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Water Softener
Yahoo Message Number: 155413
I've been trying to read back over various conversations about water softener for an RV. There have been numerous conversation threads about this topic.  Seems as though out west the water is much harder and I'm concerned about the mineral buildup.  I certainly read recommendations about softeners and things to be aware of in using one and various other tidbits but I still wonder for all those who are primarily out west and DO NOT have a water softener then how do you deal with the mineral build up that probably happens?  Just make a point to use vinegar to soak your faucet filters on some regular basis and then also flush out your hot water tank with vinegar?  Any other problem areas due to mineral buildup?

Thank you! Barbara
Re: Water Softener
Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 155415
I use a Water King $300 to remove hard water minerals when filling my fresh water holding tank. In use since 2/2012 with satisfactory result. NO HARD WATER STAINS.
James Allen Jackson
Re: Water Softener
Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 155519
In thirteen years of ownership, a water softener has not been needed nor have any problems noted.
We do use a good water filter for drinking and cooking.

Of the hundreds of LDs looked at over the past twenty years, I have seen very few installed water softeners.
Finding a place to mount one is the first problem.
Bottled water may been a better choice for those with health problems.

Larry
Larry
2003 23.5' Front Lounge, since new.  Previously 1983 22' Front Lounge.
Tow vehicles  2020 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, 2001 Jeep Cherokee
Photo Collection: Lazy Daze
Re: Water Softener
Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 155525
Traveling primarily in the Southwest as i do, I encounter a lot of hard water. How hard? Well, the EPS recommends not more than 500 parts per million of dissolved solids, and if you're prone to kidney stones (as I am) you'd probably like to keep it well below that. In my experience, 500+ ppm is very common, and I've seen upwards of 1,100 ppm in places like Lake Havasu City, AZ. "City water" is not the answer, as municipal water supplies I've encountered aren't usually any better than private wells.

Health concerns aside, hard water is a nuisance. It clogs faucets, creates deposits in water heaters, and leaves water spots on sinks, showers, and bathroom mirrors. I get tired of wiping these away. And it isn't great on your hair, either.

I know a few Lazy Dazers who carry water-softenering systems. These are ion-exchange units about the size of a small SCUBA tank. I've toyed with the idea of buying one, but they have several drawbacks.

First and most obvious, you have to find a place to store the bulky apparatus. Second and not so obvious, these water softeners have a very slow flow rate; it can take half an hour or more to fill your tank... and if you're at a public campground with others waiting in line behind you, thath's likely to make you unpopular. Third, they need periodic backflushing, which requires added time and plenty of water.

Bottled water has its own problems. You have to buy and store the bottles--and disposable water bottles have been a major factor in the tremendous increase in plastic pollution in the past ten years. Every time I see someone buy a case of small plastic water bottles, it makes me cringe, because all that plastic is likely to to end up in a landfill. Yes, you can refill your own bottles, but in my experience few people do.

I don't have a good solution to the problem of hard water. My own approach was to add a 3.5-gallon drinking water tank under the kitchen sink, plumbed to a Whale Fynspray WS63 hand pump mounted near the sink. I fill the tank (via a marine deck fitting on the back of the counter) with bottled water from bottles that I refill at local stores. This water is used for drinking only; washing is done with water from the regular freshwater tank.

My setup has obvious drawbacks: expense, the hassle of installation, loss of some storage space under the sink, and the need to keep it filled. And of course it doesn't keep hard water desposits from building up in faucets, etc. I doubt most RVers would want to go to the trouble of installing a separate tank like mine, and I'm not suggesting it as a general solution. But it does let me drink soft water while minimizing plastic waste.

Andy Baird
Andy Baird
2021 Ford Ranger towing 2019 Airstream 19CB
Previously: 1985 LD Twin/King "Gertie"; 2003 LD Midbath "Skylark"
Re: Water Softener
Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 155527
I can't imagine going to the trouble and expense of installing a water softener in our LD. We do drink ONLY purified water that we buy at places like WM (it's rare that you can't find a grocery store with a purified water dispenser) - and we REFILL our 1 gallon jugs. We carry 5-7 of them at a time and store 4 of them under 1 dinette and the others dispersed in the kitchen, fridge, toad etc.
 Your health is the most important reason to drink purified water. "Acceptable levels of toxic substances" per the government is kind of bizarre in my mind. Most systems use reverse osmosis which removes 99.99% of the toxins like medical wastes that finds their way back into the drinking water that comes out of many municipal water systems. (Tap water can contain trace amounts of many prescription medications).
 My advice is to drink purified water whenever you can. It's a minor inconvenience to fill and haul the jugs, the water tastes better, and you are not putting 'acceptable' levels of toxins into your body.
 We wipe down our shower after use to avoid mineral buildup on the stall.
 At S+B we do use a water softener but one should NEVER drink soft water. The softening process does add sodium to the water and is not drinkable.(Increases risk for heart disease)  And we still have buildup issues especially on glass shower doors.
 Water can be a controversial topic. My Dad was hospitalized in St Paul a few years ago and asked for some water. I went down to the hospital gift shop and bought him a bottle of water. His nurse chewed me out telling me that the tap water was perfectly safe to drink and that it was totally unnecessary to buy bottled water. My Dad pointed out that I had just bought it from HER employer in their gift shop. :)

Todd
Todd (and Steve)
'17 Winnebago Minnie Winnie and '13 Honda CRV
(Former '99 RB owners from 2012-2016)
Re: Water Softener
Reply #5 –
Yahoo Message Number: 155530
As one who actually does carry a water softener, I submit that, to us, it is totally worth the effort.  The main complaints of storage space and elapsed time to fill a tank are non-issues in our RV style.  Not so with everyone, perhaps, but the effort is well worth the results for us.

Bin storage space seemed to happen fairly easily and doesn't take up cabinet space inside the rig.  I wouldn't want to give up an inch of my under-sink storage space.

Elapsed time to fill is immaterial if one is ensconced in a camping spot that has water service as an amenity.  While it is true that hogging a dump station for the amount of time it takes to run 50+ gallons of water s-l-o-w-l-y through the water softener would be unacceptable if there is anyone else waiting, this isn't a problem when in a site.

If one's tank of water lasts a week or two, then it isn't impossible to avail oneself of a campground space as necessary and get a lot of chores done at one time, i.e. laundry, dumping garbage, thorough showering, dumping and refilling tanks, recharging batteries, batch cooking, and just relaxing for a time.

When we were fulltimers with a much larger rig, we had a dedicated distiller in one of the smaller bins under the rig.  This worked quite well for drinking, but still left the non-drinking water subject to the hard-water problems that Andy describes.  Much of our time was spent in the soft water areas in the Pacific Northwest, but when in the Southwest, it was a much different story.  The deposits on the distiller parts were unbelievable, and very hard to remove.  Think screwdriver and a hammer!  Literally!!!

When we moved from fulltiming to part timing, the distiller was thoroughly cleaned up, and is now used inside our house.  There is a whole-house softener on our house water system, plus a separate filter system directly before the water intake for the distiller.  The interval between cleanings is much longer now, and the deposits are minuscule, comparatively.

When we travel in our Lazy Daze RB, we have a smaller, slightly more portable distiller unit that requires electricity to run that will distill about four or five gallons in a 24-hour period.  We have used this on occasion, but found that it was more trouble than it was worth on our now-shorter excursions.  There are also one-gallon sized units that run on electricity, but in years past, we found that they burn out fairly quickly.  It was nearly twenty years ago that we bought our current, large distiller, and it is still going strong after all these years and relocations.

Since our "toad" is a full-sized Sportsmobile campervan, and we now take shorter trips, it is easy to bring a good supply of distilled water from home and supplement with additional needs from the grocery store as we go along.  We also have a "drip system" (no electricity needed) that produces water that is more on the order of the reverse osmosis water available in front of grocery stores and similar places.  We don't particularly like the output from this unit, so have it in storage.

So, as with so many aspects of RV'ing, one's lifestyle and commitment to boondocking can play a large part in what is suitable for some circumstances, yet less so for others.

Virtual hugs,

Judie http://dorrieanne.wordpress.com
Re: Water Softener
Reply #6 –
Yahoo Message Number: 155537
We have carried the scuba tank sized softener for 6 years or more now. We too spend a lot of time in the southwest and have found that it makes a considerable difference in the hardness of the water.

It is a pain but we keep it in the back floorboard of the car when it is being towed behind the rig and in the front passenger floorboard of the LD when parked.

The one thing that I haven't found is it being slow when filling up our fresh water tank. I haven't noticed any real difference in flow although you would think that it should slow it down.

One other bit of info is that the harder the water the more often you have to backflush ours which also uses a box of salt in the process.

Jim C
Re: Water Softener
Reply #7 –
Yahoo Message Number: 155542
I mentioned a Water King in a previous post concerning treating hard water. We spend a lot of time in Lake Havasu City, AZ. It is a little pricy $300 but small in size.  No metal bottle. It is plugged in to shore power and when water passes through, hardness is removed. Google it to see what I have found to be a very useful device.
James Allen Jackson
Re: Report-Water Softener
Reply #8 –
Yahoo Message Number: 155568
Skysoldier.... I googled when you posted a few days back about your Water King but all I see are larger heavy units and nothing really portable. Do you have a model number or a link you can share ?

Rick
Re: Report-Water Softener
Reply #10 –
Yahoo Message Number: 155581
Sorry Rick, I should have been more specific.

www. WaterKingUSA.com 1 (800) 808-1974
 We love this device. If shore power is not available, we have used our generator and outside 110 plug in refrigerator access door with an extension cord to power unit when dry camping at a water source. I was skeptical about this at first, but word of mouth, and seeing it really works convinced me.
James
James Allen Jackson