Cool, Clear Water

 Living in an RV full-time can have its issues. 

Have you ever traveled, and the tap water tasted funny to you?  This happens every time we move our bungalow on wheels.  100% pure water has no color, taste, or smell because there are no minerals or trace elements in it. The taste of your water depends on the dissolved solids and any disinfectant agents and their by-products that are in your water.

While parked in New Mexico, Elizabeth noticed substantial minerals building up on the glass shower door and on our water faucets, far more than she experienced at our home in King George, VA. She asked me if there was something we could do.

I purchased a Reverse Osmosis (RO) water filter system that would produce 20 gallons an hour and that is rated to remove 95%-99% of inorganic materials.  I chose this system so that it would outpace taking “Hollywood showers” or laundry day. Stated another way, I could fill our onboard 100 gallon fresh water tank in about five hours.

I have tested the tap water on some of our travels after installing the RO system with an uncalibrated Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) meter. The lowest TDS I have measured from tap water so far was at Camp Creek State park in West Virginia at 44 PPM. The highest was in Las Cruces, NM, at 525 PPM.  The output of our system runs somewhere between 1 and 15 PPM. By the way, spot-free car rinse water is 50 PPM or less, so our drinking water is quite pure.

I did not want to disable any of the factory-installed plumbing. After some extended research on the internet, I ended up tracking down the selector valve manufacturer and found a four output version of the three output valve that was factory installed by Newmar. 

Plumber's nightmare

With a little research I found that Anderson Brass manufactures the Kantleak™ Instrumentation Ball Valves that Newmar uses to select how the water is used in the coach.  I just had to order their 5222BV-P five way instrumentation ball valve and transfer over the 1/2" pipe to 1/2" or 3/4" PEX adapters and then add an output to feed the RO system.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Here is the RO system installed in our coach and yes we are VERY happy with it.

 Where Are We Going Next?