We live in a multistorey housing complex in Noida. We use water which is a mix of water supplied by the Noida authority and our own bore wells. The TDS of the mixed water ranges between 600-700ppm. Almost all residents use individual RO systems for drinking water needs. We are planning to install a water softening plant for the housing complex. This will cost us about Rs. 250000 to install and the regular operating expenses.
Please let us know whether it is desirable to treat water of this level of TDS and incur this regular cost. We are also concerned about the use of a large amount of salt and the wastage of water used in the recharging of the ion exchange resin.
Can rain water harvesting be useful in this situation?
Additional Details: Amount of water drawn from municipal supply has not been measured but based on our experience, we believe it varies from day to day. Also amount of water drawn from bore wells has not been measured. There are a total of 166 apartments, and we feel that the total consumption of water is about 1 lakh liters per day. This is the quantity that is being used as an estimate for the water softening plant. The central unit is being considered as many of the residents feel that this will lead to less deposits in the pipelines, less clogging of shower holes, less deposits in hot water geysers and overall increase in quality of water.
Manohar Malhotra
manohar_malhotra@hotmail.com