Thor Forums

[mjdougherty]

We actually have two water softeners that we use when travelling in our Thor Tuscany 45AT.

One is smaller (OnTheGo Portable Standard) and easier to handle, but it needs to be recharged after 7-10 days, depending on how hard the water has been that was passing through it. If the source water is not very hard, the little softener may last a couple weeks. It recharges with 1 lb of table salt. We normally keep a couple containers of the table salt on hand for this purpose.

The larger softener (a TravelSoft RV2400HD) will last us 4-6 weeks, again depending on how hard the source water is. It requires a different type of salt (solar salt or rock salt, the "blue bag" at Home Depot), which we carry around in a 5 gallon Lowe's plastic bucket that is stored in our "basement". It takes 20 cups of the salt crystals for each regeneration of the RV2400HD.

We always put the softener (either one) next to the water supply faucet, connecting it with a 3 ft hose. We then use a 15 or 25 ft hose to connect the softener outlet to the motorhome water inlet. I always take care to lay the hose out in a big curve, rather than coiled up, because that will prevent excess pressure drop under flowing conditions. Use the shorter hose whenever possible.

When it comes time to regenerate the softeners, we do it inside the motorhome, right in the shower stall, so the brine runs into the gray water tank. NOTE: It's important to leave the gray water tank drain valve open during this process, as it will fill up quickly. Also, it is better to not fill the gray tank to the top as the brine will cause the level sensors to misbehave.

While recharging one softener we have the other one hooked up, which will prevent getting hard water into either the ice maker or the dishwasher. This is much more convenient, as you don't have to be slapping mosquitos while you are watching the water flow into the sewer connection. It is also much "cleaner" since you don't have to shove a hose down into the sewer pipe for the brine discharge.

We usually test the water hardness (at the supply faucet) when we arrive at an RV park that we might stay at for more than a day or two. This gives us a better idea of how long it will be before we have to recharge. If you suspect the water softener is on its last legs (i.e. when you wash your hands the soap doesn't produce a lot of suds) you can use the test strips on the water inside the coach. Both water softeners come with a supply of hardness test strips. They can be purchased separately online or at many RV supply stores.