Do you use a food grade hose for filling from pontoon taps?

davidpbo said:
Do you use a food grade hose for filling from pontoon taps?
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No, its a boat not an operating theatre.

I have one of those tiny hoses that get longer and longer when you fill them with water. Used for everything from cleaning to filling the water tanks. 99% of the water used onboard gets boiled.
 
It was make clear to me when first berthing at my marina that the water supplied on pontoons is NOT for drinking but for boat washing and that the taps are gravity fed from a communal storage tank and that water quality cannot therefore be guaranteed.
Usually UK water company regs do not allow the taps on marina pontoons to be connected directly to mains to prevent back syphoning and therefore contamination of mains drinking water.
The use of "food standard hose" at the tap is in any case really irrelevant considering the considerable length of non food standard hose fitted by the marina under the pontoons between the taps and the source, so why bother what hose is used from the tap to the boat?
Yes I do choose to fill my tanks from the pontoon taps but NEVER drink the water; it is used for cooking and washing.
Drinking water is from either bottled source or a water carrier.
 
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john_morris_uk said:
Six times in fifteen years?

Our boats on a mooring and our hose on a cassette comes out that many times in a fortnight sometimes.

We always (whether using ours or a hose on a dockside or Marina) run it through for a while to flush it clean. We also drink the water from our boats tanks without a care or thought. (We have a carbon filter on the galley tank that I remember to replace some years.)
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Worked for me too for some 50 years. Florida water however is more risky and we had built in home type filters on our two boats here. Most in the marina have the same, often on the pontoons by the water connection point. They issue boil water advisories here weekly probably because of fear of potential law suits.
 
I wouldn't ever use a marina hose as you have no idea where it's been. The previous user might have been using it to unblock his heads of flush the holding tank or engine bilge. Some filthy marina/boat dog might have come along and watered over it while it was hanging neatly on its hook...In some marinas it would be bad enough if it had just been left dangling in the water.
At least I know that my garden grade hose isn't contaminated.
 
I think it's unlikely that any chemicals will leach out of the hose while water is being transferred the contact time is much too short. A sensible precaution is to flush through before putting into your tank though.
RichardS said:
So the risk is that the water tastes plasticky. That's even further down the "sailing risk" list! :)

Richard
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Normalfornorfolk said:
I wouldn't ever use a marina hose as you have no idea where it's been. The previous user might have been using it to unblock his heads of flush the holding tank or engine bilge. Some filthy marina/boat dog might have come along and watered over it while it was hanging neatly on its hook...In some marinas it would be bad enough if it had just been left dangling in the water.
At least I know that my garden grade hose isn't contaminated.
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I just wipe the hose with some bleach and run it for a minute or so. Water is drunk from the tanks, mostly boiled for tea, but sometimes in a cold drink. Still alive.
 
My problem with the expanding hoses is when they break they are useless. If a normal hose fails you can cut it and fit new ends or joining sections etc. With the expanding hose when it fails its for the bin...
 
I use any old hose to top up the tanks with dock water. However, I run it all through an inline carbon prefilter to remove chlorine, then add to the tank Elsil or similar silver nitrate compounds to sterilise.

My other source of onboard water is from water maker, which is already sterile.

All water from either source then goes through a second inboard carbon filter before reaching any taps, which further reduces any chemical taste from my plastic and grp water tanks.

I thus have safe and tasty water onboard and have better tasting tea than in my house.
 
theoldsalt said:
It was make clear to me when first berthing at my marina that the water supplied on pontoons is NOT for drinking but for boat washing and that the taps are gravity fed from a communal storage tank and that water quality cannot therefore be guaranteed.
Usually UK water company regs do not allow the taps on marina pontoons to be connected directly to mains to prevent back syphoning and therefore contamination of mains drinking water.
The use of "food standard hose" at the tap is in any case really irrelevant considering the considerable length of non food standard hose fitted by the marina under the pontoons between the taps and the source, so why bother what hose is used from the tap to the boat?
Yes I do choose to fill my tanks from the pontoon taps but NEVER drink the water; it is used for cooking and washing.
Drinking water is from either bottled source or a water carrier.
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The plastic pipe used on pontoons in this country ( all the ones i have visited ) is a blue pipe, MDPE which is WRAS approved water supply pipe perfectly acceptable for potable water. All marina pontoon taps i have seen are double check valve type built in so no back syphonage can occur so capable of being connected directly to a mains supply and should be.
If it was out of a stored supply i would expect it to be labled as non potable water.

Hose pipe policy on my boat, connect up scrub decks for a couple of minutes then having flushed hose and supply pipe fill tank.

Hose Pipe, Tesco garden hose 25M, end of season £2 well, every little helps :rolleyes:
 
I use Hozelock hose and end fittings, and we drink water straight out of our grp tank without boiling it or treating it in any way. We have suffered no ill-effects from doing this over the last 20 years.
 
I have had two nasty stomach upsets this year whilst on the boat. Both times it took 4 days or more to recover. Writing this it occurs to me that I should have got the tank water analysed to see if that was the cause.

Our galley water is hand pumped (Using suction) from 2 x 20L polythene bags. Is it possible to fit a filter in line to a system like this or would I have to fit a pump, either foot or electric to push the water through a filter?
 
Normalfornorfolk said:
I wouldn't ever use a marina hose as you have no idea where it's been. The previous user might have been using it to unblock his heads of flush the holding tank or engine bilge. Some filthy marina/boat dog might have come along and watered over it while it was hanging neatly on its hook...In some marinas it would be bad enough if it had just been left dangling in the water.
At least I know that my garden grade hose isn't contaminated.
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If you ever have aspirations to sail off round the world, I think you might be struggling.

PS We have a carbon filter on our main galley tap. I have a food grade hose for filling and now and again I put some puri-tabs in the tank. Now and again means every few years!
 
I always use my own hose for filling the tank. It is the blue flat hose type.
The marina does not provide hoses on the pontoons. At the locks there are water points but no hoses.
My first hose of the flat blue type lasted about 8 years .
When the present one gives up I may well by the curly type hose as a neighbor has one and it seems fine. Some of the early hoses of this curly type were short lived.
We are not alone in using 5 litre water bottles for drinking water .
 
I would worry about the OPs lack of use. I think it's more likely to be contaminated than a hose used regularly.
When we fitted a new, custom made, tank the instructions said the sterilising tablets we had were unsuitable. As we have a few boxes of them, I now put one in a pint of water and pour it into our hose before I put it away.
Allan
 
Chlorination has a long history in drinking water safety and I just use a tablet whenever I fill (with a flushed marina hose) the SS tank; with a clean hose and fast throughput it may not make much difference, but as a simple and inexpensive precaution it seems sensible. If the tank and pipes have for long been empty, I briefly apply a higher shock dose of chlorine, and flush before normal filling.
 
Standard garden hose up to a carbon filter then into the tank, we don't drink the water just shower brush teeth cook etc, our main reason for the filter is prolong the life of the calorifier, seems to work....
 
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