Water Softener

[Delta Riverat]

The water at my dock although potable is very hard. Well water I'm told and it's so hard that the heads will get hard water stains in a couple months. We don't drink it but it would be nice if it didn't stain the bowls eh?

So I looked up "dockside softeners" and ordered up this cheapie from Vevor. Going to strap it to the dock post and hook it to the dock water supply so whenever I fill the tanks, the new water should be soft. Going to use it with the pressure washer too. See if it cleans better -

 

[Mac2]

Keep us posted on how it does.

 

[Comodave]

I used to have one when we kept our boat in San Diego. It worked well. When we washed the boat we didn’t need to dry it so it wouldn’t water spot.

 

[Larry M]

Looks like a good deal. Watch your flow rate though. Too much flow, will reduce its efficiency in softening the water.

 

[Delta Riverat]

Got it hooked up and strapped to the post. Flushed it out and was going to fill.

Then I thought, why not run some water out of the tanks before the fill? I had to get 3 sinks running to keep the pump constant and then time was running out so next visit I'll run the tanks dry and then pump it all full of soft water -

 

[HeadedToTexas]

How do you regenerate that softener? How many cubic feet of resin does it hold?

 

[Delta Riverat]

Regular table salt. They said the capacity was 16,000 grains of hardness removal, calcium and magnesium. To recharge you put in 3 pounds of salt and slow water to dissolve and then a fast water flush and tank drain.

 

[Delta Riverat]

Looks like a good deal. Watch your flow rate though. Too much flow, will reduce its efficiency in softening the water.

Thanks, I figured that would be the case and the factory rec is 8-12 liters/min. Ordered up a 2 gpm flow restrictor, so that should work well. It'll just take 100 minutes to fill those tanks -

 

[cafesport]

In Miami our hardness is mostly composed of calcium. The aquifer lies beneath a limestone plain. Softening comes down to your water's chemistry.

What I noticed when using a salt based softener was the calcium ions were exchanged for sodium ions making the water more corrosive (think faucets mixers and water heater anodes). The rises were better, but I never wanted to put that water into our water tank, nor the calcium rich untreated water.

Still like to use salt softened for washing, but we now rinse with DI (de-ionized) water from a resin filtration system. This I have put in our water tank while in locations where you would not want to run watermakers.

 

[HeadedToTexas]

Deionized water and "salt" softened water are both made with ion exchange resin and both are regenerated with salt, but deionizing systems have both cationic and anionic resin where "plain" softeners have only cationic resin and remove only cations like calcium, magnesium, and iron by exchanging those ions for sodium.

While those ions can in extreme cases make galvanic corrosion worse, the absence of ions (like in deionized water) typically makes water more corrosive. Softened or not, potable water is far less conductive than seawater and therefore far less corrosive, at least in terms of facilitating galvanic interactions. Really depends what you're after.

 

[Takoradi]

The water at my dock although potable is very hard. Well water I'm told and it's so hard that the heads will get hard water stains in a couple months. We don't drink it but it would be nice if it didn't stain the bowls eh?

So I looked up "dockside softeners" and ordered up this cheapie from Vevor. Going to strap it to the dock post and hook it to the dock water supply so whenever I fill the tanks, the new water should be soft. Going to use it with the pressure washer too. See if it cleans better -

Several of us at Owl Harbor use these and they work well too. Not sure of capacity but these are way more expensive so thinking maybe they’re larger.

The water at my dock although potable is very hard. Well water I'm told and it's so hard that the heads will get hard water stains in a couple months. We don't drink it but it would be nice if it didn't stain the bowls eh?

So I looked up "dockside softeners" and ordered up this cheapie from Vevor. Going to strap it to the dock post and hook it to the dock water supply so whenever I fill the tanks, the new water should be soft. Going to use it with the pressure washer too. See if it cleans better -

Several of us use these at Owl Harbor and they work well too.

On The Go OTG3NTP1DS Double STD... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SQFXLNE?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

They’re way more expensive than the Vevor so I think perhaps are a different capacity. Same principle.
Tak

 

[jbbmillar]

I regenerate my whole home softener with potassium chloride pellet salt available from Home Depot. It's said the water is better for plants (and people) because the potassium salt doesn't build up in the soil like regular Na salt. The softener has a setting for K-salt, which I think dissolves more slowly than Na-salt.