hoses for water

PabloPicasso

PabloPicasso

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I have read that the most likely cause of contamination of drinking water on board is from the plastic hoses marinas' provide for filling up.

Fresh water is under pressure in the pipes before the tap and this prevents many bugs from existing or growing.

However, the water left in the lengthy coils of plastic hose is very unhealthy. Water is not under pressure, is warmed by the sun and cooled by the wind, and often left for days if not weeks to fester in a stagnant state before being used.

So, run the tap for a very looooooooooooooooong time to clear hoses of stagnant putrid water before filling you tanks!!

A marina manager once told me I was wasting water when I was letting his tap run via a hose into the sea. But I'm not keen to put stagnant hose water into my drinking tanks.

Comments welcome...
 
There's also the extremely poisonous plasticisers in the plastic of the hose to consider. Make sure you use a blue drinking water approved type.
 
savageseadog said:
There's also the extremely poisonous plasticisers in the plastic of the hose to consider. Make sure you use a blue drinking water approved type.
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good point. I hadn't thought of that. But I know many many [people who regularly drink from the green hosepipes on golf courses with little ill effect. I guess they are well used. Its the stagnant water potential that I was really highlighting.

But a hose left baking in the hot sun is bound to leak its constituent parts into the hot water contained within
 
In Scotland and in Northern Ireland the water authority forbids the use of public hoses because they argue that there is a contamination risk (not bothered about your tanks but they argue that contamination could flow uphill back into the mains) so nearly all have been removed and you have to carry your own hose. An exception is Tobermory where there still are (were?) blue hoses on the pontoons, I suspect many of the other islands may also be slow to catch on to regulations they do not see the sense of. In contrast British Waterways removed all hoses on the canals a couple of years ago and Scottish Canals have no plans to put them back.
Amazed that this bit of bureaucracy has not caught on elsewhere!
 
My little marina doesn't provide hoses, but most of the taps have one.

I fitted a new hose to the tap near me the other week, after the old one had got kinked to death. The owner of another nearby boat had already supplied a better fitting to replace the rubbishy one I had put on instead of a jubilee-clip lashup done by yet someone else. The owner of the final boat nearby had previously done a neat job of taping up the kinked bit to help the old hose hang on a bit longer. Between us we now all share a better facility.

I'm taking a bit of wood down there tomorrow to form a hook to hang the coil on.

Pete
 
Largs Marina - Signs On Water Riser Warning of Contamination Risk From Their Hoses

Quandary said:
In Scotland and in Northern Ireland the water authority forbids the use of public hoses because they argue that there is a contamination risk (not bothered about your tanks but they argue that contamination could flow uphill back into the mains) so nearly all have been removed and you have to carry your own hose. An exception is Tobermory where there still are (were?) blue hoses on the pontoons, I suspect many of the other islands may also be slow to catch on to regulations they do not see the sense of. In contrast British Waterways removed all hoses on the canals a couple of years ago and Scottish Canals have no plans to put them back.
Amazed that this bit of bureaucracy has not caught on elsewhere!
Click to expand...

Largs Marina has yellow hoses on all the fresh water taps. They have conveniently added a note to each riser stating that users should only use their own hoses due to the risk of contamination. They name some lerrgy on the notice but I can remember what it is. I have queried this with them stating that that in my opinion they have a duty of care to provide a clean drinking water supply and as such should not have contaminated hoses; they did not get back to me on this.

So far I have always flushed through the hose and then filled my tanks with no apparent issue but I appreciate that there is a risk. I have a garden style hose and various connectors on the boat. To be honest I have used water from just about all sources for most of my sailing days, even the "water at burn just up from slipway" supplies.

The water on the boat is stored in stainless steel tanks located in a deep bilge that penetrates the encapsulated keel. Most of the water pipes are copper so I guess at least the boat water is kept cool in a fairly benign environment. Having said that there is some milky jelly on the aluminium inspection hatches - probably the lerrgy trying to stay out the cold water in the tank!
 
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SimbaDog said:
I'm with the OP on this one, always do same :)
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Ask Laura about the bottle of emeraldgreen water I took to her office one morning . That was a real eye oener . What happened ?? Nuffin .
smiley-angry050.gif
 
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