Drinking water

[graham]

We use Milton tablets .Overdose it so it smells of bleach let it slosh round for a few days then pump half out and top up with clean water .

Not very scientific but no problems yet .

 

[Star-Lord]

If you have plastic or SS steel tanks Milton Tablets / bleach and a Jabsco Filter Jabsco Replacement Aqua Filta | Force 4 Chandlery inline on drinking water (to make it taste better after the bleach) is go to method for most people - who worry about such stuff.

IMHO a pre filter matching your budget should alway be used because you do not want stuff in the tank that should not be there! And you never know! Its like that third reef... Better to be safe than sorry... Clean water, please | Play d'eau it is easy to get a cheaper version of this filter - just buy the housing and install a charcoal filter Charcoal Filter - Spectra Watermakers do not buy a cheap one - these should last for well over a year or two or three?

If you have aluminium tanks never put bleach (or milton tabs) in tanks or anything other than H202 - hydrogen peroxide food grade if possible - and give a good flushing if concerned about tank and pipe hygiene. Aluminium tanks will need a dockside charcoal filter because you do not want chlorine in the tanks because Aluminium+chlorine= rocky crystals that clog up water pumps etc. Also a 20 micron filter before water pump is a good idea so crystals do not clog up pump. Any filter smaller than 20 micron will need to be cleaned a lot! Charcoal filter not recommended for this filter before pump imo.

 

[jdc]

Another

Yes,
No,
No.

We've sailed from the high arctic to the south Atlantic and much in between, and filled our tanks in Africa and South America. No bad taste, no illness. Happily over sixty...

PS. None of our tanks have been used to make tea.

 

[geem]

We drink from the tank. If you fit the standard clear 10” filter housings x2 you can economically have nice clean drinking water to the whole boat. The first filter should be a 1 micron filter. The second filter a carbon block. This set up will last a season between filter replacements if your tank is clean. With the clear filter housings you can keep an eye on the 1 micron pre-filter. If its getting dirty then clean the tank out and sterilise it. The 1 micron filter is a good barometer of tank condition. You can buy the 1 micron filters on ebay for a couple of quid. Carbon block normally about a tenner. We also have a UV filter on the watermaker supply to the tank but unless you are using a watermaker this is unnecessary in my opinion

 

[wfe1947]

Every time I go to the boat (most weeks) I bring a washed out 2L milk bottle filled with fresh water for drinking. Water in tank used for all other uses. Some tanks are very difficult to inspect and therefore, I play safe as I don't know their condition is even if you have used sterilisingsolution, which doesn't reach to inside top!

 

[Simon 420]

Don't drink from tank, but we do sterilise the water with aquatabs to use for hand /face/teeth washing
We have about twenty 2- litre water bottles which we fill up at home and then transport to the boat for drinking. Store them under one of the bunks.They will last the length of our normal trips but we can fill them at marina's supply if run out. Agree that bottles are much more manageable - and we don't suffer vagaries of different area water treatments and potential effect on our delicate constitutions !

 

[michael_w]

Who has gone down with some lurgy directly attributable to dodgy water from a boat's tank?

 

[Poignard]

Neither my wife or I have ever suffered from drinking the water straight from our built in GRP tank during the 23 years we have had the boat. There is no filter and no treatment of any kind applied. It has only ever had water from British, French and Channel Islands marinas put in it.

I have never looked inside the tank and we each fill our water bottles from it for drinking during the day and at night.

We are just extremely lucky in not having sensitive stomachs. Some people have to be very careful. A friend of my wife has all kinds of restrictions on what she can eat and drink, to the extent that it spoils her life; and puts people off inviting her for a meal.

 

[Halo]

The length of plastic pipe connecting pontoon hoses to the mains can be very long. I try to fill up after other people have been using water or I wash my topsides with the hose for ages before I fill up. This means that the water I take in has not been stood in the pipes for ages. I drink waterfrom the tank and have no filtration or treatment and have had no isses. On one marina I was in (Glasson) there were iron fittings so it was vital to flush water through before connecting the hose to the tap - the first bit was full of rust !

 

[PaulRainbow]

Good point about running the hose, i usually give the deck a quick rinse before putting the hose in the filler. I also wipe the first 2 or 3 feet of hose with bleach too, never know what other have used the hose for.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Always drink from tank
Rarely treat it with anything except puritab start of season if anything still in tank over winter
No filter on boat 1. Filter on boat 2 and water tastes better according to Navigator. (tastes the same to me in tea)

Biggest problem is water in pipes not tank and if not used for weeks smells sulphury until a mug full has been run

 

[TLouth7]

We drink from the tank, no filter and no sterilisation.

I do tend to put some squash in if I want a cold drink, it hides the bits that swirl around in the water.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Yes we use it for washing up, washing ourselves, cleaning the boat, so we do get through a reasonable amount.

I have two 100 litre tanks. We normally use the rear one, which lasts two of us about ten days, but fill up the bow one as well when we are planning to stay away for civilisation for more than a week.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I do tend to put some squash in if I want a cold drink, it hides the bits that swirl around in the water.

On my Jouster the rule was always that you always had to add some Rose's Lime Cordial to fresh water if you wanted a drink. Ostensibly this was to prevent scurvy, but in reality it cut down on fresh water use and made the tank (120 litres) last longer. Not nearly as many pontoons and marinas round the west coast in these days and we sometimes had to get three weeks out of the tank.

 

[eddystone]

Hi
Thinking of days when I might actually get to sail my new to me boat .
I have a question or two

Do peple drink the water direct from their tanks?
If so do you need to treat the water
or do you have an in line filter?

Thanks for your help.

No use bottled
Water from tank only cooking boiling water and washing but have in line filter changed infrequently and aquatabs

 

[Tim Good]

Yes we do. If

Do people drink the water direct from their tanks?
If so do you need to treat the water or do you have an in line filter?

Yes we do and if its been left for a while I'll treat the first batch with a standard chlorine type water tablet. Usually not to the dose they recommend as I feel thats high. Perhaps once every 2 years we might do a proper clean with a product. If I have to leave the boat for more than a month and havent been able drain the tank I'll drop in a few chlorine tabs also. Probably not necessary but its cheap and easy to do.

Yes we have a filter on the main tap in the galley which removes bad tastes mostly.

We also have an in line filter we can fit to anormal hose lock water tap as it comes from the shore, if we're worried the shore source may be dubious or have sediment.

 

[RJJ]

I have always drunk straight from tank, never any problems. Greece, Italy, Spain, charter yachts as well as UK.

Am I "lucky" to have a strong tum? Or do I have a strong tum because at various points I may have sampled some local specimen? Or was the water always spotlessly pure everywhere I happened to go?

I do run the hose generously before putting it in the tank. On our own boat, I take the steps recommended by various above: get plenty of throughput, add a capful of bleach whenever left unattended for more than a fortnight.

Personally I have reservations about bottled water.

Maybe I'll get around to a filter one day...

 

[bobtooke]

Nothing wrong with using on board drinking water as long as it is maintained, loaded, stored and used correctly. Filters and sterilisers are generally unnecessary if the system is looked after correctly.
The MCA guidance is for commercial vessels but the principles are still valid:
MSN 1845 Food & catering - provision of food and fresh water
The only thing I would disagree with is the use of Chlorine based disinfectants. It's old tech, these days there are far more effective treatments.

 

[Molteni]

I'm happy to drink water directly from the tank, likewise from my VW campers' tank. Before each time I fill up, I'll have drained the tank completely for peace of mind.
A couple of drops of bleach is sometimes recommended.
It would probably be a different matter if getting water from dodgy sources though.

 

[ryanroberts]

Yes, No, Yes. Steel tank used full time for over 8 years, occasional miltoning. Quite high volume use though for washing machine etc.