Shopping Water Softeners

In my area, the water is very hard...like sand blasting more than rinsing these days. I have always run an on-board manual softener tank with my van, but it became a pita removing it in the winter and manually re-charging every week so I am looking for another option.

Most of my work is commercial and I don't drive with a full water tank, prefer to tank up off the customer's source....which is also hard water. I normally run through about 160 - 180 gallons of water with each of those jobs so the softener would have to be able to support that capacity of softening.

Even at my home base area (I do carry water for local jobs) I need to come up with something. I could tie my house softener into an exterior spigot or else change the manual heads on my 2 resin tanks, add a brine tank in the garage to charge my water, and run off the garden hose.

Anyone using that Prochem softener with the brine tank or one of the non-electric systems like the Kinetico units?

Sorry Bob, I don't run water softener even though I should.
You should move this to "ask the TM mechanic" ? I bet Eddie can help you with that ?

I am sure ACE probably has some good input, but most cleaners in hard water areas should have some experience here as well. I know Mo has hard water in his area.

Man the water is do hard in my area I need to replace I have to replace faucets and toilets. I have no experience with running water softeners Rob.

Are they easy to install in the home? I wouldn't mind adding it to my house but there is no way I could carry water in my van

They are very simple to install these days Mo. Get yourself a simple unit that uses the Fleck head and you will wonder how you ever got by without one.

Cheapest way, go to home depot buy an omni whole house filter mount it in the van so that any water coming to the van is filtered. Use the charcoal filter change the filter every 3-4 months whether it needs it or not. you will be surprised what you are drinking that the filter will catch,and you will have less jets clogging up.

isn't that water filter and not softener Ed ?

Yes, but the charcoal filter catches 98% of the contaminates including iron which is what causes hard water.
My house filter would catch the iron then the salt released the iron and what ever else was cought and flushes it out.

In my area, we don't have much issue with iron, but we do have issues with calcium from the limestone in the area. The build-up can be horrible in a very short time.

I have my manual softener tank set up in my garage and have been filling my tanks off of it for now. It normally gets me through the week on local jobs, but is of no value when I am working commercial out of town. That is where my problems exist.

I did speak with a guy who builds a non-electric softener similar to a Kinetico system but at half the price (or better) that is supposed to be able to handle 400 gallons before needing to be back-flushed. It is interesting, but the manual says not to expose the unit to temperatures above 120 degrees.....a van sitting in the Sun can surpass that pretty quickly and especially after running the direct drive for 6 hours!

I might have to just put a manual tank on the truck for the commercial jobs and just deal with the pita of that 150 lb tank. Just no real easy way around it.

I was considering the Prochem EZ-Charge, but in 10 years I have never heard from anyone that uses it. I am curious about it, but there must be a reason nobody talks about it.

If you are running water through the filter and going to the unit, you will not exceed the 120 deg.
Again check out the whole house charcoal filter, it will catch the calcium not sure how often you would need to change the filter.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007VZ2O2O/ref=pd_aw_sbs_60_of_13?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=1NK0ZNQQPWJ9YCQJ0A80

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00NNYRHN8/ref=pd_aw_sbs_60_of_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=1NK0ZNQQPWJ9YCQJ0A80
These are the filters I was talking about.

The filter is not a bad idea regardless....I might give that a try and see what the numbers show. My only concern is that it might hinder the flow too much and starve the pump as a result. I had that happen with similar filter a couple of years ago.

Why not run an RO unit with a booster pump? A charcoal prefilter, to a booster pump, to a RO, to your tank. An RO should accomplish what you want to do, and a filter for a 4x40 like mine is about 280 bucks delivered. The housing for the RO can be found for 99 bucks (stainless steel).

RO process is generally a little slow....not sure if the flow rate would be sufficient to feed TM running high flow.

How many GPM are you using at the wand?

My RO with a booster can produce 2 GPM.

My wand is running 10 flow off the 4.5 gpm CAT pump.

That filter is for a whole house. If you are running a hose to the filter on a commercial job you should not have a problem. It is rated for like 7 gpm with 3/4 inlet and outlet. Most TM'S only need a 1/2 in line with 40 psi to operate. And if you are using it to fill the freshwater tank and you start to notice that you have a reduced rate of flow, then its time to change the filter.

Here are the technicals on the filter I use Rob:
http://www.axeonwater.com/skin/common_files/admin/overview/MKTF%20-%20135-D%20HF5%20SERIES%20MEMBRANE%20SPEC%20SHEET.pdf

These are a 2500 GPD filter. This should be about the fastest RO filter out there. It may be more than 2 GPM, but I thought that was what another window cleaner said these produce. It's probably more.
I would think if an RO would work for you, it would be less hassle then a softener unit.