purified fresh water on board

anyone using a reverse osmosis water system in their boat? I'm never seen one and am thinking of installing one myself. You can never be sure how pure the water is you load in the tank so it seems like a good idea to me at least for cooking and drinking water..

We buy it in the store for all our cooking and drinking. Almost always have it.

Are you talking about a low pressure RO unit to clean your fresh water like they sell for household use or a high pressure RO unit to make fresh from salt?

If you are going to go to the length of reverse osmosis, for drinking on board, you may as well just install a watermaker and be done with it. They effectively use reverse osmosis. Then you can just purify the water the boats sitting in. As for us, we are like Eric, (and I suspect many others), only we don't buy it, we take with us a couple of 15L insulated containers with taps, like one might use camping, filled with filtered city supply, and that lasts a week for drinking/cooking.

We also take 10-15L spring water containers on board, but refill at home with tap water which is fine. A friend tired of doing that, he fitted a domestic water filter like you can fit at home, and likes it.

bfloyd4445"anyone using a reverse osmosis water system in their boat? I'm never seen one and am thinking of installing one myself. You can never be sure how pure the water is you load in the tank so it seems like a good idea to me at least for cooking and drinking water."

Do you have the lead issues in mind or just dodgy water in general?

Andy G said:

Do you have the lead issues in mind or just dodgy water in general?

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I'm pretty sure it is lead issues.

I use a PUR filter on my galley faucet for all drinking and cooking water. Very effective and the new ones have a light that tells you when it's time to change the filter.

Northern Spy said:

I'm pretty sure it is lead issues.

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We had a watermaker on our previous boat for 15 years. When we were out of the U.S. we used it every day, mostly because there was NO source for fresh water. Traveling inside the U.S, we never used it and we never encountered water we were concerned about using or that made us ill. We have cruised in a lot of remote waterways and in marinas where the water came from wells. In many of these cases the water seemed better to us than municipal water supplies. We drink, cook and shower with the water from our tanks. Chuck

Keith said:

I use a PUR filter on my galley faucet for all drinking and cooking water. Very effective and the new ones have a light that tells you when it's time to change the filter.

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+1 on that, we have a PUR and use it all the time.

I've found, however, that many guests would die of thirst before they lowered themselves to drinking tap water. Honestly, I think it's more a fashion statement than anything. So I always stock individual-sized, name-brand bottled water so I don't end up with dehydrated crew.

CaptTom said:

+1 on that, we have a PUR and use it all the time.

I've found, however, that many guests would die of thirst before they lowered themselves to drinking tap water. Honestly, I think it's more a fashion statement than anything. So I always stock individual-sized, name-brand bottled water so I don't end up with dehydrated crew.

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Darwin award time!

Keith said:

I use a PUR filter on my galley faucet for all drinking and cooking water. Very effective and the new ones have a light that tells you when it's time to change the filter.

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+1

If you happen to be floating in fresh water, you can certainly use a desalinator (watermaker) to make safe drinking water. Some manufacturers of RO watermakers caution against cranking the pressure up too high when doing this. I am guessing that the flow of product water gets too high and damages the membrane. Anyone?

We drank water from a trickle in the corner of a beach on Porcher Island that was so brown you couldn't see through it, and it had a foamy head over an inch thick. Didn't treat it, and didn't get sick. We didn't treat any water while paddling for six months, and had no negative consequences. This was in areas that didn't see much human traffic though...might have done it differently if there were tons of people crapping everywhere!

Shoalwaters said:

If you happen to be floating in fresh water, you can certainly use a desalinator (watermaker) to make safe drinking water. Some manufacturers of RO watermakers caution against cranking the pressure up too high when doing this. I am guessing that the flow of product water gets too high and damages the membrane. Anyone?

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There are different membranes for different types of water; the under the counter sink type run at ~50 psi, brackish water ~100-225 psi and salt water membranes run at 800-900 psi. Each application has specific membrane and operating pressures. You can google Dow/Filmteck membranes if you want more info.

If we take on water, everything gets filtered (particulate and carbon) before it goes into the tanks.

Interesting .... in many countries Clorox comes with water purification instructions printed on the bottle. Won't get the lead out tho...

Dave

CaptTom said:

I've found, however, that many guests would die of thirst before they lowered themselves to drinking tap water. Honestly, I think it's more a fashion statement than anything. So I always stock individual-sized, name-brand bottled water so I don't end up with dehydrated crew.

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They'll get pretty thirsty on my boat (or my bus for that matter). I started life on a well & mother boiled our drinking water. It was a big deal when the town put in treated water. I suppose I could carry a few Evian bottles and refill them from the tap but I like to think that my friends are smarter than that. If they get thirsty enough they'll drink tap water.

HopCar said:

Are you talking about a low pressure RO unit to clean your fresh water like they sell for household use or a high pressure RO unit to make fresh from salt?

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I was thinking of a low presure ro from the water tank to the kitchen sink.
The high presure system would be nice but they are so expensive.

manyboats said:

We buy it in the store for all our cooking and drinking. Almost always have it.

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I used to do that untill I installed a six stage ro system in my California home and the water is the best that i have ever drank. i would love to have water of this quality on board. When we tested bottled water at the request of the attorney general years ago we found bottled water that was like untreated city tape water. We found companies that were simply filling the bottles with tap water and selling it as spring water. Can't remember the yeaqr but that project gave me the incentive to go the ro route instead of bottled.

Peter B said:

If you are going to go to the length of reverse osmosis, for drinking on board, you may as well just install a watermaker and be done with it. They effectively use reverse osmosis. Then you can just purify the water the boats sitting in. As for us, we are like Eric, (and I suspect many others), only we don't buy it, we take with us a couple of 15L insulated containers with taps, like one might use camping, filled with filtered city supply, and that lasts a week for drinking/cooking.

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So you filter and ro the city water that you put in your 15L containers?Thats what i do but I'm getting tired of doing that and wondering if anyone has an on board system i8n use. I guess those that choose to go that route go with a sea water purification system but they are so expensive
thanks for the info

BruceK said:

We also take 10-15L spring water containers on board, but refill at home with tap water which is fine. A friend tired of doing that, he fitted a domestic water filter like you can fit at home, and likes it.

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sorta like i started out with then added the ro then a leachate pump then apolishing filter and then a tank and last a uv lamp. The end result was water that was outstanding.

Sorta like this system except i added the uv lamp

AP-RO5P

Andy G said:

bfloyd4445"anyone using a reverse osmosis water system in their boat? I'm never seen one and am thinking of installing one myself. You can never be sure how pure the water is you load in the tank so it seems like a good idea to me at least for cooking and drinking water."

Do you have the lead issues in mind or just dodgy water in general?

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Actually i have grown so fond of the outstanding tasting water from the system i have in my ca. home that i would like to take it on board. Currently i fill jugs up and then take them on board but they take up room and since the boat already has a water tank I thought the simple thing would be to just filter it. I mean we always can use the extra storage on board if we leave the jub ashore right?

I also have aq problem with chemicals leaching out of plastic hoses and tanks which the ro system would take care of. We only have one life and i am not inclined towards knowingly ingesting possible toxics

MurrayM;"We drank water from a trickle in the corner of a beach on Porcher Island that was so brown you couldn't see through it, and it had a foamy head over an inch thick."

Yep, we call that beer down here.

Keith said:

I use a PUR filter on my galley faucet for all drinking and cooking water. Very effective and the new ones have a light that tells you when it's time to change the filter.

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As previously posted, I do what Keith does at the galley faucet but I also have a GE inline filter (quick disconnected) immediately downstream of the FW pump. I change both filters once a year and the water is great! No smell, hose taste, etc. and the water tastes good! My tank is a hundred gallon SS. I do, however, keep some small bottled water containers in the frig for the guest skeptics. The bottles are filled by the Water Boy whole house system that I have at home.

Andy G said:

MurrayM;"We drank water from a trickle in the corner of a beach on Porcher Island that was so brown you couldn't see through it, and it had a foamy head over an inch thick."

Yep, we call that beer down here.

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But it usually comes in sealed containers. A beer creek is pretty exciting!
Andy, what bay is that in your new avatar. My guess, Houseboat Bay?

Andy G said:

MurrayM;"We drank water from a trickle in the corner of a beach on Porcher Island that was so brown you couldn't see through it, and it had a foamy head over an inch thick."

Yep, we call that beer down here.

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Murray, if that tasted like beer it likely was beer, but not Porcher likely Porter!

If it wasnt beer what had you been drinking to make you drink brown water......brown frothy water????

bfloyd4445 said:

So you filter and ro the city water that you put in your 15L containers?Thats what i do but I'm getting tired of doing that and wondering if anyone has an on board system i8n use. I guess those that choose to go that route go with a sea water purification system but they are so expensive
thanks for the info

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No, you read me wrong, we just have a fairly efficient filter on our domestic city supply, (like BruceK) and use that filtered water on the boat. I tastes great, and is so quick and easy to do, just taking down a couple 15L containers with taps we sit up above the galley. We don't reverse osmosis treat it as well, that would be pointless. Actually, you can purify water too much. We have a full reverse osmosis set-up installed, but never bother to use it now because it wastes a lot of water in the process, (the run-off), and tastes...well...tasteless.

bfloyd4445 said:

If it wasnt beer what had you been drinking to make you drink brown water......brown frothy water????

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Ya gatta do what ya gotta do

It was towards the flat-ish north end of the island, and there was no creek to top off our water bottles. The only moving water was a trickle running down a crack in some bedrock at the end of the beach which came from bogs inland.

Here's a gross water story. Some Forestry Technicians I know were working a mountainside, and always stopped for a break and a drink at the same stream. One day one of them hiked up slope to check out a waterfall they could hear. When he got there, he discovered a very dead and very old bloated moose calf floating in lazy circles around the pool at the base of the falls. None of them ever got sick, but they sure stopped drinking from that stream!!

Britt, I don't think you want to use a low pressure RO system in the fresh water supply of your boat. An RO system discards much of the water pumped through it and would waste a lot of your fresh water. I would recommend you first put your water through a particulate filter then a charcoal filter. If you put clean water in the tank to begin with, you should be in good shape. I like to clean my water system with Puriclean every so often. http://www.cleantabs.co.uk/default.htm
If the water you put in the tanks is brown and foamy or you're just not sure about it I would treat it with Clean Tabs to kill the bad stuff.