An other plus for watermakers

OldBawley

OldBawley

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An other plus for water makers.

We don’t have a water maker, we depend on water from the tap on town quays or other taps.
Today I cleaned the main water tank. Each year the tank is emptied and cleaned. Vetus plastic water tank. The amount of red dirt and calcium was enormous.
By luck lemons to dissolve the calcium grow everywhere here in Greece.
The water here in Greece is not as clean as we from the North are used to. Greeks do not drink tap water. I even saw the owner of the well providing Galatas -Poros -Hydra buy a trolley full of bottled water at Lidl.
I get water from a tap in clear jerry cans, then fill a decanting barrel on deck. Next day the water is fed into the tanks. We have 220 litres divided over three tanks and some smaller clear jerry cans.
I know the red dust and calcium is not bad for health, lots of people have to take food additions that contain just that but boy, does the inside of our tank look dirty after one year.
Any fellow liveaboards ever had a look inside there water tank?

Still no small cheap water makers available? We have to much elec power in summer.
 
I had found a well documented diy one, but then, you will miss the taste.
Unfort, after a disk crash I lost that too.
Seriously though, it all depends where you get your water. After 30 years mine only have a tea spoon of sand with water from Mikrolimano.
 
The locals tend not to drink the tap water because (apart from anything else) often it has quite a high salt content...which, over the long term is detrimental to health. It has a high salt content...but you will not perceive it as `salty`.IIRC Over 900ppm is considered a health risk. Getting and using a TDS meter (they are not expensive) http://www.amazon.co.uk/EZ-Digital-...id=1396734768&sr=8-2&keywords=tds+water+meter and sampling the water from the town quay tap before filling the tank is good practise.
 
NOHOH said:
The locals tend not to drink the tap water because (apart from anything else) often it has quite a high salt content...which, over the long term is detrimental to health. It has a high salt content...but you will not perceive it as `salty`.IIRC Over 900ppm is considered a health risk. Getting and using a TDS meter (they are not expensive) http://www.amazon.co.uk/EZ-Digital-...id=1396734768&sr=8-2&keywords=tds+water+meter and sampling the water from the town quay tap before filling the tank is good practise.
Click to expand...

less than 800ppm is considered potable and safe in Northern Europe and the USA and less than 500ppm is usually what you get in a tap in Northern Europe or the USA. Having said that I have a charcoal filter between my tanks and the galley drinking supply tap.
 
Agree that much depends of where water is taken. Rhodes was very good but lots of calcium.
In Turkey the city water was sometimes so saturated with chlorine that is was of no use ( Guess they manually poured a barrel of chlorine in the reservoir once a day ) A few hours later the water was fine.
The marina in Fethiye Turkey had their own waterhole drilled at 25 yards from the seashore.
People put the hose into the filling opening, have no clue of what brackish filth comes out of that hose. Same wit the tap water in Yat marina Marmaris. The stuff gulping from their taps was brown as thin ****, especially after a downpour.
Best was water from one of those beach wells in some bays. Even there, ignorant sailors loaded bad water. They think that a bay restaurant with a hose and a tap is connected to the urban system. No way, they fill up with river water. Lots of dead stuff in there.

No idea how it is further downwind, know that in the Med finding ( and often paying a ridicule amount of money ) water is no problem. Good water is something else.

Cheep pressure washers exist. Must be a big market for an equally simple water maker.
 
We have a water maker, but only use it for emergencies, because of the fag of getting it going. Instead I fitted an off the shelf BRITA filter tap over the sink. Cost around £40 .
Fitting it was easy peasey (push fit) and half and hour, the filters seem to last a couple of years.
So in 10 years we have always loaded local harbour water, dosing the tank with Puritabs, to sterilise and then letting the filter take out the chlorine, calcium and other crawly nasties. The water is clean, crystal clear with a faint hint of almonds. The upside is that we fill water bottles from the tap and then keep it in the fridge for chilled drinks, which saves a fortune (and a hernia) in shop bought bottled water.
Slight downside that the water from the shower has the chlorinated taint from the puritabs. Which means that after a couple of months my silver locks take on a interesting green tinge.
 
We get that red dust in our plastic tanks. A plumber who also has a boat in the marina here told me that it's the sand from the last filtration tank at the water treatment plant. It gets suspended in the water and in most homes you never see it because the water never sits still anywhere long enough for it to come out of suspension. But in a boat's water tanks it does come out of suspension and settles on the bottom of the tank. He reckoned the same thing should happen to boats anywhere else too.
 
At both Paleiros in the Ionian and at Poros in the Saronic we have witnessed small tankers clearly labelled 'Water for yachts' filling up from small lakes that looked to be far from clean. We followed the latter one to Hydra the next day. We have used a General Ecology filter for a couple of years now, produces nice clear water but cannot cope with dissolved salts.
 
To mr Cross,
I believe the red stuff could be a residue from the treatment plant.
Have lived 10 years on board in Holland before cruising. There we had red stuff in the tank also, that was red algae. Over there I lived mainly in the office and the pub, just slept on board. That way the water consumption / turnover was a lot less than now as a permanent liveaboard.
New water hoses ware installed each year in our marina, still legionella was discovered in the hoses and also in our showers. The temperature of the boilers for the showers was a bit increased, then no more legionella. (About 20 years ago )
Such discovery’s are of course not told to the clients.
No one got ill, however since then I have a phobia for dirty tanks.
Legionella in a tap hose is not dangerous, legionella is taken in by the lungs.

Mr Cox
The water for Hydra is delivered by tanker. That ship takes the water on board in the western end of the Poros lake. The water comes by pipe line from a well near the village Troyzina.
During the day a stationary tank boat is filled via the pipeline. The tanker moors next to the stationary one and fills via the pipeline and a diesel pump emptying one tanker into the other.
Water is ok.
 
After 6 years in Croatia I seemed to have a huge build up of white powder and crystalline flakes in both plastic water tanks which kept blocking up the filters in the showers and taps. A couple of weeks ago I bought a litre of hydrochloric acid at the local supermarket and tipped half into each tank when they were both almost empty. A bit desperate, I know, but my tanks have no bottom drain. There was a huge amount of fizzing after which I part-filled and then syphoned out both tanks. After filling both tanks I cannot taste any acid and the tanks look like new again.

Richard
 
Keeping the tanks and all the pipework light proof is important. Nasties need light to thrive, no light, no nasties. Simples.

Until I go down with some bug that can be directly atrributed to the water supply, I'll drink it au naturel, rather than have coffee that tastes of swimming pool.
 
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