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Drinking water


Eternal422

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I have just replaced my 2 water tanks of unknown history with 2 more brand new plastic tanks so that I can confidently drink the water straight out of them - eventually. For the first year I will use a Britta jug-type filter until I am sure that I have got all the carp out of them that may have got in during the installation. Live carp or dead carp, no rats. After that I will use it straight. It won't be perfect but then nothing is.

I won't be drinking from the hot tap as I have a red expansion vessel in the hot line which is not potable grade, but who uses hot water for drinking as it is not hot enough for hot drinks.

The discussion of water quality is clouded (!) by a lack of knowledge of how water works. It can have solids floating in it, fine solids that mix in very well, organic (ie carbon based) contaminants that float, form emulsions, or dissolve, inorganic contaminants in solution, various biological stuff that can grow once in it and dissolved gases like carbon dioxide. Our water companies have to use umpteen separate purification stages to get our water to drinking quality so just looking at it, seeing it clear, and saying it tastes alright is not enough. Nor will a simple filter get rid of every possibility. I understand that some inorganic contaminants actually make the water taste better!  

Many possible bad things in water take a long time to affect your body so for safety's sake the next BSS Update will require all boats that use paint on the inside of their built-in water tanks to only carry persons aged 50 or more. In our culture stuff that does you harm only in the long term is still not handled properly though asbestos, tobacco, thalidomide, and cancers are beginning to change that.

IMHO. Is there a smiley for imho?

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1 hour ago, bizzard said:

Alcohol drinking needs severely limiting, not smoking. Smoking has a calming effect not the generally aggressive effect that alcohol usually causes.

The more people keep on smoking tobacco, the easier it will be to finance the pensions of non-smokers.

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57 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

The more people keep on smoking tobacco, the easier it will be to finance the pensions of non-smokers.

Same goes for heavy drinkers, plus the violence.

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Thanks everyone for the replies !  Had a good laugh at some of them :lol:  I like Sea Dog's comment about replacing a large, convenient potable water system with several small, inconvenient ones !  Still not totally sure which way to go, filling up containers from the water points now seems really no different from filling up the boat's tank (unless there really are dead rats inside it - at least with a plastic bottle you can see if there are any rats :lol:

Cuthound's comment about the shareboat being out all the time and therefore the tank never being left to stagnate is reassuring though.  I guess we are becoming rather obsessed with health and safety and really we don't have sterilised water in our homes anyway.

 

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3 minutes ago, Rickent said:

The only time ours tasted crap was when we filled the tank on the Ashby near Bosworth marina, had a tcp antiseptic taste for at least a week after.

You could have gargled with that, soothes the throat.      Aged GRP water tanks water could taste of TCP.

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13 hours ago, Rickent said:

The only water we drink from our water tank is boiled to make tea or coffee. We use bottled water to drink at other times. We have a stainless steel water tank which we treat fairly regularly with milton, so would be ok to drink directly from tank but we just choose not to.

If you're not comfortable drinking straight from the tap then I just wanted to let you know that water should either be heated over a longish time period to the boiling temp where you are, or held at your boiling temp for approximately at least a minute. Fast heat to boiling and then a quick cool down will not inactivate everything.

 

3 hours ago, Neil Smith said:

If you really don't want to drink it straight out the tank just get a filter jug an keep in the fridge.

Neil

 

2 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

I have just replaced my 2 water tanks of unknown history with 2 more brand new plastic tanks so that I can confidently drink the water straight out of them - eventually. For the first year I will use a Britta jug-type filter until I am sure that I have got all the carp out of them that may have got in during the installation. Live carp or dead carp, no rats. After that I will use it straight. It won't be perfect but then nothing is.

 

I believe all the various jugs do is change the taste of water, they don't remove pathogens / bacteria. I might be wrong

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33 minutes ago, Eternal422 said:

Thanks everyone for the replies !  Had a good laugh at some of them :lol:  I like Sea Dog's comment about replacing a large, convenient potable water system with several small, inconvenient ones !  Still not totally sure which way to go, filling up containers from the water points now seems really no different from filling up the boat's tank (unless there really are dead rats inside it - at least with a plastic bottle you can see if there are any rats :lol:

Cuthound's comment about the shareboat being out all the time and therefore the tank never being left to stagnate is reassuring though.  I guess we are becoming rather obsessed with health and safety and really we don't have sterilised water in our homes anyway.

 

I personally drink from mine, but I aint fussy at all about water. I spend time in the mountains for various reasons and always end up drinking from streams without problems.

If it's regularly flushed through I really wouldnt be concerned.

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For liveaboards, the tank water will always be fresh.  But for leisure boats, I wouldn't be so sure.  I don't drink plain water very often, I normally dilute it with malt whisky...........

Edited by mross
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14 minutes ago, mross said:

For liveaboards, the tank water will always be fresh.  But for leisure boats, I wouldn't be so sure.  I don't drink plain water very often, I normally dilute it with malt whisky...........

Fresh when put in the tank!

Mine gets topped up weekly, but still gave me a bad belly.

  • Greenie 1
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4 hours ago, Neil Smith said:

If you really don't want to drink it straight out the tank just get a filter jug an keep in the fridge.

Neil

 

A filter jug will not make dodgy water safe to drink.  By all means drink 'tank water' yourself, but don't give it to the very young, the elderly, or the immuno-compromised.  And treating your tank once a year is not going to provide protection for very long!  If you have done it for 15 years that's annecdote, not evidence!

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15 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

We have always used the water from the domestic tanks for drinking just  as if it were tap water at home.

This has so far caused no issues whatsoev.............................................

Eeeeeeeeh Yakka-Boo, Yakka-Boo

Eeeeeeeeh Yakka-Boo, Yakka-Boo

Eeeeeeeeh Yakka-Boo, Yakka-Boo

Snap.

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On 05/05/2017 at 13:58, Dave Payne said:

Fresh when put in the tank!

Mine gets topped up weekly, but still gave me a bad belly.

 

How do you know it was the water, and not something you ate?

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