Sourcing water

[Papadave]

Now that I have completed my solar lithium conversion I can be off grid for an unlimited amount of time. So far on this trip I have gone 13 days without having to plug-in including some gloomy rainy days. Driving 100 mile days with stops at Harvest hosts and free stays have offset the cost of $4.85 gas. Going slower on back roads saves gas and has been fun too. The problem that arose was the need for water and emptying holding tanks. As regards sourcing water, I have my 3 gallon jugs and have found some Walmarts have reverse osmosis water for 36 cents a gallon. I’ve also googled springwater and found places that have $.25 a gallon fill ups. I’ve also thrown myself on the mercy of campground owners who have offered to let me fill my tank from a tap for free or fee. I may try paying a day fee for a state park and getting water and a dump site there. The first time I tried that the day fee was $15. I can shower in Evian for that price! Truck stops and many Georgia rest stops have dumps as well. At those spots, deciding what faucets have recycled water and which have potable water is cautionary. Staying at a paid campsite every few days is an option if you can get a spot these days. Washing dishes in a dishpan, which is then dumped in the toilet tank, keeps grey water cleaner, free of food scraps, balances water between black and grey and allows for grey water surface dumping where allowed. Any other ideas?

[RedRoverComeOver]

Don't have much time before I have to go but figured I'd throw in an option for water if you're in an area where you can find natural bodies. Be prepared for a slow process too. I'm sure there are commercial solutions but will probably be more expensive and heavier. Do a search for base camp water purifiers. May want to check out backpacking forums for ideas that are better suited for boondocking.

https://lifestraw.com/products/lifes...20371109904495

https://www.platy.com/filtration/gra...vityworks.html

Haven't used this one but looks like carries better but at the cost of weight. I'd say it could be about 45 lb. full and have to make sure you can carry that for a distance.

https://iconlifesaver.com/product/li...v=7516fd43adaa

The biggest problem is water, both drinking and used. The bigger is better mentality comes in but you won't be getting into any good boondocking spots.

[Reverse_snowbird]

I'm envious. Seems like you've got all the bases covered.
Paying for a campsite when you need to dump and take on water seems like a good idea to me. Also a good time to do laundry if the campgrounds has facilities.
Usually a day fee won't get you into the campground area where you can add water.
Many state and private campgrounds will let you dump for a fee. Usually the cost for an overnight stay is not much more than their dump fee. If you're lucky, the best bet for taking on water would be a dump station where they have potable water. But I wouldn't use those unless you can change their hose to your water hose and don't know how you'd find those.

[stephensatt]

I am in my 50's and counting the days when my pension and 401s kick in, I will be right out there booning it with ya. Yes, gas is KILLER RIGHT NOW! We just did a trip to Santa Fe from Houston, went through White Sands and Roswell, great trip, maybe close to 3k miles round trip. I wrote down every fillup. That was during Spring Break and I want to say about $4.25 was average. We spent $973 total on gas at average 9 miles per gallon pulling our 28ft bumper hitch trailer, its a Toy Hauler, about 6k lbs.


Ok, I am right where you are at right now on the water sourcing thing. We have had to source water from lakes and this is using a provided water faucet on rural lakes that the locals setup and it will tell you at the water faucet, this is NON POTABLE and you are on a lake in the middle of nowhere, so its lake water.


We string the Walmart filters, two of them and the water has been "CLEAR" but it was already pretty clear to begin with.


So I started watching allot of RV videos and people are buying very expensive 3 phase filtration systems made for RVs and camping and they have 10inch cartridges and are of heavy duty stainless and run $500 - 1000. You can buy Chinese knockoffs, plastic, for about $100-300, on the $300 end an all metal stainless one. I plan on just going with standard blue plastic like you see on commercial ice makers. They use a large spanner wrench to change the cartridges.



I plan to mount it in the hatch next to my existing water heater and I have the room and it will use 3 - 10 inch cartridges which there are tons and tons of options out there, and "tasty" filters which have almond shells and flavor your water and everything. Amazing selection of filters but this is specifically why you want to go with the 10inch. I figure I will throw the pre-filter, filter #1 away plenty but I bet the water will be more than usable for everything except ice tea.



However I would still drink straight up bottled water as my first choice at all times unless I have to use the "non potable" and then I would boil it or run it in the Kuereg for coffee which boils it of course.



The choices here are amazing , the next step if to figure out, can I put it inline from my standard 12v RV pump or should this be just hooked to the outside faucet only so that "shore water" supplies push the water through the filters and this is because maybe you cannot put this kind of load on the 12v RV pump? Someone here may know. I don't want to burn out the pump.



Amazon link for 10inch systems.



https://www.amazon.com/s?k=3+stage+1...f=nb_sb_noss_2

[Papadave]

All good comments. I just got two 8 gallon tanks filled at Walmart for 39 cents a gallon. $2.34 for a third of a tank. I should have explained that I do drink the tank water. Mine is a 2019 and the tanks have stayed clean with the occasional bleach bomb. I spent years on cruising sailboats with stinky tanks and drank only bottled water. So far so good but no creek, lake or rain water gets in my tank for now. Ideally I would devise a system with lake water for showers and clean water for drinking. Two tanks. Another perfect system would require three waste tanks. Shower and vanity water in one. Kitchen sink with food scraps in another and the toilet would use the kitchen tank to flush. Then there is the composting toilet and diaper pail idea. When I built my previous trailers I would do things like that but I couldn’t build a trailer with the wolf pup features for what I paid for it. I also keep two full 3 gal jugs in the tow vehicle to save weight on the trailer axles. My tank haven’t fallen out yet, as some have reported.

[Reverse_snowbird]

Originally Posted by stephensatt

The choices here are amazing , the next step if to figure out, can I put it inline from my standard 12v RV pump or should this be just hooked to the outside faucet only so that "shore water" supplies push the water through the filters and this is because maybe you cannot put this kind of load on the 12v RV pump? Someone here may know. I don't want to burn out the pump.

Since you don't list what kind of rv you have, it's kind of hard to give advice.

Generally, a water pump pull from the fresh water tank and you certainly don't want contaminated water in the fresh water tank. If you can hook up to a water faucet, the water pressure will help push the water through filters to the city water inlet and into the rig. Now if your rig has the ability to fill the fresh water tank through the city water inlet, you could go from faucet to filter to fresh water inlet to water tank. Does that make sense?

You might want to add your rig's year, make and model to the Signature under UserCP above so that we'll now what you're talking about.

[K_M_H]

As far as RV Dumps are concerned, it depends on where you are in the country, but I know that PA (and other states) have Rest Stops that offer free RV Dumps with non-potable water. Sometimes you get lucky and they have both potable and non-potable.

I've heard of people using the Berkey Water systems (not cheap) for drinking water, even if it's raw water. YMMV on that one, and I wouldn't advocate it unless you were 100% sure that the water was microbiologically safe after filtration.

[Papadave]

By leaving the hot water heater off then turning it on for ten minutes or so before a shower you can shower in straight hot water without losing water by mixing hot and cold until you get it right. Also run the tub faucet in to a gallon jug until the hot water shows up. Save that water for later use. I’m on day 15 without plugging in. From Florida to upstate NY and back to Virginia.

[DogFather]

We have solar and ration our water and have found that what limits our boondocking stays the most is having to service our waste tanks.

[Papadave]

Originally Posted by DogFather

We have solar and ration our water and have found that what limits our boondocking stays the most is having to service our waste tanks.

Same here. In quartzite and burning man I have heard of using evaporator pools for gray water. In the desert heat that might work. Black tank not so much. However there is something called Milorganite 😀. My Dad used to get sludge from the local treatment plant for fertilizing his corn fields. Lots of little foil pouches in it. 😝. Night soil is used in Asia. I’m sure there are health hazards involved. Back to gray water, I wonder if a simple solar still would recycle gray water? I may experiment. It would require being in one place for awhile.

[jbflag21ds]

Join Good Sam and use that membership to get $8 dump fees at Flying J's/Pilots that have dump stations if you can't find a campground that will let you dump for cheaper.

And you can get cheap showers there as well

My issue with people looking for ways to add more water never seem to consider that water needs to go somewhere (unless you use an outside shower). Even if you only put soap and water into your grey tank, it's still illegal in most places to dump that on the ground.

A good multistage filter with a separate sediment (5 micron) and final filter (0.2-0.2 micron) can be used to get water from almost any source in the US that does not have chemical contamination.

[D W]

Yes siree, the amount of freebies is quickly waning. As for mixing the gray and black tanks?, ain't gonna do it! There's a reason one is gray and one is black.

[Papadave]

Originally Posted by jbflag21ds

My issue with people looking for ways to add more water never seem to consider that water needs to go somewhere (unless you use an outside shower). Even if you only put soap and water into your grey tank, it's still illegal in most places to dump that on the ground. .

Agreed, as the river keepers say “everybody is downstream of somebody” Outside showers are prohibited in most campgrounds as well since, as you said, it leaves soap and soap scum behind. Ideally we would send the water back into the atmosphere to fall as rain and convert the solids into nutrients that would grow plants that benefit the atmosphere. As much heat as we take from environmentalists for our low gas mileage vehicles we are in a unique position to see what we consume and the byproducts of that consumption. It’s real. Different than trash day and the sewer water bill. You own it, what now? Of course you can just tank up and dump but I’m thinking we could do better. Composting toilets for solids and evaporating liquids into the air would make us better environmentally than city dwellers. I post that as a challenge.

[hodag_guy]

When I think of Boondocking I think of camping in remote places. Those places include, throughout the country, state and federal campgrounds. You can also add county and other public campgrounds. They are numerous.



Even if you're not staying at one of them, you can often pull in and access their water sources without paying an entrance fee (maybe not at many state campgrounds), which are often old-fashioned hand pumps. Bring a potable water jug with a pour spout, or any clean container and a self-contained 12V water pump. Fill it up and be on your way.

[CJS56]

Originally Posted by jbflag21ds

Join Good Sam and use that membership to get $8 dump fees at Flying J's/Pilots that have dump stations if you can't find a campground that will let you dump for cheaper.

And you can get cheap showers there as well

My issue with people looking for ways to add more water never seem to consider that water needs to go somewhere (unless you use an outside shower). Even if you only put soap and water into your grey tank, it's still illegal in most places to dump that on the ground.

A good multistage filter with a separate sediment (5 micron) and final filter (0.2-0.2 micron) can be used to get water from almost any source in the US that does not have chemical contamination.

Good Sam if you have it allows you to dump for free at any Camping World or Gander. Most of them will also fill your fresh tank for you too.

[ppine]

I do not drink out of my onboard water tank. I have separate drinking water. I bring 7 gallons of well water from home to drink.

Therefore I can use water from a clean creek or a lake to fill the water tank in a pinch. Just add a little Chlorox if you want. Or I can find a hose somewhere.

It is easy to find an RV facility where you can empty your tanks for $5-10.

[PhilFromMaine]

I would be willing to bet that there are no States that allow the dumping of gray water from a tank on the ground.

The only safe way to get rid of tank wastewater is in a State approved disposal system. I pay 20 dollars to dump my tanks at a local campground,

The best way to deal with water, IMO, is conservation. Sponge showers, wipe washing, paper plates, etc. Regarding #2, many people use portable waterless toilets with peat moss added to it and, if necessary, bag it just like you do with dog poop and baby diapers.

[ppine]

Phil right. Water conservation makes it easy. But most people have to be taught.

[NMWildcat]

We go to many state and private RV parks (and a few national dispersed areas) that encourage responsible use of gray water for local vegetation. I also have several friends that own houses plumbed for gray water outside uses. Maybe it's just an out west thing.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by PhilFromMaine

I would be willing to bet that there are no States that allow the dumping of gray water from a tank on the ground.

You would lose.

There is a rest stop on I-95 Northbound in Virgina (MP 1 or 2 IIRC) that has three separate parking areas: automobiles, tractor-trailers, and RVs. The RV section has signs reading "Gray tank dumping permitted beyond this point." or words to that effect.

Originally Posted by NMWildcat

Maybe it's just an out west thing.

Can't get much further east than Virginia.