Water Filter Advise

myredracer wrote:
Impressive write-up by Jbarca. Almost makes one want to never drink any kind of water again unless it's been boiled.

We're not into dry camping and have only ever used our fresh water tank once when we had to stay in an overflow site. But it makes me wonder, what happens to water in your piping system when you use city water all the time but you may leave your RV sitting for long periods between use? Is simply flushing the lines for a few seconds sufficient?

Another question I have wondered about is what do private campgrounds do for sanitizing water if they have their own well? Are there federal or state regulations that specify treatment for them and does it have to be regularly tested?

Hi Red,

Think of the camper water system like a big canteen. Start with a clean canteen, put clean water in it, drink from it without concern and when done, drain it and leave the cap open to dry it out. Your good to go again the next time.

I'm making an assumption most of us would not leave your canteen filled with water for weeks/month outside in the summer heat, and then grab it and go chug down the bottle. So why do we think it is OK to do it in the camper?

Some other water attributes, if mold spores are active in the area of open standing water, the temperature is ambient or above, 14 days later little black floaty things start growing. The key is, open water, temperature and were spores in the air or water? The rest is nature trying to survive.

To your questions, I'll try and answer.

So in this case you do not use the fresh tank, but fill the camper with city water and the system is pressurized. Assuming the system is per-sanitized, clean and you are adding potable water, at the time you are using it, there is not a concern. Then you stop, leave the system full and the camper sits outside in the heat of summer.

At this point you really do not know what residual of chlorine you have started with. The hot water heater is a concern being left full and standing. Thinking about this, this first time the water sits after 1st sanitize use, the risk is lower for the trapped water. I only say this as the system was sanitized clean and the heavy chlorine from sanitize oxidized off any food source and micro infections.

Now 3 weeks to a month later you come back. And you start off with hooking up to the city water source. Odds are high the way your camper is made, there might be several feet of pipe from the fresh tank water pump discharge until it tee's into the main system that is filled with water that will not be flushed out as you are not using the fresh tank. And then there is the 6 gallons in the HW heater.

If the new fresh incoming water has chlorine in it and you do not totally filter the chlorine by accident, then the chlorine will start working on your system on the areas it can reach. As long as you did not have a heavy infection in some nook and cranny you could get by the 1st time. the 2nd, 3rd and 4th time the odds are not be as good.

Flushing for sure helps, however you may need more than seconds. We have a lab practice that when we go to sample a water tank, we let the sample port flush for approx 2 minutes, then draw the sample. This creates better odds you flushed out any contamination in the port. The port however was dry as the port tube end is exposed when you shut it off. Again remove the moisture and bugs don't grow. We also alcohol wipe the end before the purdge.

I have never tested the camper chlorine left in the pipes solid full for weeks/months. If the HW heater was not in the mix I could speculate better. If there is an active infection or food source stuck in a nook and cranny, what ever chlorine is left will start working on it. The chlorine will dissolve as it burns out the micro source. If it totally cleans the system, then odds are in your favor. If it never kills out the entire colony, then the colony will keep growing if the chlorine is all consumed. There is nothing to stop it and the high summer heat aggravates the whole thing.

The 2nd and 3rd time you do this, the odds of being OK "may" go down as the system is not as clean as you left it full of water the 1st time. That pipe to the pump never got flushed until you use the fresh tank or sanitize over again and the HW tank, if it started an infection, it might be in the system.

I have never tested this situation so I do not know for sure. I do not do this, I blow out the camper and leave the faucets open to help dry it out. I'm going to speculate you may be OK or not pending how hot it gets inside the camper, how bad the HW system turned into during the down period and what if any infection was present when you stopped using the camper.

To understand potable water, potable water can still have a level of micro in it and not make you sick. We are talking potable water, not sterile. When the micro level gets high enough above potable standards, that is when you get sick.

I'm sure many camper folks have been leaving their system filled and then firing it back up and start using it again after sitting for a month. Assuming they sanitized correctly in the spring, if they do not drink the water directly after filling it back up, flush it out good, make sure there is some level of chlorine in the incoming water, and give it time to work, this for sure lowers the odds of having a problem and may get you by.

If you want to test this for yourself, get one of the pool chlorine test kits. The test strips often test for free chlorine and the drops total chlorine. Read the package it should say. They do not cost that much and sample the first water that comes of the faucet after flushing a few seconds. For standing water, check for free chlorine that is still active. The oyo drops and colorimeter usually go lower in chlorine but are measuring total chlorine. Down to about 0.5ppm. The strips stop at 1.0ppm unless you can find the kind that go lower. If you just filled the camper with fresh chlorinated water, the drops are OK as there has not been enough time to break down the chlorine yet. Again, if their is an active residual of chlorine, even 0.25ppm, then you have good assurance the water is good micro wise that is.

I can tell you, the tall riser RV kitchen faucet will test 0 for chlorine until it flows a bit. That riser pipe is after the shut off valve and the water standing in the vertical pipe is going to evaporate off any chlorine left in it, in a few hours. After a 16 oz etc of flow you are now sampling what is in the pipes.

The test if it shows a level/trace of free chlorine, then you have higher confidence you are OK. That said, that does not mean it is infected water out of control if there is no chlorine, but you really do not know. If it smells foul, it has issues and is contaminated.

Wells, I do not know if there are regulations requiring a CG to chlorinate. Well water just like in a country home, is kept cold 50 to 100 feet in the ground. If the well and pipes are clean, then the water you draw is clean. That said if untreated well water sits in your fresh tank for a couple of weeks, odds are high it will start to grow. Again here I use a veterinarian syringe to draw from the chlorine bottle, measure and inject unscented bleach into the tank while filling the tank when I carbon filter the water as it reduced the chlorine just like well water. It does not take much spike. Again back to start clean and keep it clean. I target ~ 0.5ppm to 0.75ppm. If I get up to 1.0 to 1.5 is smells like a swimming pool in the shower. BTW swimming pools target ~ 2 to 3 ppm. 4ppm is the higher limit which also aligns with max potable water treatment levels for chlorine I have found.

As far as testing, there "might" be a CG regulation for testing pending local health codes as they are supplying potable water to the open public. Pending how they store the water and pressurize it, they might have a chlorination and pH control system. They are not that hard to do. If they have a real large outdoor tank, my assumption is they treat it. The average country home has a submersible pump and tank or a tank in the basement out of the sun heat. Again back to the temperature thing to start bio activity. I really do not know of a regulation, but assume there is something here in North America.

We grew up on a country well, never had an issue, but our our bodies were use it it. Someone who is use to city water all the time, some times they get stomach sick or have the runs just traveling to the next city as their body has not adjusted to the new water source. They are a lot more sensitive then the person living on the country well all their life.

Again I am probably skewed to the other end of the camper spectrum because of work and keeping water clean. You can try a test, when you shut down the camper, draw 16 oz of water before unhooking, put it in a clean glass, cover the top with clear plastic wrap and let it incubate in the camper. When you come back 3 to 4 weeks later see what it looks like.

Hope this helps

John