Water filter system

[madogkenno]

Just purchased a 2018 30' classic.

Has a standard filter under sink for filtered water. Is this sufficient enough to drink from the tap or should I purchase the WOW system reverse osmosis $795 installed with three changeable filters mounted under the sink with the factory installed one replaced?

Is silver the new black?

[madogkenno]

Originally Posted by madogkenno

Just purchased a 2018 30' classic.

Has a standard filter under sink for filtered water. Is this sufficient enough to drink from the tap or should I purchase the WOW system reverse osmosis $795 installed with three changeable filters mounted under the sink with the factory installed one replaced?

Silver is the new black.

[kendrick.l.j]

You will get all kinds of answers on this. You could spend tons on water filter or none at all. I just use a simple filter in addition to the onboard filter, I haven't died yet. Spent may 30 dollars.

[paiceman]

Filter under sink only filters the sink water. We've used exterior filters since they came out. So far no I'll effects. Cheap and throw away.

[OTRA15]

As a minimum you should always use an inline filter in the hose, ether for city water or filling the tank, like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Camco-40043-T.../dp/B0006IX87S

It traps particulate matter and does (only) basic chemical filtering.

Further filtering for drinking water is fine, but above my pay grade.

Good luck,

Peter

[EarlM]

Does the 2018 Classic have a bypass mode on the water filter to use when winterizing or is there a bypass tube?

[uncle_bob]

Hi

If you freak out about water, just buy bottled water at the local super store. At < $4 a flat, your $800 will keep you in water for a *long* time.

No filter system you can afford will let you drink water from random puddles by the side of the road. Any legit campsite is going to have water that complies with basic standards. It will not kill you or make you sick. It might taste odd. A cheap Brita pitcher will take care of that part.

There may be various bits of hard water deposits in any water piping system. Campsite systems are no exception. A fairly coarse filter at the water intake on the trailer will keep that stuff out. It's won't hurt you, but it eventually will plug this and that up. Same thing happens at home for the same reason.

Bob

[HiJoeSilver]

I bought a culligan 4" whole house filter and a camcorder filter stand. I use a filter that has carbon for taste and it filters sediment.
Some people make their own stand, figured by the time I bought all the pieces the camcorder stand would be cheaper.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B016V...RwL&ref=plSrch

Most any campground will have to meet water quality requirements as mentioned as far as safety. Some will taste like crapola though either due to chlorine or other dissolved solids.
Filtering all water before it gets to the trailer I think is better imho.

[TheGreatleys]

Originally Posted by madogkenno

Is this sufficient enough to drink from the tap or should I purchase the WOW system reverse osmosis $795 installed with three changeable filters mounted under the sink with the factory installed one replaced?

How pure do you want your water? In most places, it's "safe" to drink without any further treatment. "Safe" means that it complies with EPA's primary drinking water standards. Or, it did the last time it was tested. EPA doesn't test for every conceivable contaminant.

Some folks want better quality than the EPA standard, so they get separate drinking water systems. An RO does a great job of removing dissolved solids, and it usually includes prefilters that also reduce organics. Good technology for your home, not great for RVing.

The membrane is expensive, and it will be ruined if allowed to freeze. The filters can grow nasty stuff if allowed to sit unused for a period of months. It also uses at least 2 gallons of water to make each gallon of drinking water, so you'll go through water much faster. The constant slow trickle of water through the RO will keep your water pump cycling all night as the tank refills.

If you want to get similar results in a package that works better in an RV setting, I suggest the Zerowater pitcher. It uses deionization instead of reverse osmosis to remove dissolved solids. It will give you higher purity water than RO, and includes a meter to test your TDS. It doesn't require a waste water stream. The filters are about $15 so if it freezes and breaks, so what.

Neither of these systems are meant to treat for bacteria. You should still use bleach in your tanks if you need supplemental protection from bacteria.

[waninae39]

in our 22FB, we installed a HIGH flow rate filter and watts pressure regulator for the whole trailer. the filter is about 12" high and 5 " wide. with it , we notice no flow degradation

we added a separate triple filet with its own tap just for drinking water . it has a very slow flow rate, but ok for filling glasses or the kettle

watch out for flow rate if you want a whole trailer solution
we also added three bypass valves so that we can isolate the large filer so that we can change it's filter without removing the ext water hose

[bigcountry]

TheGreatleys...
Please let me know what that Zero Water Filter Pitcher tester is actually testing when you submerge it. The filter change guidelines say to change when the tester reads "006" or higher. What is the "006" value representing?

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Unless you know where the water is coming from and what's likely to be in it, you are chasing several thousand "gotchas" at a time. Most solids (until you get quite small) are not going to bother you as much as they bother your water pump. A filter that will take out microbes is a filter that will plug up very quickly on the outside of your trailer (or will be quite large). Organics can be pulled out. Your carbon filter will exhaust at some point. Figuring out what that point *is* for every possible contaminant would take a lab full of gear. The little light on your pitcher is not even close to telling you when things have gone "tilt" for all contaminants ....It's likely looking at conductivity and organics don't impact that very much.

Bob

[TheGreatleys]

Originally Posted by bigcountry

TheGreatleys...
Please let me know what that Zero Water Filter Pitcher tester is actually testing when you submerge it. The filter change guidelines say to change when the tester reads "006" or higher. What is the "006" value representing?

It's a TDS meter. A deionizer is designed to remove dissolved solids from your water (i.e. anything with a positive or negative charge like sodium, magnesium, other metals, chloride, alkalinity, lead, copper, arsenic, etc). When the filter is exhausted, your TDS will start creeping up. A new filter will read 000 PPM total dissolved solids, and they recommend you replace it when it reads 006 PPM.

The meter is running an electric current through the water to make that measurement. Pure water is a pretty good electrical insulator. The solids dissolved in the water are what carry the electric current. More solids mean higher electrical conductivity. So you can use a measure of the conductivity to determine the concentration of dissolved solids in your water.

As uncle bob has pointed out, a TDS meter will not detect chemicals with a neutral charge (organics mostly) and a deionizer will not take them out. You need a carbon filter if you're worried about organics.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Water conductivity is one way to check a system that is designed to deliver "soft water". Water softening is great for making soaps work better. The vast majority of what is pulled out of water to make it soft has no impact on your health. In fact most municipal water systems deliberately "harden" the water to protect the city's investment in pipes.

One thing that conductivity will generally miss are microbes or other "critters" in the water. A properly functioning well should never have this stuff in the water. You can have systems fail and create all sorts of issues. That's true on the water supply that's you use at home, not just your RV. Around where I live, we seem to get a "boil water / don't use" advisory for one or the other local systems every other month.

You probably have a bigger risk from poor hose and tank management than you do from a bum water supply. I'd invest in hose storage and rotate out old hoses long before I'd go nuts on super duper ten stage treatment systems.

Bob

[TheGreatleys]

Originally Posted by uncle_bob

Water conductivity is one way to check a system that is designed to deliver "soft water".

No, conductivity/TDS and hardness are mostly unrelated. You need a hardness test kit to test a softening system.

A softener exchanges hardness (calcium and magnesium) along with other cations (positively charged ions like iron, radium, manganese, etc) for sodium (also positively charged). For every unit of hardness removed, it adds a unit of sodium. The effect on conductivity is minimal, since it's mostly an even trade.

A TDS meter doesn't tell you what is in the water, only how much "stuff" is dissolved. Sure, if the TDS is very low, hardness will also be very low because hardness is a subset of TDS. But water can have high TDS and low hardness at the same time, and softening doesn't change TDS much.