we are living in our newell for 6 months in the same place. the water is hard. i researched rv water softeners and you can spend alot of bucks on them.
here is what i ended up buying. i have bought 3 home water softeners from them and have been very happy with them.
179 bucks shipped. works great. i just fill the tank with it and then put it in the bay. something it doesnt say to do in the instructions, but be sure to flush it before you use it the first time or you will have rusty colored water from the residue in the tank the first few uses. i now flush it for a few seconds before i hook it up each time
Do you run this at the spigot outside before attaching your hoses to the coach? Or does this go inline with the other filters? I guess I have not had that hard of water or I’m naive and don’t know what to look for...
I use my On The Go water filter between the spicket and tank fill. I run off the tank 100% of the time, and do not use shore water. I test the water quality with test strips first, then Pull the softener out of the bay if needed. My coach came from west Texas land of hard water. It took me 6 months to clear my water system of mineral deposits ( sand). Regeneration is a container of salt and about 15 minutes of running water.
Mike & Jeannie Ginn
2000 Newell #555 - sold July 2020
2019 Leisure Travel Van FX model
the way you calculate how often you regenerate is you find the grains of hardness of your water. in my case between 15 and 20. i use test strips to test. then you take the capacity of the unit you have. in this case 12000 grains and divide it by your hardness in grains....(not ppm). 12000/17.5 is 685 gallons before you have to regenerate.
so i get about 4 tank fills in the coach before regeneration. it uses a 4lb box of table salt we get at sams club for about a buck.
i looked at the on the go softener and it was over a hundred bucks more. so i went the cheaper route.
i do flush it by just hooking up to the water source for a few seconds each time before i hook it up to the coach. when i am done i put it back in the bay.
tom
2002 45'8" Newell Coach 608 Series 60 DDEC4/Allison World 6 Speed HD4000MH
Looking at the picture of Tom’s water softener, it appears to be the exact physical unit as On The Go, so probably worth the cost savings! I love the softener and would not leave home without it :-)
Mike & Jeannie Ginn
2000 Newell #555 - sold July 2020
2019 Leisure Travel Van FX model
(This post was last modified: 06-29-2019, 10:21 PM by Land Yacht.)
I’ll have to try one of these and see. Karen always says the water in the coach is much better than at the house for showers and hair. The house water makes her hair ‘dry’ feeling - it feels the same to me but I’m a guy, what do I know? I am planning to add filters to the house but had not though of a softener. I will test the water in both the coach and home and see how hard/soft it is...
I bought my softener a couple years from “on the go”. All my water runs through my pumps so I plumbed it after the pumps. I added a T and a couple valves so I can back flush or recharge the softener without removing it. There is a particulate filter just upstream from the softener.