Water Filter

Looked to see if there was a thread on this yet and couldn't find one. This is my second installation - the supplier for my first changed the way their filters all hooked to the water lines and only had the vertical mounts available now. So I switched to this configuration. Basically I only filter the water to the faucet - not the spray nozzle - so connected to the brass tee that goes to the faucet and they used refrigerator type lines and connectors for connecting the filter. I mounted the filter low enough on the back wall that my accessory baskets still fit. See photos for more details. I know most all water is safe but this just adds a bit of assurance as we travel around the country to different spots.

 

this is awesome info. I've thought about a water filter for years, mainly for taste. What do you do when you winterize the water system?

 

Dave and Linda: What are you trying to filter for? Taste, particulate, or pathogens? Of which there can be many, with a variety of solutions and resultant efficacy.

If I read your post correctly, you are sourcing clean water, adding it to the clean tank and drinking it after it passes through the single filter. If so, this can be problematic for a variety of reasons.

Sanitizing RV clean water tanks to the point where they can reliably counted on for drinking and not making you ill can be difficult, or at least, overly time-consuming and/or require frequent sessions. When water leaves the tank, air replaces it and can bring with it a host of new tenants, from bacteria and mold to Legionella. A sanitized tank and potable water can stay that way for only so long. Heat from the road and environment can supercharge this concoction. I haven't proofread this one thoroughly but it is among a plethora of sites that warn against drinking RV tank water:

The RV Dilemma -Drinking Water on the Road

Removing those pathogens from the tank to make it potable requires a complex system not unlike our home well-water system, which uses a particulate filter, UV light, and finally an RO system. This is something that can not be accomplished with one in-line filter, and is a system that would be impractical to install with our trailer set-up.

I couldn't get the specs on your particular filter but it would have to be a 0.2 micron to offer any sort of practical pathogen protection. That is the standard for backcountry water filters. 0.1 is better. I even have a 0.02 for third world travel, whose viruses are different from North American viruses and even trickier to filter out. From what I can tell, your filter is commonly used for an in-line fridge ice-maker which will remove fluoride and improve taste only. The water needs to be potable first for it to improve the water in any capacity.

Many, if not most on the forum, keep their drinking water separate from the tank water, and use the tank water for clean-up and doing dishes. Which under most circumstances wouldn't require a filter of any type or purpose if you routinely empty, sanitize and fill with clean.

I hope I didn't misinterpret your post. If I did, and you don't consume the tank water, hopefully this will dissuade others from partaking in the potentially evil brew.

Steve

 

Hi Steve,
You are correct, I only use potable water in the TD. I am careful about sanitizing the tank and we have always used the water for drinking. The filter is a .5 micron carbon block type and handles PFAS, PFOA/PFOS, rust, some chlorine... but not pathogens. I carry a .

 

I carry a .1 micron backcountry water filter just in case we run out of potable water and need to use say river water. Sorry about the separate posts - mouse issue

 

I'm guessing that winterizing isn't an issue for you as you either don't use, or need to use glycol. Or if you do that the filter is removed before doing so. Also that the back-pressure that the filter may create (if any) doesn't tax the 12V pump unduly.

I would find the routine of always keeping fresh water in the tank throughout the camping season and sticking religiously to a protocol of filling, sanitizing, draining and refilling every two weeks, in order to prevent bacteria growth from gaining a foothold to be a rather onerous chore. Simpler and easier in my mind to keep a jug or container of drinking water that I absolutely know is clean than to cross fingers and hope that I successfully got all the bugs out of the tank crannies each and every time I filled, treated, dumped and filled again.

I still sanitize the tank when needed and recommended, but only to the frequency and standard of keeping the water decent enough for cleanup and washing dishes, and not to the much higher standard for which one should strive for consumption purposes.

I suppose I'm concerned that there may be others cursorily reading this post who wouldn't be able to consistently stick to a rigorous enough protocol to be both as safe and confident as you are in drinking the tank water. Or others thinking that a 0.5 micron filter (that you are aware is incapable of stopping pathogens) will provide them with safe bug-free water at the spout, even if their tank water has been compromised. Which it won't, and which it could easily be. I wouldn't want them to find out the hard way.

 

You sanitize every two weeks? Wow --- that's a lot. I do on my first trip, and if I think about it. I do use my water for cleaning and cooking, and maybe a little personal hygiene (brushing teeth etc) --- I'll drink it too if I must. I've never had a problem at all as long as I use a good water source.

I fill at home most times, except for long trips where I'll be gone for days. I draw from a well, not city --- so I don't even have chlorine from the municipal source.

In the spring -- my parks chlorinate heavily --- if I go tot he parks and its strong --- that is usually all I'll even do.

 

Sweeney: You give me more credit for effort than due.

What I meant to impart was: If I were to maintain a clean enough tank to ensure that no bacteria ever set up shop, then this is the protocol that one would have to adhere to. Even then there would be no guarantees, depending upon a host of factors. 2 weeks is sort of the arbitrary benchmark given on many RV sites purporting to help keep RV tank water safely drinkable.

My point was that to reach a level of confidence in the safety of the water that one is throwing down their gullet, that the tank would require an inordinate amount of constant care. For dish-washing water quality, this level of care is much less so. (This is what you and I do and it is practical) Hence the overwhelming efficacy of a separate drinking water container.

I'm also not a fan of intermittently sanitizing the tank to the point of (hopefully) wiping out all nasties just prior to a single trip, and then hoping that nothing gains a foothold during the trip. Simply adding fresh clean water during the trip does nothing to arrest what is already in there or starting to percolate. Allowing anything to start in the first place, means you're always playing biological catch-up and hoping your killing techniques are beyond reproach.

Carbon filters, to my knowledge, with all their micro-pores are a luxury condo for bacteria, and disinfecting or sanitizing (or whatever you may want to call it) can lead to less than perfect results. This is why, in home systems in which they are in use on a continual basis, they are (ideally) switched out every 3 months, regardless of how much work they have actually done. That regimen in the trailer, even if it was improving one aspect of the water's quality (it can't do pathogens) is too much work.

Even for me.

 

I have used those blue inline carbon filters a time or two in my 'big rig' days --- but honestly, I couldn't tell the difference. Filtering at the point of use makes more sense. I was always concerned about what was in that little filter --- it seemed like a custom-made place for creating a contaminant.

For the past decade, I did an annual bleaching when I rinsed the antifreeze. Now, I don't winterize since my garage is heated. (Really, its just a leaky plenum --- but my camper usually sits right at 35-40 degrees except during exceptionally cold weather) I probably need to make a conscious effort to do a deep rinse of the gray and, sanitize the fresh. Maybe this weekend since I doubt I'll get out again before spring. Though, MAYBE Thanksgiving weekend, I really am not ready to put it away yet.

It really depends on your water source more than the tank itself. If you add municipal water that is chlorinated -- you're probably just as good as a shock treatment if you use it regularly, and that's a key too.

 

From what I understand, relying on the latent chlorine in municipal water to keep your tank water drinkable is pretty dicey. That chlorine is volatile (if you can smell it, it's volatile) and with all the sloshing in the tank and mixing with tank air, it becomes less effective, or ineffective far quicker than if it stayed in your home's or the city's pipes.

I haven't done it, but a friend who also uses carbon filtration in his home, and regularly changes his filters at 3 months intervals was appalled by the biofilm buildup he observed inside the filter when he cut it open after he missed his regular switch-out date. And his home treatment prior to the water reaching the carbon (which is generally your last treatment) is just as good or better than municipal.

There's enough legitimate discourse out there on the web to dissuade me from drinking tank water under any timeline, or maintenance or apparatus scenario. Getting water tested at the trailer faucet source, like we do with our home system and through the local health department, isn't exactly practical when you're on the road. But doing so in your driveway after it's been sitting there for 10 days could give you a wake-up call, or if negative, provide a false sense of security for future excursions. Neither scenario appeals to me.

When I first started my first responder career, we never gloved for anything. Then AIDS happened and we never stopped. Even though most of the population going forward did not carry blood-borne diseases (HIV, or otherwise) we did it because they might, and the consequences to us were severe enough and so easily mitigatable that it made no sense not to. I tend to think of the tank water in the same way.

 

Thanks Steve and Sweeney, very enlightening. I carry 10-15 gal of known good water in the TV, and otherwise have to trust the campground or grocery store or those 5 gal water dispenser water units along the way...which I have read are sometimes less than pure...
I have a little Berkey I've used in the tent trailer...but no idea how effective.
If I drink the CI water from the tap, its for tea or coffee, boiled.

 

I would certainly have no issue sharing a cup of tea with you at some point. In some far-off off-the grid campsite using just your boiled tank water.

It used to be that 15 minutes at a roll was considered prudent for eliminating the nasties. That has since been rolled back to a minute, based on 212F at sea level:
A Guide to Drinking Water Treatment and Sanitation for Backcountry and Travel Use | Camping, Hiking, Travel | Drinking Water | Healthy Water | CDC.

Although I don't boil all my water in the backcountry, for sterilization purposes, as it's far too inefficient and inconvenient re fuel, time etc... but if in the front-country and I run out of drinking water, or am not entirely confident of my campground source, or my drinking water on-hand is just plain to old, I'll use my Platy gravity filter that I keep rolled up on the galley shelf:

GravityWorks™ Gravity Water Filter System | Platypus®

... and then go through bleach treatment protocol with it if I don't use it again for several days.

I still run into backcountry types who collect water from the middle of the lake, hold the water bottle up the light and say: Looks good to me! Or they protest my concerns, asserting that they've done this all lives and never been sick. I should take them with me to Vegas.

 

That gravity fed system is a great backup, thanks.
Ya, I was that guy 40 years ago...thinking the water in the Sierras was good, until the pack horses passed, or you wandered thru a cattle lease....now giardia is everywhere on the PCT.

I have an old katydin from the backpacking days, and one of my jugs in the TV is this lifesaver, thats dual use in SHTF... never used in an actual creek, and would be a PITA scrambling up out of some canyon out west boondocking.
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Got the old standby Aqua Potable and a lifestraw in the hiking knapsack/bugout bag in back.
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I built my confidence in water treatment tablets at Philmont Scout Ranch. The water supply on the third night was a cow pond with the cows in it. We doubled down on the tablets and no one got sick. The worst campground water set up was in a US Forest Service campground in New Bern, NC. The fresh water fill was located on the same pad as the sewage tank, right next to the holding tank rinse. I imagined people emptying their sewer then grabbing the fresh water fill.

 

You aptly illustrate why
1) one should never be too careful or trusting of any non-standard water source, and
2) you should be flexible and immediately adaptable to the situation with a number of options at hand

I gave up on chem treatment when leading large groups a long time ago and went with gravity. A couple filters running off a single "dirty" bag more than kept pace for my group of 20, and was simple to set-up, observe and maintain. I am even able to effectively downsize this set-up for an ultra-light venture for 4 in the mountains.

I never liked the variables (quantity, time and temp) associated with getting the optimal performance out of chemicals, whether they were iodine-based, or chlorine dioxide-based. Too much room for error. With gravity, either it flows through, or it doesn't. Unless you freeze it and damage the filaments, or irreversibly clog it with poor source water selection, it will work reliably for you.

Andrew Skurka, who is the Dalai Lama of "out-there" trekking gives this detailed (and accurate) how-to, which also has lots of utility for front-country use. Not one system works for everyone all the time everywhere:

Tutorial: Methods to purify backcountry water || Pros, cons & my picks

 

Thanks Steve, again gor sharing that Skurka water link:
"My picks
For about 15 years my go-to water treatment method has been chlorine dioxide. It is the standard technique on my guided trips, too. The results have been excellent, and now statistically significant given the number of clients that have gone through my program — if it wasn’t effective enough, we’d have noticed by now.

I prefer Aquamira drops ($15, 3 oz), but in temperatures below about 15°F I swap to tablets because they don’t freeze. Versus tablets, droplets are more economical (at about 50 cents per gallon) and flexible, since I can easily modify dosages with proportional changes to dwell times. Especially when decanted into smaller dropper bottles, the weight is negligible."
He like the platypus too. I'll have to see about finding that in US...

I like how detailed and frank Skurka is on gear, and first found him doing reviews on map apps.

I WAS a big fan of the Gaia map app, using it for PCT route mapping research and
Still now in the CI, for detail boondocking but its sadly lost some functionality since Outside bought it out:

Long-term review: CalTopo || My go-to mapping & GPS navigation platform - Andrew Skurka

I've also used OnX for finding property lines while hunting, and its pretty neat, but more oriented at the side by sides and overlanding motorcycle, less useful in the CI but there are some very interesting places to camp close by the Nest you can find on OnX.

 

He's pretty hard-core. I have adopted some of his "light-and-fast" techniques, with all the emphasis on the former. Old(er) bodies need all the help they can get. And have all the time in the world to get where they're going.

 

Yep, me too.
The ultra light trend can get pretty extreme but there is a lot to be said for "less is more"...on aging creaky bods, like mine and Dear Wifes.
I'm tryna apply same ethic to the CI, and like Sweeney get a kick from finding 2 or more uses for gear to keep in/on the rig, vs offload and leave behind.

The Road Toad is a larger example and a sign of the trend, if all the orders is an indication, that others feel the same.

 

I would also add that with the amount of time he spends on trail, probably only 10% of his drinking water comes from a pressurized tap; the rest is from natural sources. He knows what of he speaks.