Yeah it's a very easy trap to fall into. "Hey a Wendy's! A couple of junior bacon cheeseburgers sound good right about now. I'll eat better tomorrow."
Starting a new job soon!
- Thread starter jthomas666
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Just got back from my first big install. Lexington, Kentucky. 6½ hour drive Friday, work yesterday from 5a to 7p and drove back today.
Actually made myself useful considering I was supposed to be an observer lol. I'm young and pretty bendy, so I spent most of my time during the install in the ceiling doing the long plumbing runs across the room with about a cubic foot of space available around me at any one time. Concrete ceiling though, so I was able to step freely as I squeezed myself into places my coworkers couldn't go. They just put me up there, pulled the ladder and let me do my thing while they did the RO and completed the runs I stuffed down through the ceiling after cementing them.
Worst part was a terminus above a sterilizer. There was no support. It was bare sheet metal. I found, of all things, a 2*10 in the ceiling and made myself a platform. Laughably, I was the only one that could squeeze past the sterilizers and make that climb. That took a solid 2 hours working one handed.
But damn I'm in love with this job.
Actually made myself useful considering I was supposed to be an observer lol. I'm young and pretty bendy, so I spent most of my time during the install in the ceiling doing the long plumbing runs across the room with about a cubic foot of space available around me at any one time. Concrete ceiling though, so I was able to step freely as I squeezed myself into places my coworkers couldn't go. They just put me up there, pulled the ladder and let me do my thing while they did the RO and completed the runs I stuffed down through the ceiling after cementing them.
Worst part was a terminus above a sterilizer. There was no support. It was bare sheet metal. I found, of all things, a 2*10 in the ceiling and made myself a platform. Laughably, I was the only one that could squeeze past the sterilizers and make that climb. That took a solid 2 hours working one handed.
But damn I'm in love with this job.
When my wife left public accounting at a Big 4, I told her that she needed to get a second full time job with all the time she had freed up
. She’s a type A exec so it took her a minute to get used to not being “on” 18/7/365.Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
What are you installing, Dub?Just got back from my first big install. Lexington, Kentucky. 6½ hour drive Friday, work yesterday from 5a to 7p and drove back today.
Actually made myself useful considering I was supposed to be an observer lol. I'm young and pretty bendy, so I spent most of my time during the install in the ceiling doing the long plumbing runs across the room with about a cubic foot of space available around me at any one time. Concrete ceiling though, so I was able to step freely as I squeezed myself into places my coworkers couldn't go. They just put me up there, pulled the ladder and let me do my thing while they did the RO and completed the runs I stuffed down through the ceiling after cementing them.
Worst part was a terminus above a sterilizer. There was no support. It was bare sheet metal. I found, of all things, a 2*10 in the ceiling and made myself a platform. Laughably, I was the only one that could squeeze past the sterilizers and make that climb. That took a solid 2 hours working one handed.
But damn I'm in love with this job.
I've usually done all my own wiring but I'm having to face that I'm really not cut out for attics any more. So, I hired this well-recommended electrician for an attic job, name of "Jeff Kirsch," you can figure out his ancestry. Sure enough, at least 6'4" and 250. Luckily, the real attic man is named "Mario," and he's about 5'1"...Just got back from my first big install. Lexington, Kentucky. 6½ hour drive Friday, work yesterday from 5a to 7p and drove back today.
Actually made myself useful considering I was supposed to be an observer lol. I'm young and pretty bendy, so I spent most of my time during the install in the ceiling doing the long plumbing runs across the room with about a cubic foot of space available around me at any one time. Concrete ceiling though, so I was able to step freely as I squeezed myself into places my coworkers couldn't go. They just put me up there, pulled the ladder and let me do my thing while they did the RO and completed the runs I stuffed down through the ceiling after cementing them.
Worst part was a terminus above a sterilizer. There was no support. It was bare sheet metal. I found, of all things, a 2*10 in the ceiling and made myself a platform. Laughably, I was the only one that could squeeze past the sterilizers and make that climb. That took a solid 2 hours working one handed.
But damn I'm in love with this job.
I will officially start the new job mid-October. They know about my injuries and said they will help me get new insurance ASAP.
Updating a reverse osmosis water system. The client, the VA hospital in Lexington, had what we call a "dead-head" system. That is, filtered water went out of their RO water filtration system one way and terminated at the outlets. A system like this is hard to sterilize, and they need to be sterilized once every month with a Minncare (paracetic acid) solution. You have to put the Minncare in the line, leave it for 20 minutes or so to kill everything and then drain it until you get a zero reading for Minncare. On a dead-head system, this means running the lines until there's no Minncare left in the line. This takes a long time.
What we did was turn that dead-head into a loop. A loop is far easier to sterilize since everything comes back to the storage tank, and you simply run that until you get a zero reading rather than every terminus.
In essence, we doubled the plumbing, in addition to me cutting out old plumbing and dead legs while I was up in the ceiling.
So, you're still in the med device business. From your job description, I'd thought you'd gone to another field...
It's still mostly medical, yeah, but I also handle systems in heavy industry. Gas processors, cladding, plating, precision engineered coatings etc. Pretty much anyone that needs pure water is under my umbrella.
Hey Dub....
Glad things are working out for you on the new gig!
Speaking of water treatment....was chatting with a buddy of mine on Monday who works for the local utilities department. He's now with the electric crew and they were installing a new transformer on the pole between me and the neighbor for the new home they are building. Anyhoo.....he mentioned something about our city water quality. Said he saw the tanks and frogs and algae in them and stuff and when he asked about it the guy said "That's what chlorine is for." He also said the chlorine has a "shelf life" and it used up after a period of time and they have to bleed water through fire hydrants around town just to flush out the older water where the chlorine has lost it's effectiveness. They haven't done it in a while but earlier this year and all last year they did it at the hydrant across the street here every Monday morning just like clockwork. My buddy said he wouldn't drink our water (as he was drinking a bottled water...lol).
I'm sure we have to meet certain health guidelines but what he said really gave me pause. I've never had any reason before to question our tap water and have used it consistently since moving here over 20 years ago.
People would be surprised at the stuff that touches their tap water, but it's - with rare exceptions - safe to drink. And yeah, chlorine and chloramine won't stay in water long before gassing out, so draining the lines periodically is important.
Chlorine is the enemy in my field though. It destroys RO membranes, and should it break through, can cause anaemia in dialysis patients.
How do you remove the chlorine prior to the RO system? Looking to install a whole house filter system and was hoping you would share some thoughts on which type of system to use. Active charcoal, RO, something else?
In the industry, we use carbon (ie activated charcoal) to remove the chlorine. Here's a pic of a typical RO pre-filter system:
And the RO itself:
I didn't get the labels, but from front to back, the first big tank is a sediment filter (sand and gravel) to remove all of the big crap - i.e. dirt and stuff - before the finer or more specialized filters.
The second is a softener to remove the magnesium and calcium. The brine tank isn't pictured, but it's there.
The third and fourth are the carbon filters. To give you an idea of how bad it is if chlorine gets through to the membranes or the floor, there are two identical tanks, a worker and a polisher. If we detect chlorine in the water after the worker, we have to rebed the tank. The system can still run, but they have to check for chlorine after the polisher on a quarter hour basis until the rebed on the worker is complete.
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Here's what happens to a 5 micron pre-filter without a sediment tank and Lord knows how long between changes. Found this today. B'ham city water. We weren't there to check this. We were there to rebed a softener. But when you have a 20+ PSI drop across a filter, you have to take care of it. It's supposed to be white and fluffy.
We left it on the drain to make a point.
We left it on the drain to make a point.
But to your question, Elefantman, I'd go carbon block. Cheaper, will remove a lot of crap and is a lot less wasteful than RO. For whole house RO, you'll have a huge ratio of reject to product. That is, for every filtered gallon it pumps out, you'll have like 4-15 of reject going down the drain, depending on your municipal water quality.
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Thanks, we had a active charcoal system in PA and will install a filter when we build our house in AR. Is there much difference between AC and carbon block?
I helped my stepson change out their whole house filter once outside Orlando. Of course the water there is high sulfur anyway and almost undrinkable, unfiltered. My God, I've never smelled anything that bad in my life, not even animal carcasses...Here's what happens to a 5 micron pre-filter without a sediment tank and Lord knows how long between changes. Found this today. B'ham city water. We weren't there to check this. We were there to rebed a softener. But when you have a 20+ PSI drop across a filter, you have to take care of it. It's supposed to be white and fluffy.
We left it on the drain to make a point.
Carbon block filters are activated carbon, but they're much more compacted than the granulated activated carbon filters.
They expose the water to a lot more of the carbon, with the tradeoff being a lower flow rate.
Since they're finer filters and catch more crap, they are also more prone to getting loaded down with sediment than a granulated carbon filter. Most kits you can purchase at home depot will have a sediment filter like the filthy one I pictured above ahead of the carbon block in the water line.
This reminds me of the evolution of backpacking water purification over the years. I went from chemicals to various filters. However, on one trip, to the west half of the Wind River Range in Wyoming, I decided to boil. Well, the little pothole lake we sort of settled on had a resident beaver. Not pertinent to the water situation, he had a nasty disposition and orange teeth. I decided to boil everything we drank. However, I stupidly rinsed our dishes in the lake water. After we got back, I came down with giardia. Oddly, my girlfriend did not...
I have the official job offer and will start in 2 weeks. Now comes the awkward part of handing in my resignation. The offer was more money and better benefits. I will have a one month transition for insurance. I will have to figure out what to do there given my current condition.
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