water filters

The blue cannister from CW and the blue cartridge for it is expensive but it does a good job for a while.
Find a whole house 10 in filter housing from Lowes or Home Depot or other and the 25 micro carbon block filter, for a pre filter or on line buy some .5 micro carbon block filters, with silver that will get anything. Along with the housing two adapters for hose fittings and ball vale at each end first. Take a few minutes to put it together but it will contain a larger volume of dirt etc.
The little inline will clog up in no time at most campgrounds especially mid west with wells or South Ga, Fla, La with irons, sulfur and a bunch of other nasties.
So a pre filter makes sense with a media to catch most of the nasties.
You have to replace filters. No filter will last very long, all dependent on the water source. Do not count on a water filter lasting a whole trip or a hole season. The big ten inch canister sold at Home depot has a remote that tell you when it is not flowing good. It beats that all of a sudden, the water smells like dirt, sulfur or bad.
That filter housing is about 70.00. The 25 micron carbon block filter is about 25.00 I think. Worked well on our well but the only problem we had was a little lime and a bit of sediment. Bad water smaller micron good.

A Clearsource water filtration system is $275 and has two filters. I purchased these Clearsource filters along with a couple of everyday 10 micron sediment filters from Lowe's. I have way less than $275 in mine but I'm a retire Mechanical & Software Engineer & have been building things since I was a kid.

Got money to burn? By an Acuva UV light water purifier.

Below is the setup I installed under the kitchen sink at the back wall. Doesn't really interfere with the use of the cabinet. First filter is a 63 micron sediment filter (washable), 2nd is a 5 micron string-wound sediment filter, 3rd is a 1 micron Doulton ceramic filter (can be cleaned repeatedly) and last is a 0.2 micron Crystal Quest "ultrafiltration" (UF) filter. I got the 10" housings cheap at a plumbing wholesaler and the cartridges off the internet. The ceramic cartridge supplies the kitchen faucet only and the UF cartridge supplies an RO type faucet for drinking water only. The last season has been the worst so far for visual buildup on the filters.

Water filtration and cartridge selection can get quite complex and what you want will depend on what you want to accomplish. Water filtration for RVs has it's own unique challenges because you can travel all over the place and not know what's in the water. Even water from gov't regulated municipal systems can be an issue. Some unknown sources like lakes and wells can be an issue as the water can be untreated and unregulated.

I recommend against carbon filters because they remove chlorine from your piping system, leaving it unprotected against biological "stuff". Below is a photo of our city water inlet filter screen. This is a biomass blob caused by the absence of chlorine in a CG water system and their failure to flush their lines after sitting unused over a winter and the dissipation of chlorine levels. Wanna ingest this kinda stuff? Not me... That was about when I decided to install some good filtration.

Cryptosporidium and Giardia parasites are chlorine resistant and if you want to remove them, you need a filter with a small enough micron rating - 1 micron or less and should be absolute rated, not nominal.

If you are using a sediment filter only, do you know how it's made? If a paper type, bacteria love to grow in them. A string-wound type will prevent that. Water can have a range of contaminants like heavy metals, chemicals, bacteria, viruses, parasites, pesticides, etc. Filters can remove some of these things but not all.

Note that filters with KDF or silver in them do not prevent pathogens from flowing through them, it's in them to prevent them from growing inside. You should look for NSF rated filters otherwise they can have exaggerated claims, or no specs at all and you won't know how they really perform. Multiple filters can cause pressure/flow drop. Inline exterior filters can have high micron ratings. Read specs carefully and don't just grab the blue one or the cheapest on the shelf.

PDX1953 wrote:

Got money to burn? By an Acuva UV light water purifier.

I've found a UV filter indispensable for a couple of reasons: (1) it does the job of chlorine without using chlorine and (2) it kills algae. It stopped an algae bloom in my RV.

I ordered a dual canister filter housing with hose fittings from the RV Water Filter Store with the RV-SED1 filter (removes sediment 1 micron or larger) and the F1Pb cartridge (filters chlorine, taste and odor, cysts, lead, etc.). I built a housing from plywood so the fittings protrude a bit so you can hook your hose from the spigot to the housing and from there to the trailer. It can lock if needed.

For general washing and bathroom, I don't use filters besides a couple screens in the hose connections.

For drinking water, we use the narrow Brita filter, as it fits nicely on the door shelf of our camper's refrig:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Brita-Small-Space-Saver-Water-Pitcher-with-Filter-6-Cup-BPA-Free-White/1604724?athcpid=1604724&athpgid=athenaItemPage&athcgid=null&athznid=PWBAB&athieid=v0&athstid=CS002&athguid=466001f5-7ac8873f-e4b5614138addc3a&athena=true

wildtoad wrote:
The blue inline filters are fine for filtering out sediment, just as well as the whole house kind.

But they have less capacity and are more expensive plus restrict flow more.

I use the WATTS whole house filter that came with the RV. I use "CFB-Plus10 Pentek Replacement Water Filter Cartridge" from discountfilterstore.com for $9.99 ea. QUALITY filter!

Cummins12V98 wrote:

I use the WATTS whole house filter that came with the RV. I use "CFB-Plus10 Pentek Replacement Water Filter Cartridge" from discountfilterstore.com for $9.99 ea. QUALITY filter!

On our new rig, I installed the Pentek version of the housing, but chose the same filter. It filters sediment AND chloramines. However, that filter does restrict flow by its very nature, so I've found that adding a pressure regulator really diminishes the water pressure in the coach. I used 3/4" clear hoses to route the water from the filter to the main connection, and even without a pressure regulator, there's not enough flow through the filter to fill the hose.

I have plenty of flow even with my WATTS regulator set to 60psi. Something is not right with your setup.

Nothing; I live life on the edge! :B