Cooking and drinking water

Crabbypatty wrote:
When not boon-docking we only keep a few gallons in the tank, for toilet and hand washing. Why carry the extra weight at $4/gallon. Drinking water we always fill jugs and bring them from home. We take 4-6 gallons which is enough for us for a week of cooking/coffee. If we run out we go buy a gallon. I have a filter to, but why risk it. The whole rig is filter and I have watched people use the spickets for all kinds of things and with out back flush protectors all their germs just go back into the system.

I hope you believe me that those deadly germs you are afraid of can not get back into the system if the outlet was used under pressure. Also, a backflow preventer will only insure against transfer back into the source plumbing if the pressure is greater at the use end.

Usually we use campground water the same as we use our water at home. We also carry about a quarter of a tank for on the road use. If we will be camping with no hookups we bring a full tank. Never use bottled water. Never had a problem in 14 years of RVing.

When not boon-docking we only keep a few gallons in the tank, for toilet and hand washing. Why carry the extra weight at $4/gallon. Drinking water we always fill jugs and bring them from home. We take 4-6 gallons which is enough for us for a week of cooking/coffee. If we run out we go buy a gallon. I have a filter to, but why risk it. The whole rig is filter and I have watched people use the spickets for all kinds of things and with out back flush protectors all their germs just go back into the system.

We traveled for 5 months last winter. Minimum water in the tank unless boondocking. At campgrounds with water hookup we used it for everything. We have an inline filter on the trailer.

Buying water in plastic bottles seems like an expensive waste. We also found in most places it was difficult to recycle plastic or other material.. That was very frustrating.

It is interesting to note that beside any concerns about the plastic containers there is also limited standards applying to bottled water. As well some companies simply bottle city water and label it "Spring Water from pure mountain streams"

Completely agree on the NO bottled water. We added a PUR faucet mount filter, in addition to the filter for the whole system, and we're perfectly happy with the taste and purity.

We don't travel with more than minimal amount of water in the FW tank...just enough for a bathroom stop/hand washing enroute. We always have at least water/electric and don't feel the need to haul around 8.3# per gallon of water x however many gallons your tank holds. About 250# + or - equals more weight, equals more gas, equals more $. CG water fills all our needs.

I don't like the taste of the water at our local state park CG, where we usually camp. I do, however, like the taste of our city water at home. So I usually take half a tank or so, plus a 7 gal tote. Coffee, drinking and cooking water come out of the tote.

I travel with a full FW tank regardless, If I end up at a site with water connection I just use it instead. I usually bring a case of bottled water for drinking, but do use the FW tank or FW hook-up for cooking.

We do have a filter on our water line, but fortunately where we have stayed they all had really great water. I buy bottled water occasionally just to take along in the truck if we go somewhere. Most bottled water is just filtered tap water anyway. So we don't fill our water tank at all and I use the campground water for everything.

We do both, I fill before leaving and top off as necessary at the camp ground.

Since we do state parks, I have a bigger gripe than water quality. That is, the hydrants located around the park for drinking water are used in all manor of carelessness. People wash their dishes, clean their pets, I even saw a guy dumping his gray water tote in the catch basin once (NOT a drain in the conventional sense). To me, that's third-world country behavior. Don't they understand that they risk contaminating a whole lot of people? It a potable watersource for drinking! Not a carwash. I've taken to hosing it down with peroxide before I hook to it.

I generally keep some water in my tank for emergencies and fill up near or where I’m going to camp. And I don’t use a filter. I’ve used the local water, whether on foot or in an RV, for 50 years and never once gotten sick from it. The only time I’ve seen anyone sick was backpacking. They would wash their dishes with soap, and water being critical backpacking, they cut corners rinsing the soap off. So I’m convinced the water didn’t make them sick, the residual soap did.

That said, I saw some posts and pictures of water back east, PA sticks in my mind, that looked so bad no one in their right mind would drink it. In that case even I would be looking at bottled water.