Need water filter that removes AZ minerals

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Pat said:
Venture Out RV Park in Mesa where I winter has a couple water vending machines.? --pat
Hi Pat,
My aunt, who owns the VIP park in Apache Junction, I mentioned in an earlier post,? lives in Venture Out in a park model with her RV parked next door in another lot she owns.? She is on Boeing Ave.? I just read the fine print of your posts.? good luck with? VIP Park.? Such a small world. We spend the summers in Northern Idaho.

Betty Brewer
 
Betty:

I wonder if your aunt is the lady I met year before last who has the two lots across from one of the pools and the workout room.? Great location.? I have lived in the 600 block of Aero for the past three winters.? It's so expensive in VO, though.? They justify their high rent by pointing out their activities, but most cost plenty of dues and fees and fundraising time.? I participate only in the computer club.? I have my own pc in my motorhome, but I think the club is an excellent resource and worthy of support.?

I wonder why Mary doesn't live at VIP.  Has she been in the new Sprouts yet?


--pat
 
Hi -

Have y'all checked www.rvwaterfilterstore.com ?    I haven't bought anything from them (yet) so I can't vouch for 'em, but there's a wellspring of information in there that might be of assistance.


Thanks!
Ron
 
Pat said:
I wonder if your aunt is the lady I met year before last who has the two lots across from one of the pools and the workout room.? I wonder why Mary doesn't live at VIP.? Has she been in the new Sprouts yet?--pat

Hi Pat, Yes my? aunt Donna does live at VO at the location you described.? She bought there when it was new.(and a lot less expensive)? ?Depending on who the Board of Directors are at a given time is how expensive it gets.? The club house remodel at 3 or 4 million dollars created lots of new? assessments and? she was not too happy about it ! Since she owns 2 lots her assessments are doubled.? Mary is the manager of VIP in Apache Junction and she lives on site in a park model.
Betty
 
Betty:  By spring of 2004 when we all came north, there were several hundred lots and park models (out of 1,749) for sale in Venture Out.  By spring of 2005 there probably weren't a dozen.  The strong Canadian dollar (or weak US) had a lot to do with the demand, and the places were selling in days.  I would imagine everybody recouped the special assessment from demand inflated prices.  Also, there was a lot of uncertainty until construction started on the new rec center.  I hear there may be another relatively small special assessment of a couple hundred dollars per site for some infrastructure improvements.  Some of the old pipes and wires date back to the early 70s.  Any of the long-term owners have long recouped their original investments and the assessments many times over, if that's any consolation to them.  Granted, it's hard to come up with a chunk of change like that, but the Board offered long-term financing at very reasonable rates, which is what I would have had to take, if I were an owner.  One of the big benefits of VO is that the land is condominium.  Some of the other parks people pay continually increasing rents for lots on which they have gone to the expense of building park models.

I'm delighted to hear that Mary is onsite.  I wish VIP had a website so I could see some pictures of the park. 

BTW, I remember Donna as a cheerful, perky little lady.  She'd be a fun neighbor.

--pat
 
ronbo said:
Hi -

Have y'all checked www.rvwaterfilterstore.com ?    I haven't bought anything from them (yet) so I can't vouch for 'em, but there's a wellspring of information in there that might be of assistance.

Ron

I bought my filters from them at an FMCA convention and will be buying some connector hose from them at FMCA Minot next week.
 
I've been at the rvwaterfilterstore.com website several times lately.  They're good at replying to emails.

--pat
 
From my home in greater Phoenix, I am going to go out on a limb and disagree with almost everything that has been written.

A charcoal filter removes gfrit, sediment, and very small particles.  A reverse osmosis filter removes even smaller particles.  Neither will remove dissolved minerals.  Arizona water is very hard - that is, it has a lot of dissolved minerals.  To get rid of the minerals, you need a water softener, not a filter.  Many Arizona houses, including mine, have one, and it is the only way to remove dissolved minerals.  A whole-house water softener is fairly large - a little smaller than a refrigerator.  I don't know if they are made in a size small enough to carry as a portable unit for an RV.  You should call Kinnetico, the largest residential water-treatment company in the Valley area.  Kinnetico's stuff is very expensive, but they will come to your house and explain it all to you if they think you might buy one.  Alternatively, you could drop by the Kinnetico booth at the home shows that come to Phoenix about 4 times a year.

You can identify a water softener, as opposed to any kind of filter, by the fact that every once in a while you have to dump a bag of rock salt into a hopper.  The salt DOES NOT get into the water.  It is used to clean out the minerals that have been removed from the water.  This cleaning cycle is automatic, and rock salt is the "soap".

A water softener will prevent any additional minerals from being deposited in your pipes and fixtures.  However, nothing will remove the minerals that are already there, so you should act reasonably quickly.  In my house, it took 10 years without a water softener to ruin the faucet valves and shower heads.  The pipes are still adequate, thank the Lord.

By the way, an RO filter makes very clean water, but makes it extremely slowly.  Unless you have a HUGE (read expensive) unit, you can't take a shower in RO water, for example - the flow rate is much too slow.  The common way to use an RO filter is to put one under your kitchen sink.  It slowly makes water and stores it in an accumulator tank, and you draw it out through a new separate faucet on the sink.  RO water is occasionally used in the icemaker in your refrig, too, but you get the idea.  You get RO water a glass at a time.

An RO filter also wastes a lot of water - for each gallon of sparkling clean RO water, the unit sends about 4 gallons down the drain.  For drinking water use, you can deal with this, but for a whole-house ssytem, this would be unacceptable in most places, especially the Valley.

Good luck with all of this.

Bill
 
Hi Bill,

Thanks for your input on water treatment. Yes, they do make water softeners for RVs. They are about 2 1/2' high and maybe 12" in diameter. I'm guessing at this point because the one I have is in FL and we're in CT. One of our members has also made a softener using about 4" plastic pipe. They do work but, as might be expected, the more you use it the more frequently you have to charge it.

 
Bill

Must disagree. We also live in the greater Phoenix area, built our home in 1998. Did not include a water softener, we do not like the feel of soft water and, in spite of your statement, have concerns of additional sodium in our water. We also find it strange that most softened water users in our community also seem to need an RO system for drinking and ice making. We have a whole house filter and have a much smaller version in our coach. It does not remove all the minerals and the resulting water has a good taste, just like the bottled spring waters. The minerals that remain in our water pipes have not had any noticeable buildup in our pipes and faucets over this period of time. Our house filter is about 4' tall and about 1' in diameter, also operates automatically.
 
Bernie -

You make some good points.  Like you, I don't simply dislike the feeling of soft water, I HATE the feeling of soft water.  It is awful!  But after 10 years, we felt we had no choice but to add a softener.  The mineral buildups had literally clogged all the shower heads beyond use, clogged all the faucet valves beyond use, and caused all the toilet fill valve to stop working (they wouldn't shut off).  I soaked a couple shower heads in CLR for a week, but unlike the TV ads, CLR didn't touch it.

I replaced all those things, but the clincher was that the scale/scum had built up surprisingly thick on the inside of the pipes, as viewed from the end of the pipe when I took the shower heads (etc) off.  Since our house is built on a slab, like most houses in AZ, and many of the pipes are embedded in the concrete, something had to be done.  And I could see no alternative to a softener.

If you don't have that kind of mineral content, I bet you live in Cave Creek or some similar place, where there is a private water company that draws water from deep wells.  Much less mineral content than in surface water (i.e., the Colorado River via the CAP Canal).  You are lucky.  I envy you.  MUCH better water.

Re the use of RO filters in houses that have water softeners?  You are right again.  But the reason is different.  In this case, it is pure advertising hype, coupled with relentless salesmen.  I have no use for an RO filter, but the Kinnetico salesman convinced my wife that we had to have one.  I balked  at paying $1000 for one (Kinnetico's price), but to keep harmony in the family, I went to Home Depot and bought a $200 GE unit and installed it myself.  Quite easy.  I can't taste any difference, but my wife insists she can, and that's what counts.

Bottom line is still the same, though.  No filter, including charcoal and RO, will remove dissolved minerals.  If you have really hard water, and you need to do something about it, then the only option is a softener.  While I was aware of RV-sized filters, I was NOT aware of RV-sized water softeners, and I'm glad to have the input.  Thanks, Jim - I learn something new every day.

Bill
 
>>Bottom line is still the same, though.  No filter, including charcoal and RO, will remove dissolved minerals.<<

I may be wrong but I have an RO system in my house, M/H and on my lot in Yuma. I also have a tester that came from the same Co. that tests for Dissolved solids. When testing for them in my RO system it shows a 94% reduction in dissolved solids. Isn't that minerals ?
 
You are absolutly correct Jerry.  What reverse osmosis is and how it works is very well explained in the following links.

http://www.gewater.com/library/tp/833_What_Is.jsp

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question29.htm

Bottom line Reverse Osmosis does reject some bacteria, salts, sugars, proteins, particles, dyes, and other constituents that have a molecular weight of greater than 150-250 daltons.

 
Bill said:
I went to Home Depot and bought a $200 GE unit and installed it myself.? Quite easy.? I can't taste any difference, but my wife insists she can, and that's what counts.

Hey all,
Terry installed a small 2 gallon RO thingy under our MH sink that I bought at Sears.? I CAN taste a difference in the RO? ?water.? I like it better than bottled water.? I know it uses? a lot of water to make? a gallon and we must be hooked up to make such water but for consistency in? drinking water in all of the places we visit,? ?I think it is well worth it.? When we build our house in Yuma I want RO water in both the kitchen and master bathroom.? We also have a water softner to use when we are in Yuma with our motorhome.? It is smallish and? external and he has to fool with it.? I will let him jump in with the details as I see this as a blue job.

Betty
 
We have had our RO unit in the Eagle for more than 4 years now.  Wouldn't be without it now.  We also have a water softener both make things much nicer when in areas like AZ.
 
RO sounds less and less like what I can use.  I have very limited space, and I'm not really concerned with taste.  I can get bottled water in AZ for drinking, etc.  What I want to prevent is the mineral buildup in the pipes.  So, the consensus, then, is to go with a water softener for a motorhome?  I don't mind dumping in rock salt or whatever now and then.  Any suggestions on makes, models, and places to buy a motorhome water softener?

--pat
 
WOW, Thanks Ron, for a minute there I thought I had gone senile :p I know that with the RO, as bad as the water is in Yuma my faucet heads have stayed pretty clean. Before RO they would have to be cleaned about every two months while in Yuma.  I guess we will see you in Nov.
 
Pat

>>Any suggestions on makes, models, and places to buy a motorhome water softener?<<

I bought ours in Yuma, AZ...Looks like a small Scuba tank, I think Camping world carries them.


Terry
At Clark Fork, ID
 
jerryarlyne said:
WOW, Thanks Ron, for a minute there I thought I had gone senile :p I know that with the RO, as bad as the water is in Yuma my faucet heads have stayed pretty clean. Before RO they would have to be cleaned about every two months while in Yuma.? I guess we will see you in Nov.

RO water is frequently better than the bottled water sold in the stores.
 
Bill

We have hard water where we live  (Goodyear) and it is undrinkable with treatment. Our whole house takes out the bad taste (ours tastes as good as NY faucet water which Consumers' Reports rated as the best in the country) and has had no negative impact on pipes, either the house's or ours  ;)
 

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