First, let me say that your unit holds great promise but some serious concerns remain:
1- CORRECT INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS AND DIAGRAM SVP
Please correct the misleading installation diagram and instructions to include both in prose and figures the critically absent need for the lower drainage on the outlet line. Correct me if I am wrong, but only in the second page of instructions/diagram for disinfection is the drain mentioned or illustrated. I noticed this only after installation and the worker had to go. That drainage is obviously critical where a cottage is left vacant and unheated with below-zero temperatures already started last weekend in the Gatineau Hills north of Ottawa-Gatineau. I must now pay for further work to finalize the installation.
2- CONSIDER CLEAR IDENTIFICATION OF THE LIMITS OF USE APPLICABLE TO THIS (otherwise fine for my needs) LOWER-END UNIT
While your telephone helpline fellow was great, informing me that the unit draws 19W, it might be useful for the actual implications of this kind of info to be spelled out in ads and unit profiles so that your customers (often amateur and uninformed like me) are aware of the place your unit will take in their overall 12V solar power supply systems.
In our case, our supplier, Batteries Experts here on Île Perrot near Montreal made the calculation: Oops! The Viqua 3.5 GPM, running 24/7 will empty a half-full pair of new deep-cell batteries like ours in three days unless batteries are recharged. Put otherwise, our two full batteries operating your unit alone will fall to 50% charge in three partially cloudy days. Would have been good to understand.
In actual practice last weekend, with partially overcast weather, our 6x4-foot solar panel started the weekend almost full and fell below 50% within 24 hours.
Note that this was not solely because of the Viqua unit but because the other big draw is the motor drawing water from our new well – obvious to me now, but a bit late to draw this conclusion. Your units do not operate in isolation from such considerations. Please consider helping your clients out in advance to recognize not only the strengths but the limitations of your otherwise excellent equipment. You not we are the experts.
Anything you can do in ads and instruction manual to stress these limitations would be very helpful to your clients who are not themselves electricians or serious students of the whole topic.
PS While your online guy told me clearly that the Viqua should be left on 24/7 to ensure maximum unit life, under the above circumstances – real world – I have no choice but to run it only on an as-needed basis, being careful never to turn on taps without first lighting up the Viqua to ensure that no untreated water resides in the lines leading from Viqua to taps.
I await a lab test on drinking water treated this way and am hopeful my solution works or I may have to bundle the unit up and return it. I certainly hope not.
Note that the lab sample was taken only after first running the treated water through the line for several minutes.
We shall see.
I expect lab results shortly.
Sincerely,
Allan Davis
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