Are You Filtering your Fresh Water?

[Valiente]

Rich, rather than debate your worthy points, I'll say that the idea of filtering the vent line is both new to me and, upon brief reflection, extremely sensible. As I am creating a new water system from scratch, I'll incorporate a vent line filter beyond just a simple screen and gooseneck.

[RichH]

Valiente
If you start with a clean system, put on a vent filter .... 99% of any funky water problems will be eliminated.
Dont forget to add the 'certified' cyst removal filter to dock hose.

[JimMcGee]

I'm in the process of looking at our water system right now as we're changing marinas so this is a timely discussion for me.

The past two seasons I've been bringing bottled water aboard for drinking, and using my dockside water connection for coffee and dishwashing. At the new marina I noticed some slips had filters on the dockside water hookups and I was told the city water has high iron & sulfer content.

We're also planning on spending more nights out on the hook next season so I want to get the water in the tanks as healthy as possible. We'll still use bottled water for drinking, but I want the water sanitary for dishes & showers.

So here're my questions:

1. My tanks are clean, nothing growing on the sides, how much chlorine should I add (oz per gallon) to "shock" the tanks after I flush the anti-freeze in the spring?
2. If I understand correctly MaineSail is using the GE 0.5 micron filter on his dockside water to filter both at the dock and what he's putting into his tanks. Makes sense, cleaner water in means less junk to filter.
3. Rich what kind of filter do you recommend adding to the tank vent line? And can I find this filter at a home center or do I need to find a specialty vendor?

Thanks in advance guys,
Jim

[Omatako]

Originally Posted by erps

Jeeze Maine. We boated for several years without any kind of filtration at all. We would have to grit our teeth now and then to strain out the big chunks, but none of us got sick. A person can design a perfect system at great expense or a person can use a system that's good enough. There is lots of room in between.

Erps, I'm with you on this. I've been boating in places like South Africa. Mozambique, Madagascar, Indonesia, I've never had a filter on my boats and we've never been sick. The only place we were advised not to take local water was in the Marquesas and we didn't.

When I read some of the systems spoken of in this thread my only thoughts are "Jeeze, talk about paranoia"

[T37Chef]

Rich,

Where, what are these vent filters? You comments about this make sense to me and I need to replace the lines anyway, so why not add the filter. Also, how often do you suggest replacing the filter.

To bad there isn't some kind of abrasive "ball" or similar that one could place into their tanks so it could scrub it for you...all the motion on a boat I would think would do decent job of mechanically removing the "scum" from the tanks. Not s substitute for deep cleaning of course, just maintenance

[nailbunnySPU]

I got this rv water filter at the Market of Wal
Amazon.com: Camco 40043 TastePURE RV Water Filter with Flexible Hose Protector: Automotive

That plus the brita faucet filter that's already been mentioned, good tasting water. Haphazard cheap and simple, just my style.

[sailingdog]

Jim—

Peggie Hall's instructions for shock treating the water system are located here.

[tommays]

IMHP it depends on how the boat is used with MORE use having less problems VS a boat that sitting on mooring with water that might flow a few minutes a week

And for example the city water in N.Amityville is VERY high in iron to the point of turning stuff brown and right up the road in Commack its perfect

[DwayneSpeer]

Installed one of the under sink filters on the cold water tap and then forgot to change the filter for a looooong time.

When I did change the filter it was sort of black and slimey. Water still tasted good and no one died so I guess it was OK.