Water Filter - Yay or Nay?

[JohnnyFry]

No, the lamp has a rated life of 6,000 hours. Mine is on maybe 1-2 hours a day. I have removed the unit to clean scaling off the quartz tube---it didn't have any.It took about 5-10 minuted to remove. Basically you unplug the lamp, unscrew the in and out flex hoses and loosen 2 clamping screws. It is a stainless cylinder 2 inches in diameter and about 14 inches long. It is mounted under the bed in the pump compartment.

[Sensfan]

Thanks JohnnyFry. The cool part about your system is that it facilitates continuous access to drinking water when boon-docking beside remote fresh water lakes and rivers. For us, not having to store our eight one-gallon water containers behind the rear axle would also improve vehicle weight balance.

[Urlauber]

Seems like we have the entire spectrum between not worrying and drinking what comes out of the tank, to simple or complex filtering setups, to those who only drink out of purchased plastic bottles.

UV sterilization sounds like a good idea IF it works (water passing by the bulb slowly enough). Difficult to know exactly, may be a "might help, won't hurt" peace of mind thing. I feel these are pretty expensive considering it's just a fairly cheap UV bulb in a housing. Of course, when it comes to liquid and electricity it's always good to have a well made setup.

With 1 micron AC replacement cartridges costing between $7 and 8 a piece I think that's worth it, even to just get the Chlorine removed completely. Maybe replace them once or twice a year and that's that. Sanitize the tank about as often, and empty it when the camper is parked for a while, then refill with fresh water.

Thanks for everyone's replies/opinions!

[JohnnyFry]

All National Sanitation Foundation rated UV devices are rated by flow. The model I have maintains the 99.997% rating at 2 gallons per minute flow and 95% at 3 gpm. My water pump is rated at 2 GPM. The lamp is a high output UV-C lamp enclosed in a fused quartz tube within a stainless steel housing.

[JohnnyFry]

For those who might be interested in a system, this is basically what I have:

https://www.rcworst.com/VIQUA-S5Q-P/...-DC-p9361.html

[Bud]

Ok, so I'm one that fills the tank with unfiltered water and then drinks it unfiltered. I mean just that, but my vodka is different - multi-filtered.

Bud

[Urlauber]

Originally Posted by Bud

Ok, so I'm one that fills the tank with unfiltered water and then drinks it unfiltered. I mean just that, but my vodka is different - multi-filtered.

Bud

But it's not 99.99%!

Stay healthy my friend.

[pasusan]

Originally Posted by Urlauber

Seems like we have the entire spectrum between not worrying and drinking what comes out of the tank, to simple or complex filtering setups, to those who only drink out of purchased plastic bottles.

Not quite the entire spectrum.

We don't filter our water or drink it, or bring purchased bottles. We bring water from our home tap (which is filtered) to drink and cook with.

True, if we were on the road for extended periods we would have to come up with some other solution.

We've actually gotten very, very sick from making lemonade using water that we filled up in Montrose, SD. Can't forget that and will forever be careful.

[Floorman]

The new to me '02CRT190P has a much more complicated water system than the old '89 Lance camper. The single 35 gallon tank enclosed inside the Lance in the step up to the over cab bed was way easier to sanitize, fill and drain than the RT. We had in the Lance, at the insistence of the wife, a Multi-Pure 1 micron solid carbon filter system with a dedicated spigot for our drinking water to hopefully maintain health and taste. You need that 1 micron filtration to guard against pathogens like Giardia and for sure it's difficult to be assured that every spigot you fill the camper with, is safe to drink. The RT has difficult layout to retrofit an undercounter water filter, so I'll be looking at all the alternatives for drinking water in the RT. There are some amazing backpacking filters among the alternatives and maybe a camping size gravity device might work best to provide safe and tasty drinking water.

[mkguitar]

if a van is used constantly you can get and keep it clean.


but we tend to see occasional use scattered through the year



we carry jugs for drinking water/coffee which we fill from a known good source.


the water in our tank is used for cleaning & flushing



I sterilize with trichlor ( pool shock) before a trip and it appears clean


we use an inline filter at campgrounds, many are on well water & septic.

[MagicBox]

We use an inline filter on our fill hose.
We bleach the tanks annually.
We don’t drink from the tanks, we have a separate Berkey water filtering cistern.
For the few times we boondock we buy bottled water.

[avanti]

We bleach the tanks annually.

[Urlauber]

Originally Posted by mkguitar

if a van is used constantly you can get and keep it clean.

but we tend to see occasional use scattered through the year

Same here... so after a trip, I drain the freshwater tank. Before the next trip, I fill it a bit to flush it and water pipes and filter too. Drain again. Then fill it up.

So most of the water is (should be) fresh. That's my theory anyway.

And yes to the annual chlorination.

[JohnnyFry]

I use a UV sterilizer in my system too. I have it attached at the pump so that it treats all water used in the system. I installed it when we went to Baja and got water from some dicey sources. It gives peace of mind. Mine was considerably less expensive than the one you used. I got a Viqua 2 gallon per minute model with a 12 volt power supply for about $320.