in my old apartment I had washer and dryer with valves that had garden hose type ends on it. I got a "Y" connector with the inline shut offs made out of brass (not those piece of junk plastic ones...) and hooked the Y on to the cold water line. Then I hooked the washer side back up to the one side and a garden hose end for the 1/4 inch into the
RO side.
As for recommendations... I have a Captive Purity 75 gpd 4 stage unit. (I have a 5 micron floss, and depending no what's available in the store at the time.. 1/2 micron or 1 micron carbon block, then the
RO unit, and then it runs it through a De-Ionizing cartridge.) I got it from Marine Depot I think it was... But that model isnt carried by 9 out of 10 places soooo Kent Marine seems to be the most available popular model on the list. As far as "recommending a model" it really doesnt matter... MOST of them use the exact same parts and have standard housings for the filter media to get installed in...
When choosing a unit you need to A) Figure out how many gallons you need at a time.... B) How long you can wait for that many gallons to produce.... and C) how much if any you want to store..... and if storing it do you want to be able to use it for drinking water (in your case in the apartment... unless you run the tube into a jug and stick it in the refrigerator this probably isnt much of an option though since you cant mount a "faucet" for the water easily in the house... unless they have one of those refrigerators with the water in the door feature which I've never seen an apartment with one of those... but you never know in that case you have to pass a tube to the water supply line of the refrigerator from a "3 gallon Drinking water kit pressure canister" more complicated... more money... always available for future upgrade once you move to a house for example..etc..etc.. all standard equipment...doesnt matter what brand...)
I went with the most GPD I could afford at the time. Most of the stuff in the
HD and Lowes etc are around 30-40 gpd probably.... GE is the more common one there.. they're just as good as the others on the market except usually a lower GPD then what you find in the fish catalogs cuz...well... we use more water then people just drinking it... I'm sure GE makes a higher GPD unit.. but I've never seen one past 35..
If looking for an online mailorder
RO system.. look at all the Saltwater specific retailers first.. and look at the units on Marine Depot. There's a couple on there.. search using Google for places selling those models since they have the most common ones there so you'll find them easily in other places.. Foster and Smith sell them too...
I actually have a place locally here that sells nothing but
RO equipment and supplies. Unfortunately they charge $30 for a $10 replacement filter 8O
As I said.. MOST filters use the same cartridges you can buy at Home Depot etc... they dont sell
DI there... and they dont sell the
RO membranes the last I saw...
but the floss/thread/sediment filters are there and the carbon blocks are there. They are usually available in multi packs and usually cheaper then buying them 1 at a time from mail order unless you find a place that sells them in cases or something.