Watts Water Quality/Condition M7002 Flow-Pur RV-Pro 10,000 Water Softener

Gotta say, this is a great softener. That said, full satisfaction starts with understanding how water softeners work, and realizing this is NOT a $1000 or more big-name whole house system, but a small, convenient, portable RV-type system, to start with. I mean, it works just as well as a $1000 unit, but you have to manually regen it, and you have to regen more frequently than a large house-sized unit.In a whole house system, you have a seperate brine tank, most likely you have automatic timers or controls to backflush, rinse, etc., and you simply put salt in the brine tank and walk away. Water still too hard, you change the settings on the controller and again forget it. NOT THIS UNIT. You work it, you flush it, you backflush and rinse it YOURSELF. It does require you to manually change over hoses (or to rig up the manifold outside) to do these standard operations yourself.Everyone who gave this unit negative complaints that I saw, made the same complaint - that the orange 'Y' valve broke on them, started leaking, and after they replaced it, that they couldn't get their softness back down to acceptable levels. To them, and to any who would buy this I say, LOOK AT THE ORANGE 'Y' VALVE and notice that white reducer orifice inside one of the openings. That is your regen path to the sewer drop. If your 'Y' valve broke, you STILL have to put that reducer orifice back into the new 'Y' you replace it with, or have to reduce your opening to nearly-nothing, to get backpressure to work the salt in the tank during regen. You can't just run to the store, put any 'Y' there, and make it work. That 'Y' is a serious part of your regen process. Personally, the 'Y' felt solid and decent quality (for plastic) to me, and I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND getting a nice brass Camco pressure reducer to put upstream of your tank, anyhow (since RV parks are KNOWN for using VERY HIGH WATER PRESSURE, like 80-lbs instead of the recommended 45-55 lbs). If water pressure is failing your 'Y', then it is also too high to be going in the tank, or your plumbing, anyhow. REDUCE YOUR WATER PRESSURE!Overall, this system is working great for me. I have now had it inline for over a week, just regen'd it, and it took water in the 700-ppm range down to less than 25 PPM (somewhere less than 1 gpg). I can live with that, my soap suds work again!It is rated at 10,000 grains of hardness. If your water is 142 GPG, that means you can run about 80 gallons of water through it before you have to go through regeneration. If your water is 270 GPG (in the Desert Southwest, yes, it can actually hit this hard - like liquid chalk in your water pipes), then you have about 40-gallons of water before refresh. Again, this is ideal, but when your water is hard, over 100 GPG, even the big name guys will tell you, you will NOT get it down to zero - it's just too hard.As for quality of performance? This thing works like the $1000 big name softener guys' product - as long as you wash, rinse, repeat often - in compliance with just how hard your water is. Trying to run 500-gallons of 250-GPG water through it before regeneration is SURE going to take more than one cycle to clean your styrene tank! Be for real, it is most-likely buried in tons of calcium or magnesium at that point. If you can't get your hardness down after regen, then re-run your cycle again. You still have calcium on your styrene beads in the black tank (the salt rinses those beads, which are ion-positive, which capture the calcium).See, knowing a lot about how something works will take you far in how to diagnose your problems when they happen. I don't know about the test strips that come with it, I've used the aftermarket strips - and again, pretty much any water over 200 GPG is insanely hard, so I only test-strip the 'softened water', and I can get it down to less than 1 gpg (25-PPM) after a regen, so that's awesome. Water super insane hard? Buy two, and run them in series - that will get you down to zero.

I bought this for my swamp cooler. I have been replacing the two rotary pads every two years because of hard water deposits coating the pads. They cost $45/pair, so I did the math. With the huge capacity of this softener and low flow requirements for my cooler I should not be replacing the pads for years. Really, ANNUAL pad maintenance is all I usually do on the cooler, so this should be very cost-effective.I also like that you can replace the salt using a couple of pounds of table salt from your local grocery store. The installation as a snap, and the manual excellent. I did my research well, and this is a winner. It is tremendously sturdy and has a quality tank and fittings. Lots of detail in the design; not a cheap knockoff, and MADE IN AMERICA!

Very happy with the delivery only took two days. There’s just one problem with the product. It is the part #12047-ASSY. The valve stays open. Even when you close it. Like it shows in the video. The threads were stripped.

I'm currently living full time in my RV. We were here at the RV park only a month or so when I noticed build up in the water connectors. I found this portable water softener on line. It came ready to use, I didn't have to "charge" it. Just hooked it inline with the city water supplied at the RV park. What a difference! My wife was very pleased having soft water because we have a washer in the RV. She says it makers all the difference having soft water to wash clothes. I noticed it in the shower, the soap lathered up so much better than with the hard water.My biggest concern was how long the soft water would last before it would require "regeneration" (adding more salt). It comes with test strips so that you can monitor the hardness of the water, but I could actually feel the difference when the unit needed regeneration. It's lasted a month and that's with two people in the household with a clothes washer. The regeneration process was simple to do and required only 2 pounds of salt.I'm very satisfied with the unit. I'd highly recommended it to any fellow RVer.This is a follow up to my original review.I had the water softner 6 weeks before it started leaking around the seal in the top of the unit. Not around the hose connections but in the manufactured seal. I notified Amazon and at first they told me I had to go through the Flow-Pur company but after pushing them a little, they told me that they would send me a new unit and arranged for pickup of the defective one.After connecting the replacement water softner, it leaked in two places. One from the brass inlet connection. Inspection showed the threads were fouled. It looked like they were stripped. I had to replace it with a new one. Also the "Y" valve would not turn off on the drain side. I took it off and connected the outlet hose directly to the output of the Fill Port. Now no leaks.So I've taken back my original 5 star rating. The first unit sprung a leak, and the replacement softner had two bad parts on it from the get-go. I'll see if this unit lasts longer than 6 weeks. If not, I'll ask Amazon for a refund.One good thing is Amazon customer service. It is as always great! I buy just about everything through them just for that reason. They are so good to work with if there is a problem.BillOk, it's been several months now using the second water softener. After I replaced the defective parts that were with the unit, I'd have to say I'm an very pleased with the unit. The first one started leaking after a couple of weeks and Amazon sent me a replacement. The replacement has had not one problem. I'm giving back my original 5 star rating. We really like having soft water and this unit has performed well.Bill

Took 1st RV trip & after pulling into park, we had paid for 2 months, found the water had awful sulfur odor. Not only did it smell awful it was ruining my new toilet & the bathroom sink & bathtub with horrible stubborn brown stains. We ordered this water softner & within an hour we had no bad smell from water. Cleaned up toilet, sink & bathtub & no more nasty stains everyday! It was easy to install & works great!

Easy to set up. Comes ready to use, no need to regenerate it. Dropped our water from "very hard to soft" according to hardness strips which were included. Might be a bit big/awkward if travelling with it but we are in seasonal rv park. 2 weekends use and very happy so far.

We used this to fill our hot tub. The water went from a hardness rating of just over 200 down to between 25 and 50. That's good enough for me!

Look good but had to rejuvenate it often.

Fast ship...not tried it out yet but I am sure it will do the job

easy to initially setup (the y junction fittings provide a good seal with the connecting hoses by hand tightening only). Re-energizing when it needs refilling is simple. Makes a wonderful difference to the water quality. Well worth the price