Can I make the MH water more palatable?

Jeannette van den Oever

Jeannette van den Oever

Free Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Posts
160
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196
Location
Cambridge
Funster No
33,977
MH
Dethleffs A 7870-2
Exp
Newbie, caravanner since 2008
I know there are a few funsters on here that drink water straight from their van taps.
We tried not to be precious about it last week but the taste (when used for teeth cleaning, disguised as tea, squash etc) was awful with a capital A.
We had a 9 page packing list, but stupidly forgot a good sized water container. Managed with 1, then 2 milk containers but it got very boring to keep filling these. Who knew how much each saucepan swallows to boil stuff. :rolleyes:
Is it a case of flushing the tank/pipes several times to see an improvement?
 
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We never really noticed any problems with our new vans fresh tank. Then again, our van had been in stock for a year.
Yours is still leaking out its solvents from manufacture.
Flushing several times should help.

We always drink from our tank and have never had bad tastes or health problems.

The only time a dodgy taste has arisen is when we are skiing. The water in the cold pipes can sometimes get heated by the adjacent heater ducting. Simply running a bit through first alleviates this.
 
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we buy and only use bottled water for drinking, teeth cleaning from tank though without ill effects

bottled water is so cheap it doesn't seem worth the trouble of filters etc. although we do refill the bottles when on sites where we trust the water

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RowleyBirkinQC said:
Whilst I do clean my teeth with van tank water, we don't drink from the main tank. We use a 10 litre jerry can to collect fresh water for drinking. I think you can get military grade water filters installed which may help if the flushing out does not.
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No chance of drinking stagnant water either. We don't turn/use the tank contents quickly enough.
A separate 10lt water carrier is perfect as we know it's always fresh.
 
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Tea and coffee is made with water from the tank. We have a bottle of spring water for drinking. It's all good.

Milton - we use this once a year and refill, flush and drain afterwards.

I'm pretty sure someone will recommend the £200+ water filter which means they fill up with pond water etc etc...:whistle:
 
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Eeeww:)...Dont drink from tanks....carry fresh, and abroad buy mineral water as its good and real cheap.....
 
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We have always drank from the tank 8 years or more now never been ill.
Don't waste money on food quality hose either been using green garden hose for 8 years as well did buy a roll flat once lasted a month :eek:.
Do have a 5 litre water container for tea n coffee which we use to save using on board water no other reason but half the time we forget to fill it so end up using the on board supply anyway.
Try flushing the tank a few times with some Milton Tablets that's what we did when we had a new van a few years ago.
 
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We buy 5l mineral water from supermarkets and fill the bottles up when empty. How old is your water tank?

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We drink straight from the tap. Always tastes nice. We don't even care if some filthy moron washed his Elsan at the tap we filled up from. Because, for the last 15 years we've not had a van without fitting a filter from General Ecology. Bugs of every description are filtered out and it turns water sourced from anywhere into pure water from your tap. And, no dragging those large bottles of water from French and Spanish supermarkets. They are expensive, in practice filters last us 2 years but the convenience and piece of mind is well worth it, and you can easily swop them when you swap your van, the one in our New RV has been in three vans prior to this.
 
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Only being doing this for a few weeks but we intend to use the tank water for everything other than drinking including tea/coffee making. We have been using bottled water and it works for us.
 
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Mattyjwr said:
We buy 5l mineral water from supermarkets and fill the bottles up when empty. How old is your water tank?
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The van's only 2 weeks old, Matty.
Jim said:
We drink straight from the tap. Always tastes nice. We don't even care if some filthy moron washed his Elsan at the tap we filled up from. Because, for the last 15 years we've not had a van without fitting a filter from General Ecology. Bugs of every description are filtered out and it turns water sourced from anywhere into pure water from your tap. And, no dragging those large bottles of water from French and Spanish supermarkets. They are expensive, in practice filters last us 2 years but the convenience and piece of mind is well worth it, and you can easily swop them when you swap your van, the one in our New RV has been in three vans prior to this.
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I see the company will be at Peterborough, Jim. Do you do the fitting yourself? Hopefully it's fairly straightforward.
 
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The guy is call Harald (correct spelling) He will give you a Funster discount if you ask. Yes they are very simple to fit. (y)

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As Jim says, nature pure for me every time. I have fitted them to the last 4 vans I have owned. They are not cheap, but neither is an osteopath to sort your back out after humping 5 litre bottles of water around. We must drink 15 litres of water per day in tea and coffee. Where on earth would I store all those bottles of water. The lady of the house who bought my last RMB asked about the tank water quality and I replied taste it. Her reply was why have we not had one of these before.
 
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When we purchased our previously owned van, the fitter doing the hab certification left a tap like object on the worktop. I ask what it was and he said he had found it in the drawer under the sink. We found there was a very large filter under there also. Following the pipework back one of the 2 previous owners had had installed filtered water, tapped into the line with a separate isolator valve. and a very small hole drilled by the sink.
I later connected it all up together and found black bits in the water. I realised the filter had broken down inside and found a date of 2006 on it. I found a supplier in the West Midlands who would supply filters which were "safe" for a year and significantly smaller. He even sent me the push fit connectors and a clip so I could remount if. This I did and now drink the water. The tap fitting is not in the way and works for us. The pipework is all hidden and the filter does not impede with storage etc.

Sidney said:
I'm pretty sure someone will recommend the £200+ water filter
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Our filter cost £15.00. So impressed was I, I ordered another as a spare for next year.
Robert
 
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Always use the water from the tank for drinking have done so on Caravans & Motorhomes for over 20 years. The nasty taste is often caused by minerals in the water reacting with the plastic pipes & tanks, sometimes you get the taste other time it's fine depending where you fill up. The last few years years have been using a cheap jug water filter for drinking water & now just about to fit an inline filter in the van, as I don't intend drinking water form the cassette it won't be the expensive Nature Pure although they are good can't justify the cost for our use.
 
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I love these water threads! So much paranoia about water quality!

I reckon if you want to know what bad water tastes like, ask an African child!

We aquatab our system once a year and let Anglian Water's additives do the rest.

If the supply abroad is doubtful, we aquatab each tankful.

We haven't died yet!
 
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Sidney said:
I'm pretty sure someone will recommend the £200+ water filter which means they fill up with pond water etc etc...:whistle:
Click to expand...

Yep ... as Jim has said, we also have a Nature Pure filter fitted for drinking water and never have any foul tastes or worries about the condition of water in the tank ... I'm more than happy to recommend .(y)

I fitted it myself so must be easy to do!

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At the start of our trip we usually buy two of those 10ltr bottle's and then use them for our drinking water filing up at where ever we can usually when we fill with diesel
works for us
and they are when full lightenugh for the weeman to carry so on of his job's is water boy
bill
 
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We always use the onboard tank water, do empty after every trip so do not leave the water in the tank if not used, do sterilise twice a year, do use food grade hose. Never had any issues, do not want the hassle of bottled water.

Like the idea of filtering, we have it at home, so will no doubt spend far too long reading up on Nature Pure, thanks!
 
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We keep a brita filter jug on the work surface, taste is as good as it gets and use it for all drinking etc, its a very easy option
 
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We drink the water from the tank but put a bottle either filled from the tank or a tap in the fridge as if its hot the tank water becomes quite tepid. If it isn't hot we go somewhere it is.
Nature pure is great but very expensive. You can get a 5 stage reverse osmosis unit for less and drink seawater.
 
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we also filter all out water before drinking brita filter.
Word of warning I put some cleaning powder in our tank and never read the instructions should have mixed with boiling water first had to fit new pump!
Jim
 
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