Do You Drink Tank Water !?

[weavis]

If I have any doubt, I boil 3 gallons of water at a time and use it after cooled. I Freeze some of it and use it for cold drinking as required. The rest for hot beverages and cooking.

I prefer to have the tanks constantly refilled from the watermaker but as I dont have one on this boat, It goes into a jug filter and is fine.

Having worked and lived in Asia for a while, its second nature to do this. Dysentery is no fun.

In the U.K. I just filter the water that I get from the docks. Tis fine. I have water purifying tabs if there is an issue. Never used them in Europe.

[Canibul]

What do you freeze the water in, as a container, I mean? Do you use plastic jugs? My wife and I have been discussing freezing several gallons to help the freezer stay cold. She's paranoid about something in the plastic leaching into the water.

[weavis]

Originally Posted by Canibul

What do you freeze the water in, as a container, I mean? Do you use plastic jugs? My wife and I have been discussing freezing several gallons to help the freezer stay cold. She's paranoid about something in the plastic leaching into the water.

I use 1/2 gallon and or gallon water bottles. Buy them with water in and reuse the bottles.

Never known leaching to occur. Everything is in plastic these days. Leave a gap for expansion in the container. I leave about 20% when freezing.

[Manos1955]

Serve your drinking water from a silver pot Yes it is expensive to buy one (unless your grandma gave you one as a gift) but if u add the expense of buying and changing filters they are not so cheap either. Silver is known to purify water

[Miniyot]

Originally Posted by Ozwizz54

In our technologically advanced societies, so much nonsense is propagated about this concept of "clean" water.
If anything, the treated water coming out of your home water sources if far less safe than water collected from the sky and fed into your tanks. This is always the best source of water. Rainwater has no chlorine or fluoride both known poisons or any other chemical treatments which are probably just as toxic.

With all the hoopla over acid rain and all of the trees it is killing in parts of the world, There is now way I would bet my life on it. as far as chlorine and flouride being a known poison? You have to drink large quantities of it to poison you....same as water, if you drink too much it can kill you also. There are quite a few cases of people who imbibed in too much water and have died. I bet that is an eye opener for you, huh?

[Canibul]

We live on the windward side of this island, smack dab in the trade winds. Our only source of household water for the past 8 years has been rain, with the odd 2500 gallon truck load of RO water about once a year in late December. Dry time of year and house guests during holidays. I added a whole house filter system, as previously mentioned. I ahad to add a washable; spin-down pre-filter, to filter stuff before it gets to the sediment filter. I noticed early on that this washable filter was getting clogged with a fine, dark colored material. Nothing like the pale gray limestone dust these islands produce. Finally figured out this is red dust from Africa, washing into our cisterns with the rain water. It's supposely loaded with pesticides. So there's no way I'd drink unfiltered rain water on a regular basis. How do you KNOW it's not shortening your life? Chances are that it is.

Our house water tastes great, by the way. Runs through the pre-filter, the sediment filter, a charcoal filter, and then the UV filter before it gets into the house.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Canibul

What do you freeze the water in, as a container, I mean? Do you use plastic jugs? My wife and I have been discussing freezing several gallons to help the freezer stay cold. She's paranoid about something in the plastic leaching into the water.

I've found sport drink bottles (Gator Aid) to be more durable and flexible to use (fit more places).

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Canibul

How do you KNOW it's not shortening your life? Chances are that it is.

You're going to feel pretty silly when you die of nothing.

Mark

[bobofthenorth]

Originally Posted by Canibul

What do you freeze the water in, as a container, I mean? Do you use plastic jugs? My wife and I have been discussing freezing several gallons to help the freezer stay cold. She's paranoid about something in the plastic leaching into the water.

Sorry about the thread drift but we use seawater for this purpose. It freezes at a lower temperature so it helps the freezer stay colder longer. Needless to say we don't drink it but that's not the purpose either.

As far as the OP's question goes I'm astonished that it even merits discussion. Of course we drink the tank water. Regularly. All the time in fact.

[Flying Pancakes]

Originally Posted by svHyLyte

Run your shore-side water through a filter as you fill the tanks, add a non-agressive purifier to the tanks themselves and then run the tank water through a final filter, such as the Seagull in the galley for example, and you should have no problems. We have used the foregoing process for many years without problems and often refill bottles of water we keep cold in the refrigerator until needed.

FWIW...

We do exactly the same thing, works a treat!

[TheThunderbird]

Thanks to all, this post is GREAT, OVERALL
My best ever water!?

A friend carefully collected spring water out of a rock, sedimenting on mud and lime, in the wild green of Valle d'Aosta (close to Savoy-F).. at 1450m on sea level
I still remember freshness and perfume..

On board, just avoiding annoyances is enough for me.
I want to cut down on plastic bottles mgmt. (Btw, bottled water is NOT sterile!!)

[Sandero]

Not unless we absolutely have to. But we have a small filtered faucet for water we will boil and use for cooking. For drinking we buy bottled water and have a handy large dispenser over the galley (sink).

[jmackay]

My question is what is the "shelf life" of the water in my ss tanks. When we lived aboard we would use them and refill them monthly. Now that we are only onboard two or three times a week the tanks last three or more months. Out of caution we have switched to bottled drinking water.

[Livia]

We have SS tanks. Once a year we treat them with bleach water. We put a cup of bleach in each 33 gallon tank, and fill it with water. We then run it through the system until the tanks are dry. Usually, rather than waste the water, we put some drinking water in bottles and just use the tanks normally (for showers and dishes) until they are empty. Then we refill them with water and go on. We have observation ports and I can tell you that now that we do that we no longer accumulate slime inside the tanks. We also use a charcoal filter which does get a little clogged over time. I think that the lines accumulate gunk faster than the tanks.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Clean out your tank, then know whats going into it, you will be fine. What's the difference between drinking city water on shore, at home or in a restauant or on your boat.... its the same water.

Ok, so your post makes my answer easy. I drink no soft drinks, no coffee, no tea. I drink water. Huge quantities of water. My wife does the same. We generally drink bottled water and not tap water, even very well filtered tap water. So we do the same at home, restaurant or boat. Is it necessary? Probably not but any minor bacteria that comes through and all city water has some adds up when that's all you're drinking. So we don't suggest others copy but we're not going to change. It's around 10 cents per 16 ounce bottle on average and we each drink about six bottles a day. Call it our guilty pleasure. Less than a soda or cup of coffee.