Another trip in books - Drinking Water Hose

[RememberTillman]

Good evening all,

We just had another great trip out in our new Jayco camper, this time to Kentucky's Mammoth Cave.

I have reinforced our queen bed on the bhsw, and added a mattress topper, per so many of your recommendations. My back felt great the whole trip and I think you all for the suggestions and feedback.

Being the guy that always has SOMETHING to work on, does anyone have a recommendation for a good drinking hose? The one I'm using we purchased from the dealer and our water tastes heavily of plastic. Even my coffee is challenging to choke down...

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[SouthCo]

We don't drink water from the camper since day one (it's barely a year old). We take bottles and my wife uses bottled water in her coffee. I bought our hose from camper world and its for drinking. It never tasted bad for brushing teeth. I bought a new one for this year. I figure they are cheap and I will get a new one each season...

[RememberTillman]

That's what we ended up doing this trip too, but we didn't use bottled water in the coffee. I don't mind drinking tap water because I am usually good for about 1.5 gallons per day on my own (and we're a family of 5).

That's a lot of bottled water!

[SouthCo]

We are a family of five as well lol. We take a few cases of water each trip. It's cheap from sams club. Is the water taste the same bad from every trip? Get another hose rated for drinking. Maybe flush the trailer with a bleach mixture? I do that as well.

[Sundancer330]

A lot of campgrounds are on well water that is probably not conditioned with a water softener. If you are on city water and the taste is bad try a marine grade water hose,
I used one on my boat and the water was fine, they cost a bit more but well worth it.

[skylarkva]

We also keep a Brita pitcher in the camper, it's constantly being filled. Use that water for coffee and each family member has their own Nalgene.

[need-a-vacation]

What about a couple of 5-7g (depending on brand/model) water jugs to take water from home? Could fill a 1/2g or 1g jug as needed to keep in the fridge for cold drinking water, and maybe another 1g jug on the counter for the coffee.

Is the hose you bought a white, rv/marine hose? Did you try getting water direct from the faucet to see if it was the hose or possibly the trailer plumbing?

[Edd505]

Originally Posted by need-a-vacation

What about a couple of 5-7g (depending on brand/model) water jugs to take water from home? Could fill a 1/2g or 1g jug as needed to keep in the fridge for cold drinking water, and maybe another 1g jug on the counter for the coffee.

Is the hose you bought a white, rv/marine hose? Did you try getting water direct from the faucet to see if it was the hose or possibly the trailer plumbing?

The large jugs are hard to handle. I keep a 2 gallon on the counter with a spigot and a couple 3gal spares to refill it. Water machines are every where. I just bought a portable ice machine for the cold water, ice tea, sodas etc, as we were always running out of ice. Our fridge is too full for another gallon jug.

[mike837go]

We carry several one gallon bottles of drinking water. Just to protect tummies and taste buds from the local version of "potable water".

[DustyGeek]

While we do much the same as everyone above (bring bottled water or jugs of water), I still use a drinking water hose with our trailer. We usually take some water bottles and about 4 1-gallon jugs for a weekend, always keeping one of the gallon jugs in the fridge.

As far as hoses go, I have a 50' version of this Camco premium hose and love it. It's a 5/8" hose (good for water flow), good quality machined ends (versus the stamped ends on most other drinking water hoses), doesn't kink and has strain relief. It's not that much more expensive than other drinking hoses, either. Once my other couple of shorter hoses die or otherwise become unusable, I'm going to replace them with the equivalent of this particular one as well.

[RSerendipity]

Recommend the premium hose that DustyGeek shows above. But also first rinse your FW tanks at least once with a VERY mild solution of Bleach. There are a couple of good links on this site on how to proceed. Also use a filter at the Faucet end. The cheap Camco one works, just throw away each season or sooner if heaver usage. Buy the packs of four for best price. There are much more expensive Filters but this model works for us

Amazon.com: Camco 40043 TastePURE Water Filter with Flexible Hose Protector: Automotive

[Camper_bob]

Originally Posted by DustyGeek

While we do much the same as everyone above (bring bottled water or jugs of water), I still use a drinking water hose with our trailer. We usually take some water bottles and about 4 1-gallon jugs for a weekend, always keeping one of the gallon jugs in the fridge.

As far as hoses go, I have a 50' version of this Camco premium hose and love it. It's a 5/8" hose (good for water flow), good quality machined ends (versus the stamped ends on most other drinking water hoses), doesn't kink and has strain relief. It's not that much more expensive than other drinking hoses, either. Once my other couple of shorter hoses die or otherwise become unusable, I'm going to replace them with the equivalent of this particular one as well.

Thanks for the link! That's the exact hose I've been looking for to replace the ones I got when I bought the trailer almost 2 years ago!

Thoroughly rinsing and sanitizing are key IMHO to removing that "plasticky" taste/smell, and always attach a filter between your trailer and the water source.

We use a filter and drinking water hose in the trailer, but we still carry bottled. We use one of the 5 gal water cooler jugs with this pump: http://www.amazon.com/Water-Bottle-G...hin+water+pump

The bottle is a bit cumbersome, but the pump makes it a lot easier to use. We can get through a weekend on just this water. For longer trips we pack 2-4 extra 1-gal jugs to supplement. You can fill the 5-gal jug for $1 most places, and it's always been VERY good water. We typically search for "Glacier" vending machines. Once you know what to look for, you see them everywhere. We make ice with little Camco ice trays in the freezer, and I'll usually start making ice the Monday before we leave. If I'm diligent with it, I can have a whole bucket of ice prepped for the trip by Thursday, and if I'm really on top of it, I can have that plus a gallon bag full and ready. I realize I could buy a bag of ice for less than $2, but what's the fun in that?!

I also thoroughly rinse out the trailer's entire water system every time we travel, and sanitize with bleach solution at least once a season. I put around 30 gallons of filtered tap water from the house in the fresh tanks to use on the road and when we're setting up or tearing down.

[cekkk]

I've got both hose grades, not sure why. In the years we've had trailers I can't think of either of us drinking from the campground water, just use it for showers, toilet flushing and brushing teeth. Even living in the trailer for months in the winters, we use individual bottled water for drinking and osmosis water for coffee and dogs, etc.

[ninjahbob]

I hope I am not repeating things that you know but here goes make sure your water supply line is certified for drinking water. All other vinyl and plastic hoses will transfer taste and odor to your drinking water and your “coffee”. We had to sanitize our water system within the unit three times to finally get the plastic and vinyl taste out of the system. We used a diluted solution of water and clorox. Good luck.

[edatlanta]

I full time and there is no way I'm going to buy and haul bottled water. Not only the hassle of doing it, but the cost. It just isn't worth it to me. I do drink water from my RV's fresh water system, after all it was designed for this purpose. Now I do have a two stage filter system and filter all water that comes into my rig. I use this one: http://www.rvwaterfilterstore.com/im...learwMount.jpg with the first stage being a 1 micron particulate filter and the second stage being a .5-1 micron carbon block filter.

I know my system might be a bit pricey for a weekend camper, but it works well for me. At my home base I change the particulate filter every 4-6 months and the charcoal once a year. At the park I'm hosting in how I have to change the particulate filter every 2-3 weeks and the charcoal every 6-8 weeks. One thing that has caused more filter change this summer has been the number of fresh waterline breaks the park has had. Every time they have the water off due to a line break, I have to replace one of both filters. Watching a plumbing guy repair a fresh water line will tell you the problem. They aren't too careful about getting dirt in the line. After the water is restored I always run my water hose out on the ground for 45 minutes to an hour trying to remove as much "crud" from the repair process, but I still have to change filters.

Works for me.

[Edd505]

Looks like the setup from the hunting cabin, gravity flow from the creek, clean water at the sink.