"To buy or not to buy" – your choice. Customers ring us on a regular basis stating they have purchased a cheap system about a year ago and curse the day they made that decision.
Filter housings not sealing, blown housings, lamps not working, blown ballasts, unable to get spares, the list goes on.
If you are an installer - beware of these cheap UV water filtration systems – they may come back to bite you financially and legally!
These cheap imported UV filtration systems come and go into the market, many of these companies last a year or two and fold leaving you with a problematic system and no servicing spares.
I have seen some of these with no earthing, which is illegal, anything over 32 volts must be earthed, also they had no audible alarm if the lamp fails allowing contaminated water to flow unchecked. These systems are very dangerous if an electrical fault occurs, anyone in the house can be electrocuted.
These cheap systems use low wattage lamps, some as low as 20 watt, OK if it is for an aquarium, however if installed on normal 3 bedroom home, will not kill bacteria to the level required under normal water usage for safe drinking water.
Item Water Usage
Shower 12 L/m
Toilet 8 L/m
D/Washer 6 L/m
Washing Machine 12 L/m
Hand Basin/ Kitchen 10 L/m
Out side tap 15 L/m
On an average home at peak times 50 to 70 litres per minute of water flow is quite easy to achieve
As a quick rule of thumb, the power of the lamp is equal to the flow rate the system is capable of I.E.
20 watt only good for 10 litres a minute or a single tap.
40 watt to around 50 litres per minute – Our B1 & B2 Systems
80 watt for up to 100 litres per minute – Our B3 System
We would not recommend anything less than a 40 watt system for a small home that consists of 1 x bathroom and 1 x kitchen.
Important details to remember:
The lamp wattage matched to the intended use
The ratio of the lamp wattage, the radius and length of the Stainless Steel vessel.
UV water filtration systems running a 25mm inlet/outlet will all easily run 100 litres per minute through the system, however, it is the power of the lamp that should be matched to the flow for a 99.99% bacteria kill rate.
These cheap systems normally have a very short UV chamber and low wattage lamps, this limits the UVC killing rate dramatically.
Long Stainless chambers give a longer time the UVC is in contact with the water and the smaller the diameter of the chamber the higher the effective dose.
