Water Treatment System Prices: Reading a Quotation

You get two quotations. Both say they will do the same job, both talk about a similar number of stages; and yet there is a serious difference between them. For the buyer the real difficulty starts there: what that difference corresponds to cannot be seen from outside. And whether the cheap one is really cheap is often only understood years later. Water treatment system prices — the only way to understand the distance between them is to open up the items that make up the price one by one.

You will find no figures in this article, and that is a deliberate choice. In this sector prices move with the exchange rate; a figure written into an article becomes wrong information within a few months. Instead we give you something lasting: water treatment system prices — what items they consist of, how quotations are compared and how the total cost is worked out. The current figures are always on the product pages.

Why Do Water Treatment System Prices Differ So Much?

Water treatment system prices vary with the capacity of the system, the quality of the components used, the number of stages, whether installation falls within the scope and the structure of the consumables. Two systems that look the same can carry different membranes, valves or cartridges; the difference comes from the sum of those items.

What that means in practice is this: a price is not a label but a total. The volume a unit takes up or its outward appearance gives no idea about that total. Two bodies of the same size can hold entirely different components inside.

Most of the items that create the price difference are invisible at the moment of purchase. The manufacturer of the membrane, the structure of the valve, whether the cartridge size is standard and the quality of the fittings are all inside the body. So when water treatment system prices are compared, the question to ask is not “which is cheaper” but “what does this price cover”.

The second determining factor is time. The real cost of a system emerges not on the day it is bought but over its working life. Filter renewal, possible service and spare parts spending spread across the years and can easily exceed the difference in the label price in total.

The Main Items That Make Up the Price

A quotation contains five main items: the price of the unit, the installation labour, the initial installation materials, the periodic consumables spend and the possible service charge. Which of those items are included varies from firm to firm; a comparison only means something when it is made on the same scope.

Knowing the items makes reading a quotation easier. The table below sums up what each item is and what it affects:

The most critical row in that table is the one most buyers never ask about: consumables. The price of the unit is paid once; filter renewal repeats throughout the working life. So when water treatment system prices are assessed, looking only at the first item means seeing a small part of the picture.

The installation item is often left unclear too. In some quotations installation falls within the price, in others it is worked out separately. When comparing two quotations that difference has to be clarified; otherwise the comparison has not been made on the same scope.

How Do Capacity and Type of Use Affect the Price?

Capacity is the most concrete variable setting the price. A domestic system and one installed at a business or a production plant are designed at different scales. As the flow requirement rises, so do the body volume, the level of automation and the strength of the components; and that shows up directly in the cost.

The difference is not merely a matter of “big and small”. A domestic system is designed to produce a limited amount of water at particular hours of the day and to rest in between. In a business, demand runs all day; the system works for hours without a break. Those two scenarios create entirely different engineering requirements.

The items that come into play as the scale grows are these:

So putting two quotations of different scales side by side does not produce a meaningful comparison. Water treatment system prices only give information when they are compared within the same type of use and a similar capacity. For solutions at industrial scale, the industrial treatment category calls for an assessment separate from domestic systems.

Which capacity suits you is a separate subject; we took up the criteria for technical configuration in our unit selection guide .

Figure 1: The cost items that make up the price of a water treatment system

Where Does Component Quality Sit in the Price?

A significant part of the price of a unit consists of the components inside it. The membrane, the control valve, the pump, the cartridge housings and the fittings settle both the performance and the working life. Low-quality components bring the initial price down; but they come back over the long run as early renewal and failures.

That item is the least visible but most decisive part of the price difference. From outside two units look similar; the difference is hidden inside the body.

Using components from known manufacturers shows up in the cost in two ways. The first is the production standard; the second is continuity of supply. Among the components widely used in the sector are, on the valve side, Clack, and on the membrane side Toray, LG, STAR and TechFlow are the manufacturers most often seen.

We took up what each component does and what should be looked at in each in a separate article; for the details you can look at our component guide . What matters here is this observation: a significant part of the difference between water treatment system prices comes from that item.

The Item You Cannot See: The Consumables Spend

Most of the total cost usually consists of consumables. Filter cartridges are renewed periodically; that spending repeats throughout the working life. On systems using standard-size cartridges the annual spend stays predictable; on systems tied to a special size, a risk of supply and price arises.

Because that item is invisible at the moment of purchase it is not taken into account. Yet the price of the unit is paid once and the consumables spend is continuous. Looked at over a total of a few years, the initial difference between two quotations can easily reverse.

Standard sizing is decisive here. On a system using common cartridge sizes, spare parts are easy to find and prices can be compared. On a system using special, one-off sizes the user becomes dependent on a single channel of supply; that dependence creates a risk both in price and in continuity.

A staged filter set made to standard sizes lets the whole line be renewed in one go. How the renewal period is set and how the signs are read we took up in our filter change guide .

The question to ask when getting a quotation is clear: what items make up the annual consumables spend, and are those items predictable? If no answer can be had to that question, the comparison of water treatment system prices is being made on incomplete data.

Installation and Service Charges

Whether installation falls within the price varies from quotation to quotation. Whether a site survey is carried out before installation, whether the initial installation materials fall within the scope and how the service charge is set should all be clarified in advance. In transparent quotations those items are shared in writing.

Installation is an operation that looks simple from outside but can have serious consequences. A single connection that is not fully seated can turn into a leak that goes unnoticed inside a cabinet for days. So the installation charge is not an “extra item” but a service that reduces the risk.

We took up in detail the steps of the installation process and the mistakes most often made in our installation guide . The headings to clarify when assessing a quotation are these:

• Is the installation included? Is the installation included in the price or worked out separately?
• Installation materials: Are the valve, tap and fittings within the scope?
• Is a site survey carried out? Are the conditions assessed on site before installation?
• The service charge: How is it set, and is it made known in advance?
• The approval process: Is the customer’s approval taken before the work?
• Commissioning: Is the test after installation within the scope?

Sharing those headings in writing removes the items that appear later. Water treatment system prices A good share of the dissatisfaction around it arises not from the price being high but from the scope not being made clear from the outset.

Total Cost of Ownership Instead of Water Treatment System Prices

The right comparison is made not on the label but on the total cost of ownership. The price of the unit, the installation, the annual consumables spend and the possible service cost are all brought into the calculation and then totalled over a set period of use. That method brings out the difference you cannot see at first glance.

The logic of the calculation is simple and needs no figures; all it needs is for the same items to be filled in for both quotations:

It is essential to choose the same period of use for both quotations when making that calculation. A three-year total cannot be compared with a five-year one. Once the period is fixed, the real difference between water treatment system prices becomes clearly visible.

There is one more item easily forgotten in the calculation: downtime from a fault. The system cannot be used while a spare part is awaited; in domestic use that is a loss of comfort, in a business a direct operational cost.

Total cost is only one of the seven criteria for assessing a unit. We took up all of them in our unit assessment framework ; this article focuses on the cost side in particular.

Figure 2: Working out the total cost of ownership and comparing quotations

Why Does the Cheapest Unit Usually Turn Out the Most Expensive?

On a low-priced system the saving is generally made on the components and on the scope. A unit whose spare parts cannot be found, which fails early or which has no service support soon becomes unusable. A second purchase is then needed and the total spending rises from the start.

This section is not a scare but the report of a pattern observed. A low price is not the problem in itself; the problem is not knowing which items it was made up by cutting.

The typical scenarios experienced are these:

What those scenarios have in common is that none of them is visible at the moment of purchase. So when water treatment system prices are assessed, asking which item the low price was cut from directly raises the quality of the decision.

The reverse is true too: a high price is no guarantee of quality on its own. What is decisive is which components, which scope and which service structure are offered in return for that price. Price is an indicator; scope is proof.

What Should Be Looked At When Comparing Quotations?

A sound comparison calls for three conditions: comparing systems of the same capacity, including the same items in the scope, and calculating over the same period of use. A comparison made without those three means putting different things side by side.

The mistake made most often in practice is assessing two quotations of different scope on the figure alone. If one includes the installation and the other does not, or one uses standard cartridges and the other is tied to a special size, the comparison is wrong from the start.

When you can get an answer to all ten of those items, what you have is not two figures but two scopes. And only at that point does the comparison mean anything.

Which headings should be verified on the seller’s side — including legal identity, reachability and after-sales conditions — we took up separately in our firm assessment article . When those two assessments are made together, the comparison of water treatment system prices rests on a complete picture.

On the general framework of reverse osmosis systems and the headings users should watch for, the US Environmental Protection Agency point-of-use reverse osmosis systems resource offers general information.

Where Can Current Water Treatment System Prices Be Found?

The current figures are on the product pages; those pages are updated by model and capacity. Where a capacity specific to the need is involved, a build suited to the point of use is established after a water analysis and a site survey. That approach gives a more accurate result than choosing from a standard list.

Writing a figure into an article looks practical in the short term; but because prices move with the exchange rate, that figure soon loses its validity. So the right place for current information is always the product pages.

Water Point Su Arıtma Teknolojileri operates from Esenyurt, İstanbul, under its founder Ali Genç, with more than 20 years of experience in the sector. The information below sets out the concrete answers to the cost headings taken up in this article.

That the spare parts cover is not limited to filters matters for the consumables spend. Being able to source parts such as the membrane, the valve, the pump, the resin and the tank separately makes the annual cost predictable.

The aim here is not to present a claim about price. The cost items defined in this article can be put to every supplier in the sector; the comparison and the assessment are the reader’s own to make. For current figures the product pages can be followed.

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