After 3 years, 2200 hours of flawless operation, and 25,000+ gallons of fresh water, we finally screwed up our Spectra watermaker. We accidentally flushed the membrane with chlorinated water and unfortunately, the charcoal filter was two months too old to filter the chlorine out. The water continued to taste fine but the salinity according to the salinity meter went above 1100 ppm (parts per million) which is not considered good drinking water. I contacted my Spectra dealer in Florida who confirmed the membrane would be permanently ruined by chlorine and they sent out a new membrane.

Today we installed the new membrane. It took about 3 hours to complete the job but we were going slow and cautious in order to avoid any mistakes. It also took us an hour to ream the new membrane's product tube (pictured above) in order to fit the Z-brane electrode. Upon finishing the job we were rewarded with crystal clean drinking water having only 430 ppm.

We decided to do the "Pepsi Challenge" with the new versus old membrane water. The new membrane's water was a clear cut winner.