Water hose

[FunTesters]

Hi all
We have been filling our tank with fresh (potable) water for ages, using a standard garden type hose. We do not drink from the tank (YUK) and only use that water for washing and cleaning dishes etc. I flush the system at least once per year and have never had any problems with it. I have never actually plated out the water and incubated it to see if there was anything in there that should not have been, but my feeling is that the water in our tank is quite safe and usable (although not drinking quality). What do you all think? What do you use to fill your tank?

Keith

 

[Supertractorman]

I use an ordinary hose, but I think everyone is obsessed nowadays with cleanliness, which I think results in us being more open to being infected by lesser germs. My days spent on the farm as a lad, if you were thirsty you went to the nearest stream and never bothered about water quality only quenching your thirst, even if later you found there was a dead sheep lying at the source of the stream.

 

[Jim]

I used a garden hose once, and the rubber taste took ages to be flushed from the tank. We do not drink from the tap but we do make tea with the water, and the rubber taste was very strong.

I know some people fill with a garden hose, and if it were not for making tea I would too, as I am a tea connoisseur its a blue food grade hose for me, and a nice cuppa it makes too.

 

[Lindy-C]

We have always used bog standard garden hose AND we use the water for drinking (boiled first) and teeth cleaning.....we're not dead yet!

 

[Forestboy]

I use a standard green garden hose but like you I only use the water for washing flushing etc not drinking UGH. I rinse the tank out and sterilize approx once every 3 months, no problems at all except Jan uses too much of the stuff.

 

[scotjimland]

Hi Keith

I have a range of hoses, in total 70mt .. which has been sufficient to reach every tap encountered so far, I will add to this if required, I hasten to add that this is NOT all food grade.

For peace of mind I added a Nature Pure filter for drinking water and making coffee, the filter lasted about 6 months.

The 6 monthly cleaning regime is cheap, simple and effective, I add one cup of bleach to the tank, pump through, leave for 30 min, flush.

In a year of full timing none of us has suffered ann ill effects and we never buy bottled water.. :thumb:

 

[sammclouis]

we fill using a garden hose...we clean tank out with sterilizing tabs...we use it for tea,coffee and washin etc...but not cold diluted drinks...we have had no probs..samm :thumb:

 

[GeorgeTelford]

The nature pure filter is the way to go, even dirty brackish water teeming with nasties come out pure clean and best of all taste free. read of one chap who accidently added diesel into is potable water tank, rinsed it out and never had a bad taste (even though there were signs of the diesel pre filter for over a year)

I can honestly say that to me its the only way to get a good coffee/tea without tank taste, even the proper food hose leaves a taste if the water as been standing in the pipe (and running the standing water off is so wasteful)

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[brianju]

Hi Keith

We have 4 reels of lay flat blue hose - all of which we've had to use more than once ! These all have Milton flushed through them periodically.

As the water tank & hose are in constant use ... we have no worries or nasty tastes. We use our tap water for making tea/coffee vedge prep & cleaning teeth ...no ill effects yet !!

However like some of you we have installed a Nature Pure System which we put in mainly for the dogs ! don't want any tummy problems with them of course we also use it for ourselves for washing salad stuff and drinking water ....as Scotjimland said it saves buying bottled water :thumb: the filter has been in for a year now - so is probably due for a change.

 

[johnsandywhite]

:Cool: We started off with several small peices of different tube that added up to about 6 metres. We then started using 4 & 8 Litre Bottles to gravity feed into the tank using one small piece of tube. Fetching the water in 4 bottles from up to 5 miles away at a time. Good excercise with the Bikes/Back packs.
We now have the White Water pipe supplied with the RV connected to the on-site water supply and fill up when required. We have NEVER drank water from the tank. We still use Bottles for drinking water.

 

[Keith and Debs]

Hi all

We have two hoses one is a blue food grade 20m layflat hose which cost more than its worth. One is a 30 Metre ordinary Garden which is has been worth more than it cost.
Have used both for filling the tank and at one time had the garden hose feeding the van off a hookup for about 4 months.
We have used the fresh water tank for drinking with no ill effects at all and no taste of rubber... at present we are on a permanent fresh water hookup into the van using about 6 metres cut off the garden hose we use it exactly as you would the tap in your house and are not suffering any ill effects (apart from glowing in the dark)

Keith and Debs

 

[johnsandywhite]

at one time had the garden hose feeding the van off a hookup for about 4 months.Keith and Debs

That must be an awful BIG tank?

 

[Keith and Debs]

LOL Nice one John.... And we wondered why the bed was floating

Keith and Debs

 

[lugnutt]

hi we also use a garden hose and a plastic watering can if hose wont reatch
if the kids step out of line then it's 5 cans for there punishment once they have lugged 5 cans it dont happen again lol ,we use botled water for tea/coffee but only till the sun has gone over the yardarm
dave

 

[American Dream]

Hi,
We use a normal pvc type hose for both the potable water tank and Bath/Washing tanks.
Any drinking water goes in the Water filter (BRITA) jug.
Was thinking of getting one of the blue hoses but cannot really justify it as water tastes just fine.We do clean both tanks at least twice a year and flush well.
Haven't noticed any bad effects from it. :Wacko::Wacko:

 

[wildcamper]

Hi,

We use blue water pipe, we never drink the water cold but we do use it for tea & coffee.
We clean the tank once a year with puriclean:thumb:

 

[johnsandywhite]

Cleaning The Water Tanks:-

To clean out the fresh water system follow these steps:

1. Fill the water tanks 1/2 full.
2. Add a solution of 1/4 cup bleach and 1 gallon water for every 15 gallons tank capacity.
3. Open all the faucets until the all air has been removed from the system and the solution has filled the water system.
4. Let the unit sit for 3-5 hours.
5. Drain the water system and refill with fresh water.
6. Run the fresh water through all faucets and drain the system again.

Leave the system empty and drain to prevent the build-up of microorganisms. This will also prevent pipes bursting if the weather freezes.

 

[Adria 5]

hi simple i use mine for washing and toilet only!! drink out off a jerry can
each to your own people

ray

 

[Paula]

Cripes. Never thought about all this clean or healthy water stuff. Only been a m/homer a year. Dont have long breaks in it unfortunately because work gets in the way so havent had to fill up anywhere except home I think - but if we have we never gave it a thought. Is everyone getting too worried about things these days.

We fill up from home with garden hosepipe which is good enough for us. Providing system kept reasonably clean we would probably drink from our taps unless the taste was grim. A few bugs will probably help the immune system to fight off nasties I reckon.

We lived from a field spring feed in our cottage until a couple of years ago when the spring kept running dry so had to pay a fortune to have borehole put in. There are cattle and sheep grazing in the field and around the spring all the time (not fenced off) - neighbours used same feed and brought up 3 kids there. None of us have ever been ill either. You could die from worry though I guess.

 

[Paula]

Reason I searched out hose pipe threads was because I am thinking of getting one of those recoiling ones - does anyone have any experience of these and are they any good.
Paula

 

[vindiboy]

10 litre watering can does for me,can't be bothered with hoses, never let our tank get empty anyway. :thumb::thumb:

 

[Geo]

Hi Paula
I agree with your sentements re are we too clean these days:Sad:
The recoiling hose
Do you mean the self recoil, cos if you do they are a bit of a handfull to use unless the recoil box is firmly screwed to a wall, and quite heavy and bulky if you have payload or space issues what is normaly used is the Flat hose on a roll but that is a manual re wind
Geo

 

[Geo]

10 litre watering can does for me,can't be bothered with hoses, never let our tank get empty anyway. :thumb::thumb:

35 trips to the tap for me then

 

[The Hulk]

flexible hose

Reason I searched out hose pipe threads was because I am thinking of getting one of those recoiling ones - does anyone have any experience of these and are they any good.
Paula

Paula have just bought one of these hoses from tooled up, good saving on rrp, but have not tried it yet but have seen them being used.Seem to be good

 

[dellwood33]

On average, what length of hose is required for the majority of sites ?

 

[Geo]

Most carry a couple of 30 footers but, hoses law says you will be 2 foot short whatever you carryoh:
Geo

 

[45eEver]

If you use garden type hoses, it's probably best to run the first couple of gallons out the pipe watering the garden.

Toxic chemicals from the plastic of non-drinking water hoses and non drinking water containers takes a time to get into the water.

The amount of toxic stuff that will get into your water whilst it's flowing along the pipe is neglible.

I doubt very much if there are any filters to remove it by the way.

I doubt if you'll get nasty beasties developing in a normal M/H water system either.

Yes the taste will change over a period of time.
Just as it would in a stainless steel system.

Probably the best precaution for the nervous is to have a U-bend or micro filter on the pipe that lets the air into the tank when the water goes out.
Anybody ever seen one?

Something like a hubble-bubble would probably be the ultimate, with something like they have on the end of aquarium airlines.
It would need emptying regularly though.

You'll see the same sort of thing in wine making kits to stop nasties turning your wine into vinegar.

 

[Paula]

Hi Geo and The Hulk,

It was one of those curly wurley ones I meant. eg

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Just wondered what they are like - seems they would take up less space than our green plastic garden hose - that is why I was thinking about it. I think you can get slightly longer ones than shown in this link
Paula

ps - am still searching for new or used step well unit for our lunar roadstar - have put this on another post, but no news on where to find one yet. emailed plenty places but no response yet. Main dealer in Somerset says difficult to get. Not helpful. Any suggestions welcome. Wildman suggested ali footplate/strip which would do if cant get unit.

 

[gazznsam]

to be honnest they can be worse than a normal hose, a coiled up hose is easier to store than a folded up curly hose i found,

but what ever you do, never buy one of those thru flow flat hoses, they use 3 microbore pipes side by side to make it apeer flat, and yes it will flow thru when coiled on the drum, but it took us about an hour to fill out 140 litre water tank, the flow was stupid.

i now carry a 30 foot flat hose... the green canvas jobbie, a 10 meter lay flat hose, and a few lengths of 3/4 inch garden hose,

i try to use the 3/4 inch hose whenever i can as it fills the tank a hell of a lot faster, good abroad on aires which have 3/4 inch taps, then it really fills fast, but even on a uk 1/2 inch tap it's a lot faster.

used up all my hoses together the other day to fill the tank, parked up, took a while to get level, all hooked up to mains etc, then saw the tank was empty, managed to just get the hoses to reach by stretching them a bit,

we dont drink water... from anywhere, just clean teeth in van, i have a filter after the pump that is supposed to take all nasties out, it deffo takes the limescale out as i havent had to clean the shower head since i fitted it,

i've filled up from a stream in germany once, had to use a saucepan to collect the water, but it was straight off the mountian, and the dog loved it.

 

[scotjimland]

we dont drink water... from anywhere,

what do you drink in place of water ?