Community Forums

Ralph Perrello · 06-26-2005, 09:28 AM

In all of the forums I have visited there is a dicussion about using the campground water and it's quality. Go to a swimming pool supply store and purchase for about $10.00 a chlorine residual test kit. It will make 50 to 100 tests before you will need more test chemicals. Chlorine residual is the amount of chlorine left over after it has done it's job. If there is some left over then it has killed every LIVING thing in the water that will harm you. Properly chlorinated water should have a very small amount of chlorine left over after it does it's job. You can't smell it if it is present in very small amounts. You need a test kit to see if there is any there. I am a NY state licensed public ( small ) water system operator. In my plumbing over the years I have installed chlorinators and instructed in their operation.
Without testing there is no way to know if you are safe or not. A test kit will be standard equipment on my future rig. Chlorine/water contact of one hour sterilizes water and makes it potable ( drinkable).

Ralph

Ralph Perrello · 06-26-2005, 09:28 AM

In all of the forums I have visited there is a dicussion about using the campground water and it's quality. Go to a swimming pool supply store and purchase for about $10.00 a chlorine residual test kit. It will make 50 to 100 tests before you will need more test chemicals. Chlorine residual is the amount of chlorine left over after it has done it's job. If there is some left over then it has killed every LIVING thing in the water that will harm you. Properly chlorinated water should have a very small amount of chlorine left over after it does it's job. You can't smell it if it is present in very small amounts. You need a test kit to see if there is any there. I am a NY state licensed public ( small ) water system operator. In my plumbing over the years I have installed chlorinators and instructed in their operation.
Without testing there is no way to know if you are safe or not. A test kit will be standard equipment on my future rig. Chlorine/water contact of one hour sterilizes water and makes it potable ( drinkable).

Ralph

ArtB · 06-26-2005, 01:34 PM

Ralph, had a pool for about 35 years and tested it of course. However it never occured to me to use the test on the RV water or source. Duhhhhhh

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll do it. Art

Carol and me · 06-29-2005, 12:11 PM

Great idea. Will try this out on our next trip. Thanks!

brad03ca · 06-29-2005, 12:46 PM

Talking about fresh water quality... do the factory installed water filters do a good job?

Frankie · 06-29-2005, 12:53 PM

I bought a ten dollar tester that uses a mettalic probe. 0-200 reading was considered safe drinking.I tested poland springs 56 reading, sams club was around 150 , campground was 375.Kinda scary,even though we only use city for brushing teeth and dishes.I can't rely on that tester,simply because I paid ten bucks for it at harbor freight,but it did show good readings on bottled water and my house tap.

06-29-2005, 08:37 PM

....drink bottled water and cook with it...nothing worse than Travelers Diarreha from contamination...ever heard about a macinator hooked up wrong?........."Bad things happend to good people and good things happen to bad people".....we don't have control over everything and everybody.....geofkaye

Lorna · 06-30-2005, 09:15 AM

The water doesn't have to be "bad" in order to make you sick. Just "different" water can do it. The water can be considered clean and fine to drink but it can make you sick. It can even make one person sick and another one can drink it all day and not be sick (I seem to be more sensitive than David on that point). I just run an external filter (one of those blue camco ones) mostly for sedimate and an interior faucet filter for drinking/cooking water that is supposed to remove 99.??% of the bad stuff. Really depends on how sensitive you are to changes in water. Since running the double filter setup, none of us have gotten sick but that isn't really a good way to tell since we tend to stay in public campgrounds as opposed to a private campground, which in my experience has been rather iffy on the quality of the water.

SeeTheUSA · 06-30-2005, 03:20 PM

Does anyone know of any incidents where the water at a facility caused any problems (sickness/death/rv contamination)? Any ideas on what measures can we take to protect ourselves?