Plugged toilet metering hole

punomatic wrote:
My question is this: I use a particulate filter at the city water intake, so where are these particles coming from?

Post-manufacturing plastic cr-ap in tubes and tanks. Shavings and debris left after cutting, drilling etc. Had my pump filter clogged with this. They should flush the system before selling the RV, but they never do.

I have always run a .5 micron charcoal filter to eliminate any **** from getting in to the water tank or the pipes when on city water. On our Class A I ran a 1.0m sediment filter followed by a .5 charcoal filter. We have down sized to a 15' hybrid and it runs on a .5m charcoal filter. Not a drop of water should enter any RV that is not filtered. There are water systems through out this country that have garbage water at best. Filter and forget.
Randy

A city water inlet has a screen filter with a mesh screen size of #50. 1st pic shows a typical screen filter on a city water inlet. The Shurflo inline filter also has a #50 mesh screen size. #50 mesh is equivalent to 297 microns as shown in this info.: mesh screen size to microns

297 microns for filtration is very coarse and won't help a whole lot. You want something more like an absolute min. of a 100 micron rated filter. 50 microns would be better, and 5 microns would be the best option. If buying an inline sediment filter, look at the specs very closely as they can vary from 5 to 100 microns and some filters have no specs.

A better option is a "whole house" housing with a replaceable filter element. Can be mounted on a stand outside or permanently installed inside. RVwaterfilterstore.com has a good selection of such filter cartridges here.

If you do go with a filter cartridge, also look for flow rating specs. Some have low flow rates and the flow rates are rated for when new. As they plug up during use, they slow down a lot. A bigger cartridge generally will last longer too. Some specs will list the lifespan in terms of total gallons of use.

Even a 5 micron filter will not be enough in some cases, depending on the water quality you are using. We're on a well at home with a 50/5 micron filter and sediment/particles smaller than 5 microns can get through and cause problems (and have occasionally).

A problem you can run into is if you sometimes use city water and sometimes the fresh water tank, you can't put a filter in a location that will filter both sources. That Shurflo filter may not do much for your issue and would look at doing something better. I would also do a good flushing of the holding tank, but sometimes a lot of water still remains in the tank. You may need to elevate one side of your camper.

A filter cartridge of some description is always a good idea rather than relying on just a coarse screen. 2nd pic shows a biological mass that showed up on our city water filter screen after an early season camping trip. After that, I installed a 3-stage filtration setup inside that is good down to 0.2 microns.

I don't know how your's is set up, but in my camper, that particle filter is right before the water pump, which pumps water from the fresh water tank. When using city water, there is no particle filter. The line bypasses the on-board water pump, a check valve prevents the water from back-feeding into the fresh water tank, so with the city water connected, nothing ever passes this screened filter. Are you sure you have the screened filter at the fresh water city intake, and not just the water pump for the fresh water tank?

Are you sure it's plastic particles? Could it be minerals/sediment from water?

We used to not run a filter in our camper. Then we got some water that created all sorts of issues. All the faucet screens were almost clogged, and the toilet valve stopped working. I took it off, cleaned it out the best I could and it clogged again. I finally just drained everything, rinsed the water tank, drained and then started running fresh water through all the lines, especially the toilet line and tried to get the chunks out. I ended up replacing the toilet valve, started using the hole house filter and didn't have any more problems after that.

Very tough to diagnose where they are coming from without knowing what they are. So how about I give you a SWAG. Calcium that is dissolved in the water that is coagulating and settling out of the water and plugging the screen.