Drinking water/filtration

I buy the 2.5 gallon water jugs for drinking and cooking and we use an inline camco filter for the water for showers and dish washing.

wa8yxm wrote:
What is wrong with tap water short version.

Tap water is not 100% water. there are minerals and other impurities. may even be bacteria in the water.. NOW..

Pure water (I am talking lab quality pure) Is not good for you either. By the way we all know water conducts electricity right.. WRONG pure water and again I'm talking lab quality. does not.. (I know I've used it in a lab and it was very important it not conduct).

You are correct about mineral and bacteria in well or even city water. And it varies from area to area or even house to house on the same street in some cases.. Now normally you stick close to home and you won't have any issues. but if you travel great distance....

I spent all summer tanking up (RV has a 80 Gallon tank) every 2 weeks I was doing the 2 weeks here two there 2 here bit and at one CG I'd hook up and tank up upon arrival. tank up again before I left and use JUST water from that CG save for laundry (Which (I did at the other CG) Finally I packed up and went south for the winter. 70 gallons lasted from Halloween EVE (When (I tanked up) TO Thanksgiving Morning that's when I hit empty.

Tanked up again and This time at my winter quarters. and went through 80 gallons in 7 days.. WHY. .Additional flushing.. Yup I got hit with the "Different water" effect.. Well I tanked up again 2 more times at one week intervals but the tank was NOT empty. then it was 2 weeks/1 week for the winter. I'm a bit more water efficient this year. every 3 weeks in the winter (Will go back to 2 weeks come summer due to logistics of it).

And I've been in parks where frankly I could not drink the water (Very bad) without filtration.

Now why is pure water not good? Some of the minerals are essent9ial. if you know what they are you can take supplements but.. I'm not sure what they are.

IF you are SERIOUSLY bothered a Reverse Osmosis filter gives near lab quality pure. However there is a trade off with them I don't care for.

I use a simple granulated charcoal filter (home made)

Big pipe (Mine is 3" I suggest 2) with reducers on each end to a garden hose (male and female) one end can be unscrewed to re-fill.
Stainless steel grid (Drain cover) each end.

Filter floos. Activated charcoal (the basic kind not the fancy stuff with algaecide) more floss and close it up. I use a full PINT of charcoal (or more) and change it from time to time.

THen I PUR what I drink as well.

I see a moderator cleaned up the Berkey link. When we went fulltiming, we started buying 10-12 gallons of water each week. Usually in 2 1/2 gallon jugs we kept in the fridge and then another case of water for "grab and go" water as we went out.

With a Berkey Water Filter and a set of resuable bottles, we haven't bought water in about 2 years. We bought a 2 gallon jug from Amazon and refill that directly from the Berkey. We keep the 2 gallon jug in the fridge so that we have fresh cold water always on hand.

http://learntorv.com/berkey/

We added a Berkey showerhead filter, as well. My wife says her hair is softer and it protects the colors she puts in.

You might want to discover ***Link Removed***Go Berkey kit. It's a portable water filter.

We will be using two Camco (or equivalent) inline filters, and the "South of the border" system from the RV Filter store, in addition to under-sink ceramic and charcoal filters, PLUS, chemical purification. Given we'll be spending a lot of time in SW Arizona in the winter (Coyote Howls, BABY!!!) and we'll need all the help we can get.

We use a Camco external filter and an under sink Everpure H-54 Here which feeds a separate faucet by the sink and the ice maker.

Dave

What is wrong with tap water short version.

Tap water is not 100% water. there are minerals and other impurities. may even be bacteria in the water.. NOW..

I know we all grew up (i hope) on tap water but you get used to the specific water where you live.. Takes me about a week to adjust to a new water supply if it's different enough (Story follows)

And some of the "Tap" water I've seen.. is not fit to drink.. High mineral content. High sulfur content or other stuff I'd rather not drink.

City near where I summer has people dying from lead in the tap water.

yup Dying.

so that's what's wrong with tap water.

Now.. What's wrong with Bottled water... A lot of it is tap water.

There are other sources like Lake Michigan.. Which happens to be a political hot potato but I'm only commenting on it as a source. Good water far as I know. Many other sources a well.

PLUS the chemicals that the bottle gifts you with. Plus cost
(Waffle House sells 16.9oz bottles for $1.69 chilled. Folks that is 12.80/gallon and you thought GASOLINE was expensive :).


The story
Last summer I tanked up every 2 weeks need it or not (and it was always not) Till Halloween Went from Oct 30 to Thanksgiving morning before I ran out of water (80 gallon tank) all the water came from the dame 12 well system (the park has 12 wells) when I was in another park I used, as I am now, water from THAT park.

Thanksgiving noon I tanked up. for the first time that season at a DIFFERENT system.. same 80 gallons lasted a week.. WHY.. Well I had to flush more often.

GordonThree wrote:
What's wrong with tap water? Survived a long time on the stuff myself.

You may want to read this
***Link Removed***

richy2 wrote:
I installed a Culligan under sink filter in my motorhome kitchen. Only the cold water gets filtered. It removes chlorine and other unpleasant taste in water. If we are not hooked up to city water, we use bottled water for drinking. Prefer not use holding tank water for drinking, filtered or not.

Good thinking. There is a good chance the holding tank water can allow bacteria growth. All the filters I've come across have warnings not to filter micro-biologically contaminated water for drinking.

The countertop filter you are looking at has a media cartridge with layers of charcoal, kdf, calcite and mineral beads. The amount of media in each layer is too low to have sufficient contact time with water in order to adsorb chemical impurities, and correct taste and odor issues. I would rather buy a filter filled with only charcoal, from the same company.

An even better option would be to buy a reverse osmosis system. RO systems come in both countertop and under-sink configurations. They remove the most amount of contaminants compared with other filtration technologies, except distillation.
Here is a chart with percentages of contaminants removed from reverse osmosis.
https://www.wecofilters.com/blog/post/ro-nominal-rejection/

Since you're buying this for your RV, here are some popular undersink choices online that has electric pumps to boost pressure.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003ZZUBHE
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076FSQLMC
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXE2CQM

Countertop RO choices for RV
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XY8CHL2
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GDGTKRY