different areas behind the cabinets. One runs all the way to the fridge while the other runs to the stove, through the wall, and into the garage. I will add my garage storage tanks later (when funds allow).
First I had my wife empty all our stuff out from all the cabinets in the lower half of the kitchen. We had a lot of china and other glass ware that needed to be put up since our baby is busy getting into the cabinets and since we really don't use it that much. I'll tot-lock the important cabinets, but didn't want to do them all.
Junky looking isn't it??
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Here is the system all laid out. I also ordered 2 extra ball valves, 2 extra Ts, and 50ft of extra hose to run my fridge/garage lines. I also paid a little extra and upgraded the sink spigot to a nicer looking model.
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After the sink was all cleaned out of junk, I got started. Here is the before picture. It looks roomy in there, but really isn't. The garbage disposal really makes that side almost unusable.
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I decided to allow for the most usable storage space that the best way to mount the system was with the RODI unit on this side.
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And to place the pressure tank on the opposite side, tucked behind the drain pipe. It rests against the copper pipe feeding the dishwasher, which happens to already have a nice backwards curve in it.
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After consulting with my better half, and checking for clearance under the sink, I marked the spot where I had to drill for the sink dispenser. I had assumed that drilling the porcelain would be the hardest part of the install, but it was actually pretty easy with some patience.
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After turning the water off at the street, I pulled the cold water fitting off the sink and attached the supplied fitting. It had a beefy 1/4" valve and was very heavy duty. Unfortunately, this is where I ran into a little trouble. I didn't notice that the supplied fittings were not compression, but instead iron pipe type. I never could get a good seal and it leaked at a pretty good rate.
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Please remember that even with the street water turned off, there will be a lot of water in the lines, especially in a two story house. I opened a bathroom faucet to bleed the pressure off and help drain the 2nd story lines. A big bowl and lots of towels are still needed to catch the draining water.
I then decided to scrap the iron pipe fitting and just reattach the old compression fitting and buy the adapter from home depot. Ha! That didn't work either, as I never could get a good reseal from the compression fitting. So I cut the compression ring off with a small hacksaw and installed a new one from home depot, along with the 1/4 feed adapter. The Home Depot one was not well marked and buried on that isle. But it was worth finding. It fits between the compression valve and the flexible sink feed hose, instead of between the iron pipe style that was supposed to fit before the main valve.
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After that big time delay, I got started on the cabinets. Using a 1/2 spade bit, I drilled out the sink area and towards the final destination. I fed my 2 out lines to their final spots. Why feed 2 lines all the way from the source instead of just a 'T' halfway through? Well, remember this kit has dual outs for pre/post DI. I'm feeding RO water to the fridge, and DI water to the garage. This also is convenient, since I have all my on/off valves under the sink in one spot, and don't have any fittings buried in a cabinet or behind an appliance. Less chance for leaks and unnoticed damage that way. I live in a cookie cutter house with nary a custom anything in sign. As such, these cabinets are pre-fab and just installed on site. I made good use of the pre-fab bracing and wasted space to run my lines out of harm's way. I did it slowly, making sure there were no kinks or stressful bends along the way. The DI line was ran through the wall (behind the stove), the RO line ran all the way around to the fridge. I cut some excess away and attached the RO line to the fridge.
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Next, I installed my boutique sink dispenser and attached a spare piece of line to it. That will attach to a 'T' that feeds either this dispenser or the line to fridge with RO water (blue line from unit). The blue line is pressurized from the tank with RO water. No DI water passes through the pressure tank.
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Next, I set the main unit in place and measured for the mounting screws. I made sure they weren't too long to punch through to the other side, and beefy enough to hold the unit when it is full of water.
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With the unit set in place I set the pressure tank in place and drilled the hole for the waste water line. After sticking on a little foam gasket, I attached the waste water bracket by inserting the waste line (yellow) and feeding about 1/4" of it past the John Guest fitting. That little stub of hose gets put into the hole that got drilled in the drain pipe and then the bracket is simply bolted together. I then measured and cut the hose to the pressure tank (clear), and cut and attached the feed line hose (red).
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Next, I trimmed and attached the blue feed line to the 'T' with the fridge line and the sink dispenser. After double checking all my fittings, I opened the valve on top of the pressure tank, and opened the cold water valve to pressurize the system. I turned on the sink dispenser to help bleed some air out and stood back. I quickly found that I had two small leaks. One was in the John Guest fitting off of the DI unit. That was resolved by removing the fitting, rewrapping the threads with ample teflon tape and reattaching. The other was from the center of the check valve. Whoops, can't fix that. I left the system powered on and put a bowl under where the check valve leak was collecting. That way, I could go ahead and run my startup purges. The mfg suggested that you run two full fills/dumps through the RO pressure tank, as well as ditch the 1st few gallons of DI water. I also had to dump all my nasty ice, and feed enough water through the fridge door to empty the internal tank. My GE fridge has a user replaceable filter that I removed and installed the blockoff cap for. Why filter RO water? I also eliminated that $35 filter that was replaced every 6 months with this kit. More savings for me!! Yaayy!
I must say that Abundant Flow Water handled the check valve replacement very well and shipped me a new part immediately. After that, I have no leaks!
Here is my sink after install. Since I don't have my garage tanks in yet, I left the DI feed line free with a ball valve. For now I just set my 5G in front of the sink and set the kitchen timer. For 5G it's taking about 90 minutes with my cold city water and our city's pressure. Not great, but not terrible either.
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For anyone not sure if they can pull off a RO/DI kit install, just do it! It's very easy, just a little time consuming (and that's coming from someone who is usually put off by under sink projects!).
And finally, no project is complete without a picture of the help crew.
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sorry Marc), that was setup already with most everthing I needed to do the aquarium and the kitchen. I also ran into some space constraints when I got under and measured my sink area. I ended up with a single carbon filter instead of Marc's double carbon up front.
