RV water softener for auto-fill line

[Green Krusty]

Any do's/don'ts for plumbing rv water softener in water fill line? I want it easy to remove as I think they all require manual regeneration.

 

[ajw22]

Do you have a link to the RV water softener you want to connect?

 

[mknauss]

 

[mknauss]

The above is my set up. I installed this earlier this winter. It works, though I do not get the amount of softened water prior to regenerate I thought I would. Hard to say the exact amount. I test at less than 25 ppm CH after regenerate but it is back to 75 ppm CH after only a few hundred gallons through it. The sizing implied I should get 800 to 1000 gallons of softened water. Our water is about 16gpg.
This is what they call the Double size. It is very easy to regenerate. Takes two 26 oz containers of table salt to regenerate. Less than a $1.
I was going to install a regular water softener but I could not get a good drain point. No sewer connections near by and a test hole did not drain quick enough to be able to make an earthen drain.

 

[Green Krusty]

Do you have a link to the RV water softener you want to connect?

Not really...was waiting for some recommendations

 

[Green Krusty]

The above is my set up. I installed this earlier this winter. It works, though I do not get the amount of softened water prior to regenerate I thought I would. Hard to say the exact amount. I test at less than 25 ppm CH after regenerate but it is back to 75 ppm CH after only a few hundred gallons through it. The sizing implied I should get 800 to 1000 gallons of softened water. Our water is about 16gpg.
This is what they call the Double size. It is very easy to regenerate. Takes two 26 oz containers of table salt to regenerate. Less than a $1.
I was going to install a regular water softener but I could not get a good drain point. No sewer connections near by and a test hole did not drain quick enough to be able to make an earthen drain.

Gonna see how long the pool 1/2 drain lasts (CH was off the charts high prior). Haven't really tested the fill water... I'm almost afraid to... thanks for the info.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

The above is my set up. I installed this earlier this winter. It works, though I do not get the amount of softened water prior to regenerate I thought I would. Hard to say the exact amount. I test at less than 25 ppm CH after regenerate but it is back to 75 ppm CH after only a few hundred gallons through it. The sizing implied I should get 800 to 1000 gallons of softened water. Our water is about 16gpg.
This is what they call the Double size. It is very easy to regenerate. Takes two 26 oz containers of table salt to regenerate. Less than a $1.
I was going to install a regular water softener but I could not get a good drain point. No sewer connections near by and a test hole did not drain quick enough to be able to make an earthen drain.

Marty,

Because water exchanges are challenging for me, I'm looking at installing a portable softener. I'm on a septic system and have no easy access to a plumbing a line for regens. Seeing that your double-sized unit did not perform up to your expectations, I'm considering the park-size model. It's rated at 1280-3200 gallons of soft water between regen cycles.

Would you still recommend this brand? It looks like it's on sale. How does the price compare to what you paid for the double-sized model?

Can you clarify how to set up an earthen drain? I live on a relatively large property with lots of green space and good drainage.

You mentioned the CH of softened fill water at 25 before and 75 after regen. Does the CH of the source water affect the discharge levels? My fill water varies from 75-125 ppm.

Any other recommendations.

@Green Krusty: Did you end up installing a system?

Thank you.

 

[mknauss]

Would you still recommend this brand? It looks like it's on sale. How does the price compare to what you paid for the double-sized model?

I paid about $270 for my double size unit.
Oddly, since that post, I have not seen any appreciable rise in the CH of the pool water, even though I have been waiting about 3-4 weeks between each regen. And the CH test at the end of the cycle is showing near 200 ppm CH of the water coming out of the unit
(our fill water is ~250 ppm CH). So I am not sure exactly why, but it is working as I want, but the testing of the water coming out of it implies otherwise?!?

You can search for a dry sump /earthen drain. You dig a hole several feet deep, put a plastic diffuser in it, put some gravel around it, and the effluent from the softener regen goes to it and is dissipated. It is very salty and high in calcium. So not good if you have living plants near by. It did not work for me, as our ground is very compacted, and got very little percolation overnight, so that was a bust. But if you can do that, for less money than what you show for the bigger model, you can get a 22K grain water softener from Home Depot and this can be much more automated.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Thank you for the quick response!

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

And the CH test at the end of the cycle is showing near 200 ppm CH of the water coming out of the unit
(our fill water is ~250 ppm CH). So I am not sure exactly why, but it is working as I want, but the testing of the water coming out of it implies otherwise?!?

Do you have any theories on this? It doesn't sound like the unit is filtering out CH as it should. I'm still gaining some knowledge on softening systems, but is it possible the test results are still showing CH from the rinse cycle?

I don't think an earthen drain will work for us.

 

[mknauss]

I think it is working as normally our CH would have more than doubled since I last filled the pool in November last year. And it is at ~300 ppm CH and was at ~250 ppm when I filled it. Just the testing of the flow from the softener is off. It may be some other chlorides are showing up in the testing? Would need Matt to explain that to us.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

I think it is working as normally our CH would have more than doubled since I last filled the pool in November last year. And it is at ~300 ppm CH and was at ~250 ppm when I filled it. Just the testing of the flow from the softener is off. It may be some other chlorides are showing up in the testing? Would need Matt to explain that to us.

@JoyfulNoise...any comments on Marty's test results?

A couple more questions:

How do you know when it's time for a regen? Do you estimate water volume through the systems based on evaporation or do you test fill water occasionally? I suppose a flow meter/counter would be beneficial.

 

[mknauss]

I test what is coming out of the softener after about 3 weeks and see if it is above 150 ppm or so. I then go ahead and regen sometime after that. I just regen'd this morning after 4 weeks. We have had some rain and cloudy days so our water evap went down a bit. I see another poster has an extensive set up Auto-fill Water Softener
They have two units to swap out, and a flow meter. The flow meter is about $150. I am not that interested in being precise. My water is cheap so doing a drain eventually is not a big deal. My wife just likes the water with a lower CH -- when the CH rises too much she calls the pool 'dry water' --

 

[setsailsoon]

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Marty,

This is a neat and novel approach to a problem I may have once we get our new house and pool built. We will have well water at about 16gpg total hardness I will have a softener on the house but it's controlled to only regen at 1 or 2 am at night. So if it's toward the end of cycle I could be putting very high TH water in the pool. To avoid this I could use a system similar to yours. If you are not getting design output quality it is most likely your through put is too large for the bed or your bed needs to have larger volume. Have you looked into this? An alternative is just to buy the parts and resin and build a custom made unit. I may go that route. Did this for my last house and saved a bundle. May not be worth the trouble for these small units. Maybe better just to buy 2 like yours and run in parallel or series and swap prior to regen.

Thanks for posting this.

Chris

 

[mknauss]

Have you looked into this?

No, because the pool CH has not risen that appreciably. So it is working, at least well enough for my use.

 

[BowserB]

FWIW, for many years I did not have a water softener on any house, primarily because I didn't want sodium added to my drinking water and landscape water. I suffered with water heater failures, "water spots" on anything that air dried--glasses, shower doors, faucet hardware, windows, and so on. Then I learned about potassium chloride water softener pellets and moved into a new house with a place for a water softener that was after the sprinkler system branch. That changed everything. $2,500 installation. The regen is based on water volume and typical hardness of our local water (from the city), although it still happens at 2am.

Pool water was not a consideration at the time we had the water softener installed, but I'll tell you that what it has done for our "quality of life" makes that the best $2,500 I've spent in a long time. Don't wipe down the shower, and go back later, and there is nothing to see on the glass doors. Wash a glass and put it in the dish drainer and later it is just clean. Stainless steel inside the dishwasher looks brand new. My wife, as well as granddaughter when she visits, says she loves the way it makes her hair feel, and her skin is less dry (calcium in the water takes away your natural skin oils.) And since we use potassium salt, we don't have the worry about sodium in the water we drink or if we use the hose bibs (which are downstream of the softener) we're not slowly poisoning the ground. Yes potassium water softener pellets are $24 at HEB compared to $7 for sodium.

I have tested the water ahead of the softener, and its CH is 100 (FYI the FC is 1.0) Water at the kitchen tap: CH=0, FC=0. Both tests done with the TF100 kit. There is almost literally no maintenance or intervention to take on the water softener. I add a bag of pellets about once every 4-6 weeks. Every 18 months we change the particle and activated charcoal filters on the 5-stage reverse osmosis drinking water filter we had installed at the same time as the water softener install.

Complaints about softened water? None. Oh, if you've heard someone say that softened water feels oily, that's just soft water. Ask anyone who grew up in a place with naturally soft water. I grew up in Baton Rouge, LA where the water comes from artesian wells and is naturally soft (the city actually advertised its water around 1900 as a reason to visit or move to BR!) As a kid in high school I got used to washing my car and letting it air dry, never thought about it. When we moved to Houston, the first time I washed my dark green car and let it dry, I was shocked. What the heck is all that white stuff on my car?

 

[setsailsoon]

I'll second Bill's previous post. We lived on our sail boat for 6 years 9 months per year and drank only our RO water produced from sea water. Sea water RO units drop salinity from 35,000 ppm to about 150. They remove almost everything . Only the very smallest virus particles can pass through. After years of chlorine free water we couldn't stand the taste of any tap water so we added a softener to the house plus an under sink RO unit. My total hardness using Hack drop test was always less than 1 gr per gallon (17.1 ppm). Right now we're in a rental condo building our next house. Still can't stand tap water so we use a Britta zero. It comes with a tds meter but I never need it. Wife tells me immediately when we need a new filter. She has an abnormally low threshold for taste of most things. Tap water measures over 200 tds. Britta zero is 0 for about 2-3 months. of use I'm guessing it has resin that is just disposed of instead of regenerating. I'm thinking about soaking a used one in salt water to see if I can regenerate it.

Chris

 

[jseyfert3]

Tap water measures over 200 tds. Britta zero is 0 for about 2-3 months. of use I'm guessing it has resin that is just disposed of instead of regenerating. I'm thinking about soaking a used one in salt water to see if I can regenerate it.

If it’s removing TDS then it must be a DI resin. These remove all ions from the water. This can’t be regenerated with salt.

A regular softener resin has sodium stuck to the resin. When water flows through the magnesium and calcium swap places with the sodium, which enters the water. So you’re exchanging one in for another, not removing them. Putting the resin in brine regenerates by forcing off the calcium and magnesium due to the concentration of the sodium, which then sticks to the resin.

 

[setsailsoon]

If it’s removing TDS then it must be a DI resin. These remove all ions from the water. This can’t be regenerated with salt.

A regular softener resin has sodium stuck to the resin. When water flows through the magnesium and calcium swap places with the sodium, which enters the water. So you’re exchanging one in for another, not removing them. Putting the resin in brine regenerates by forcing off the calcium and magnesium due to the concentration of the sodium, which then sticks to the resin.

Good point. I guess DI must be mixture of cation and anion resin. I wonder if the salt would at least exchange sodium with calcium, magnesium on cationic resin?

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

An update to my previous post. I received delivery of the "On the Go" Park Model Water Softener from Camping World. It's a 28,000 grain unit. I purchased from Camping World because I didn't need the salt dispenser offered on the manufacturer's website. I signed up for a 10% off promotion at Camping World so I got the unit for less than $425 plus tax.

I plumbed the unit into my autofill line. I tested the fill water both before and after the softener. CH dropped from 125 ppm to less than 10 ppm (25 mL test). My CH has risen 175 ppm in the last year to my current level of 600 ppm. I'll need to drain a bit of water during winter to get CH into a more comfortable range, but the softener should significantly reduce CH rise. If my calculations accurate, I should be able to get about 4,000 gallons of softened water between regens. That should get me to about 6 weeks of low CH fill water during the summer months, but I'll plan to schedule monthly regens.

Here's a quick pic.

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