Another reason NOT to use the "Water Thief"
This was posted at the USFS Windy Hill CG at Roosevelt Lake but I have seen similar postings at a number of USFS CG's through the southwest. If a CG only has a few spigots scattered around, often wit...
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wa8yxm wrote:Me Again wrote:
Yeap, it is going to cross contaminate here, but not in thousands of RV parks around the country! Maybe their water sucks rather than blows!
In fact many older parks have some "Frost proof" Hydrants, these are the kind where you lift an handle to make water flow and push it down to make it stop.
These do, in fact, suck
The actual valve is underground, how far under is a variable, usually it is set in gravel and it's right on the undergound water line. It is a 3-way valve, when you open the hydrant to fill your RV it connects to the water line that is under pressure and you get water,
When you push it back down it opens a drain and water drains out of the vertical pipe so it can not freeze... IF you have a hose hooked to it, it can indeed suck up whatever is on the other end of that hose. (unless you add a vacuum breaker)
I used this type of hydrant on the farm, and have seen it in several northern campgrounds and a few southern ones as well.
It is no longer approved, but older parks may be grandfathered.
All the parks around here have this type of hydrant and I have them on the farm too. They do have a anti-siphon connection screw on the end during the camping season and then they remove them for winter so the hydrant can work as intended and not freeze. I've never hard of them not being approved. In fact I don't know how else you would do it to keep the lines from freezing?
Oh, on the farm we fill our farm chemical sprayer out of the rural water supply line. There are 3 levels of safety so that no chemical gets back into the system. Including a anti syphon device on the main line coming to the farm. Standard procedure around here and probably a law too.
