Water advice

[tadam]

Looking to purchase a water softener and a reverse osmosis unit for our 5th wheel. Did some research and there are many similar products that seem the same in terms of quality and water production. Any advice or recommendations are welcome.

[Sundancer330]

I don't think I would use a RO system in a TT unless you full time and have full hookups. I have a RO system at home and the problem I see in TT use is the amount of waste water generated by the system. I have a 5 gallon holding tank and I think to make one gallon of water 10-15 gallons go down the drain.

[tadam]

Good point....we'll look into other filtration.

Still looking for advice on water softeners.

Thank you.

[Sundancer330]

I have found its easier to just use bottled water for drinking, coffee, etc. Go to Amazon and do a search for RV water softeners, lots of choices and reviews to read. The problem with a portable softener is you manually have to run it through the regen cycle which cleans the beads and takes time and lots of water and salt. Depending on how hard the water is and how much you use it this may have to be done weekly, unlike a home system that does this automatically.

[Larry G.]

Here is our setup now w/o the little blue filter which is no longer needed.



Slippery water in the rig. Softened water is better for everything, water lines, drains, toilet, doing dishes et all.

Drinking water is bottled.

Anyone that is out for extended times will be happy they have a softner.

[Marcm157]

Larry - How does that setup impact your water pressure?

[Larry G.]

Originally Posted by Marcm157

Larry - How does that setup impact your water pressure?

It slows it down a little but not to a point that it is unbearable. If the pressure would be to low I would just disconnect the softner.

It also depends on the pressure a Park/Resort offers.

Where we are (1 Park) for 6 months in the Winter their water pressure is more than adequate.

[oldmanAZ]

Originally Posted by tadam

Good point....we'll look into other filtration.
Still looking for advice on water softeners.
Thank you.

Like you, I'd like to have info on water softeners that other JOF members are using. I fill our FW tanks with soft water before we leave home. Eventually we run out of soft water and miss it.

Our camp ground water filtration: We have a blue Camco filter out of the spigot (to keep dirt out of the regulator), then an adjustable pressure regulator (set to 60psi), then a string wound filter (fine particles), and then a carbon block filter (have used 0.5 micron to 2 micron).

We use that filtered water for everything. However, the flow through the filters is too low for nice showers, so we fill the FW tank from the filter system and use the TT water pump for showers.

[vcbice]

We are lucky that our main campsite has pretty soft water, so we just filter it.

When on the road we sometimes get a place with hard water, but, most of the time it is bearable. The ones I don't like have high Chlorine levels. I understand why, I just don't like it.

[skijlw]

We have an ABC water softener that really works well. It's nice to have soft water and it is easy to hook up, easy to recycle, and doesn't take up much room. We regenerate about once a month as it softens 16,000 gals before regeneration. Uses table salt for regeneration. We bought ours at the factory in AZ but I looked and Amazon carries the softener also.