Do you drink the water at RV parks?

[cantdrv55]

Total newbie question because I am a total newbie. I've read that I should use a white hose for fresh water but does that mean the park's water is drinkable? Even when I stay in hotels I drink bottled water. If you don't drink it, do you cook with it or is it just showers, washing dishes and flushing the john?

[dwightdi]

We carry a 2 1/2 gallon water from home. Use it to drink and cook when quality is questionable. Most Midwest state campgrounds have acceptable water. Bottle water is getting cheaper at most big box stores.

[wahoonc]

We use the campground water supply for showering and washing up. Drinking and cooking water comes from home, or if on the road for any extended length of time we may buy gallons of drinking water. In addition all campground water gets filtered by an external filter first. We had one campground where the iron levels were so high that we threw the filter out after a weeks stay.

Aaron

[dznf0g]

Yes

[paiceman]

Use it for everything, but also have an inline water filter. After a seven week trip this fall I took the filter out when winterizing and was amazed how dirty and red the filter was. Spent a lot of time in Moab - Red Dirt. We have never had an issue when using the inline filter.

Safe Travels

[timhortons]

You do realize bottled water is usually just water from a municipal supply with the added bonus of soft-plastic taste ?

[lewster]

Reverse osmosis from home supply or distilled water when on the road for drinking. Most bottled water is a scam and tastes horrible when compared to the two options above.


Lew Farber
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[AnnArborBob]

We almost always use CG water for everything and have never had a problem (knock on wood!) Having said that, we do carry some jugs of water and are prepared to use them for cooking/drinking if the CG water has an off taste. I figure as long as I don't see the bodies of too many dead fellow campers outside their units how bad can the water be? Also, realistically we are never in one place long enough for a "silent killer" type of contamination to build up in our systems. However, if you are among the folk who drink bottled water at home and in major cities because they are afraid of contamination even in those supplies, then by all means, knock yourself out and drink the bottled water!

[Lily&Me]

All campground water, all the time, but for the occasional places where we have been forewarned not to.....like Moraine View State Park and Edisto Beach, where the fresh water is safe but tastes nasty, for different reasons.

The blue filters available at WalMart do a nice job of equalizing the taste from one area to the next.


Maggie

[AStreamJake]

We drink the water at almost all campgrounds we visit, unless (such as in Arizona), the local supply is not to our taste.

60 minutes did a segment on bottled water years back. Most municipal water supplies were far less contaminated than brand-name bottled waters. Almost all bottled waters come directly from the tap at the factory and have far better chances of contamination because of the bottling process itself and the storage periods involved.

If you want to spend a lot of unnecessary money, use bottled water only (although, truthfully, you won't be any safer.) If you have concerns but don't want to use bottled water, get a simple filter from Walmart such as someone suggested above. Or if, like me, you believe that the U.S.'s water supply is the safest in the world, drink bottled water only if you have taste objections to the local municipality's supply.

[AnnArborBob]

I would like to remind folks who are commenting about the safety of US municipal water that a lot of campgrounds use well-water and do not get their water from a municipal water supply. We have well-water at home and are thus used to water that does not come "from the grid" and feel it is perfectly safe.

[nvestysly]

We use campground water for almost everything - cooking, shower, brushing teeth, etc. We're not overly concerned about safety of the water supply when we travel. We take precautions to keep the ends of our white hoses out of the dirt and we don't put the white hoses near the sewer hose - a common sense approach.

We do use bottle water - if you can call it that - for drinking. We refill jugs at the grocery store for $0.25 - $0.35 per gallon. Yes, it cost money but if it's only for drinking we only need to refill the jugs every few days.

The water from those dispensing machines has a more consistent taste in my opinion versus the taste of water from town to town. When the municipal water has a odd flavor it causes me to not drink the water and then I find myself becoming dehydrated. The water from dispensers has the added advantage of not creating calcium or iron build-up in the water kettle for our morning hot tea and oatmeal.

I've considered adding a water softener to our list of equipment in order to reduce iron deposits and calcium buildup in the shower and water heater.

[AWCHIEF]

Yes I do drink the campground water. I use an inline filter to strain out the big chunks and a filter that is built in to the galley faucet.

[polarlyse]

Well water for consumption is periodically tested so should always be safe to drink. Taste, that's another issue and if you don't like it, don't drink it. I do use bottled water usually for making ice and drinking but I do try the campground water first. I've been thinking lately about a small RV softener and may look into that one of these days.

[moosetags]

Originally Posted by cantdrv55

Total newbie question because I am a total newbie. I've read that I should use a white hose for fresh water but does that mean the park's water is drinkable? Even when I stay in hotels I drink bottled water. If you don't drink it, do you cook with it or is it just showers, washing dishes and flushing the john?

The so called "white hose" that you are referring to is one that is specially designed to use for drinking (potable) water. These hoses are made from different materials that do not put any plastic chemicals in the water coming through them. By the way, not all of these hoses are white in color. Just look on the packaging and they will say suitable for drinking water. These hoses are usually more expensive than the garden hose variety.

As to using the water at parks and campgrounds, we always use the park and campground water for all uses including drinking. We have always had a filtering system in our Airstreams and we use one of those big blue filters at the hose spigot.

In the literally hundreds of parks and campgrounds that we have stayed at over the years, we have never found the water unacceptable for drinking and all other uses.

Brian

[Wingeezer]

Although we do always use a water filter on the inlet hose from the campground supply, we generally carry 5gal of filtered water from home with us for cooking/drinking.

Once empty, we generally refill with RO water if readily available where we happen to be, and if not, we either buy bottled water for drinking or use the campground supply through our filer.

No real reason - I guess we started doing it mainly because we preferred the taste of our morning coffee when made with the water that we were used to at home!

In most cases I would have no qualms about using the water from the RV park.

I do try not to use the water from our RV tank for drinking even though it has been filtered on the way in and also I do regularly sanitize the system with bleach. I still just get a bit nervous about it! Would use it as a last resort

Brian.

[dkottum]

We always did when younger but at at this point in our lives we are more careful what we eat and drink. Campground water can vary widely in quality and taste so we run it through a filter and softener before it comes in the Airstream, and we drink only bottled water (the gallon size) when we can get it.

[ukulele2010]

I drink, shower and cook with the campground water that has been through an inline filter. It seems perfectly safe to me. Has anyone had any issues with campground water other than preferring one taste over another? My guess is safety is not a real concern, possibly taste is.

[dznf0g]

I also run through a filter and softener outside. The softener is more for reducing the annual hard water deposit maintenance than consumption quality. And it works well for that.

[A W Warn]

We use campground water wherever we go. I filter all water at the hose bib before it gets into the trailer. We normally use it for everything. We do carry bottled water, small bottles we can put in the fridge, just for convenience.

There are exceptions though. When well water has a funky taste or smell that the carbon filter does not remove, we only use it for washing and flushing. For example, all along the southeast US coastal areas, shallow well water can have a rotten egg / sulfur smell. It is safe to ingest, but I do not.

add edit: I'm more concerned with what is growing in the fresh water tank when I fill it with well water at a campground. I'm anal about keeping the fresh water tank sanitized, 3-4 times each year.