Water treatment: test the water before anyone quotes the plant
Treatment is specified from an analysis, not from a flow rate. A quotation without one is a guess with a price on it.
Water treatment is the division where a quotation given without information is most clearly worthless. Two sites asking for the same cubic metres per hour can need completely different plant, because what is in the water decides the process and the flow rate only decides the size.
Start with an analysis
Before a serious quotation, we need to know what is in the water. A laboratory analysis is ideal; where there is none, the source and the region tell us a good deal - borehole, river, municipal supply and coastal groundwater each bring characteristic problems. Hardness, iron, turbidity, salinity and bacteriological load each imply a different stage, and the stages are what you are buying.
Then two more figures: the flow you need, and what the water is for. Potable supply, process water for a food plant and boiler feed are three different specifications and the strictest of them is usually boiler feed, not drinking water.
Why this division is quoted with others
Most of our water treatment enquiries arrive attached to something else. A food processing plant needs process water to a standard the product dictates. A bottling line needs it to a tighter one, and the treatment plant is frequently the longer lead item of the two. Agencies procuring relief supply procure treatment on the same programme.
Where the plant is quoted with the line, the two are sized together, which avoids the common outcome of a filling line waiting on water.
Running cost is part of the specification
Treatment plant has consumables - media, membranes, chemicals - and over a few years they cost more than the plant. Ask any supplier, before ordering:
- What consumables does it use, at what rate, at my water quality?
- Are they available locally, or do they ship from China every time?
- What is the expected membrane or media life at this feed water?
- What does the plant do when the feed quality changes seasonally?
That last one matters in markets where a river source changes substantially between wet and dry seasons. A plant specified against one season is a plant that works for part of the year.
Power
Treatment plant runs continuously and is sensitive to supply interruption. Where the mains is unreliable, size generation against the plant at the same time rather than afterwards.
Send a water analysis if you have one, the flow you need and what the water is for. Request a quotation, or see the water treatment range.