waterloo-small RO

[Kevin]

When it rains it pours, finally got the vacuum working great and now the RO decides to go to hell. All season long the Ro has worked but I needed to recirculate the sap in order to get my sugar % up as if I ran it through only once it would hardly change the %. Tonight after a few hours I checked on it and the permeate was running 7 gallons a minute as was the concentrate. I checked to see if sugar was coming out on the permeate line and yep not much different then the concentrate side. Any thoughts on where I should begin. As a side note, membranes are brand new this year.

[Russell Lampron]

Check that the membranes are installed correctly. I am not familiar with the Small Bros. RO but it sounds like you have a seal problem. There is a seal on the membrane that a U cup goes over on my RO. It will pass sugar if that seal is out of place or missing. There is also supposed a plug or cap on one end of the permeate tube. If that plug or cap is missing the sap just blows right through.

[Maple/Cherry]

The rubber gasket on the membrane is on the top when installing the membrane and the plug mentioned in the previous post is also in the top of the membrane when installed.

[sapman]

This is a stupid suggestion, but there's no chance that a concentrate valve was left open, right? On my Airablo, I think I made that mistake for a short time once, but don't remember exactly what was going on.