Advice for a water softener/heavy metal filter setup for my tiny house on wheels

[Sbas]

Hello all,

I live in a tiny house on wheels that I built and I am hooking up the house to water soon. I have a threaded hose connection on the outside of my house so I can hookup to a hose.

I am someone who has VERY sensitive skin and hard water gives me acne. Unfortunately I live in San Diego where the water is very hard.

I'm looking for some advice on a setup that soften my water for my entire house but more importantly. remove the heavy minerals while taking a shower.

My thinking is that on the outside of the house I will have a water filter and a softener/mineral filter and then I will also buy a heavy mineral shower head filter just to be extra sure.

The setup on the outside would look something like this:

Now, some questions for you:
1) What setup would you recommend?
2) Does anyone have any experience with these shower head filters? I'm thinking something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Shower-Lab-Pro-Cartridges-Impurities/dp/B01IJBOD9U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1518992022&sr=8-2&keywords=heavy+mineral+shower+head+filter
3) Do I need a special "portable" water softener/heavy metal filter or will any do? What is the difference?
4) When connecting to the hose bib, should it go hose bib --> water filter --> softer/heavy metal filter --> House OR water filter --> hose bib --> softer/heavy metal filter?
5) It gets below 35 degrees ~20 nights a year or so. Will that be ok for the unit outside?

Thank you!

 

[ditttohead]

A "heavy metal" filter... what heavy metals are you trying to reduce and how much are you willing to spend. Tiny little filters are typically worthless except for elements that are very easy to remove like sediment and chlorine reduction. Many contaminants in water require contact time to be effectively reduced. A couple of common heavy metal reduction filters are KDF (copper/zinc) and Titanium Oxide. Both of these are very expensive and require a proper amount of media to perform.

Reading the claims of the shower filter, it is pure marketing. Or it is an absolute miracle of technology and I would recommend buying 3 of them and feeding large mansions with them because they work better than any technology ever developed and will eliminate that oh so common problem we all suffer from... brittle nails... sigh.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Sbas]

lol!

Well the main ones are Iron, Zinc, Magnesium, Copper, and lead.

I am willing to spend up to $1000.

I know what you mean on the shower heads but they have to do something.. They have amazing reviews.

 

[ditttohead]

You are not going to effectively remove those contaminants with any effectiveness at that price point for the POE if you want to also include a softener of any quality or capability. If you want POU (ie: drinking water) then it is possible.

Whole house applications assume a flow rate of no less than 3-8 GPM, even a simple titanium oxide system would require no less than 1.5 to 2 ft3 of media.

Do you have any of these contaminants? Are you on a municipal supply or private well? If municipal then these contaminants are well regulated or controlled and other technologies should be considered. If you are on your own private well then please post an updated water test.

 

[Sbas]

I see. What does POE mean?

I will be connecting to city water. I'm not necessarily looking to remove 100% of every metal i'm just looking to get a big improvement because right now the water is testing at 540 tds. Back in Oregon I was at 100.

It's the heavy metals that leaves residue on my skin after showering and just trying to decrease that as much as possible.

 

[ditttohead]

Point of entry.

TDS is total dissolve solids. In municipal water this will typically be composed of primarily calcium, magnesium, sodium, chloride, etc. Lead, arsenic etc are typically measured in parts per billion.

Reducing the TDS is not going to be achieved with traditional filtration. A carbon filter may reduce your 540 down to 539. A softener will reduce the calcium and magnesium but will replace it with sodium, thereby leaving your tds very similar. The most effective way of reducing TDS is to use an RO but this is very expensive, high maintenance, and uses electricity, waste water etc.

In my opinion, a simple carbon tank and softener will be adequate for your application.

 

[Sbas]

Great, do you have a simple water softener to recommend?

 

[ditttohead]

A Clack or Fleck based unit is ideal. Avoid the "low cost leaders" or the fake knock off units from China.

 

[Sbas]

What about "Watts" or "On the Go"?

 

[Sbas]

Hey does anyone else have any advice?

 

[ditttohead]

Sorry fot the delay, I will send you a PM for a few companies that might be able to help you without getting a piece of junk.

 

[robertburton02]

I was just on this healthykitchen101 website and they had some good points concurring with ditttohead. Hard water is not so easily treated with just any water filters. A setup with a reverse osmosis at the point of entry and several smaller filters (countertop filters, shower filters, etc.) at the points of use is the best bet, imo.