RV Water Filter Setup
Water Quality
The water quality in campgrounds and RV parks can be all over the place. some have excellent water and some not so great. Some water can smell, have a funny taste and hard water can leave your skin and hair feeling dry as well as slowly build up inside the plumbing of your RV and cause stains in your sinks and shower as well as your dishes.
Water quality has always been important to us so when we started to travel we wanted to make sure we had a good RV Water Filter Setup. We did a lot of research and came up with a solution that works great for us, and should work great for you as well!
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How we setup our RV Water Filter System
In this post I am going to show you how we set up our water filters and why we did it how we did it. Each step is important and details matter! You may look at this setup at first glance and think it is a lot, and honestly it is. You can do as we did and build into the setup we have today.
We will be adding a video going over our RV Water Filter Setup so be on the lookout for that!
1. Hose
Having the right hose is important. It is kind of a given that the hose should be a drinking water safe hose but you would be surprised how many people overlook this part. So make sure you have a water safe drinking hose for your main hose as well as the smaller connecting hoses for your RV Water Filter Setup. Not only does the hose need to be a drinking water safe hose but it should be a good quality hose as well, you want the hose to last as well as not get kinked up.
Links for products we use or recommend:
3ft or 5ft Flexzilla Drinking Water Safe Hose
Camco 25 ft TASTEPure Heated Drinking Water Hose (Just in case you get stuck in freezing weather like we did)
2. Water Meter
The Water Meter is the next piece to the puzzle for the RV Water Filter Setup. This has a couple of important uses, for this post I will only talk about one, that being how much water is going through your filter. Filters will typically give you the number of gallons you should change your filter as well as how many months, so by using the water meter you will have a better idea of when to change your filters. Obviously the quality of the water will vary upon each location so you may need to check your filters sooner if the water is bad and your filters could last longer if the water isn’t as bad.
Links for products we use or recommend:
3. RV Water Filter System
The RV Water Filter is the next stage for our RV Water Filter Setup. We are using a two-stage water filter. There are two filters in this setup, the first filter is a 5-micron filter that blocks rust, sediment, and other contaminants. The second filter is a hospital-grade .2 micron filter (this is the replacement filter) that removes bacteria like e-Coli, viruses, heavy metals like lead and mercury, and other things I can’t pronounce. Little secret here, the two-stage filter we purchased had a .5 micron filter so I replaced it with a .2 micron filter for better filtration.
Links for products we use or recommend:
RV 2 Stage Water Filter System
Replacement Water Filter Twin Pack with 0.2 Micron Filtration
Bonus Information:
If you want to save some money you can purchase the cheaper filter housing and buy the good filters separately. Simply buy two of the cheaper filter housing units and set them up and you are good to go!
4. Water Softener
The Water Softener is the next stage for our water setup. In addition to the water softener we do have a regeneration kit, slash additional, filter that the water can go through first. While it is hooked up in this way it functions as a water filter. It does act as a regeneration kit when connected differently that I will show in another post later. The regeneration kit is not mandatory to have but I believe it does a better job of regenerating the water softener than doing it manually, and it makes the process much easier.
Thoroughly regenerating your water softener makes it last longer and allows it to work better. Just like anything else, the better you take care of it the better it will perform and last. As a bonus, there is a 2 stage water filter with the regeneration kit that starts with a .5 micron filter and has a second stage in the one-piece filter that it doesn’t give a micron count for. We don’t use the regeneration kit as a filter since we have a good two-stage water filtration setup.
Now to the awesome PRO+AQUA Portable Water Softener 16,000 Grain Pro Premium. To be honest, I did not expect to like this as much as I do, but it is awesome. After using it, our skin and hair feel so much better. What is crazy is when we first started using it we were not in an area with bad water so I figured we really weren’t going to be able to feel much of a difference.
Boy was I wrong, the difference was very noticeable and I instantly knew we crushed it with this addition to our RV water filter setup. You may have seen the popular On The Go blue water softener that is out there, it is also a good water softener. I went with the PRO+AQUA because it treated up to 400 gallons more than the other one does. Both are good, but the PRO+AQUA does edge out the other one in this category so I went with it.
Links for products we use or recommend:
3ft or 5ft Flexzilla Drinking Water Safe Hose
PRO+AQUA Regen Kit/Water Filter
5. The 5 Stage Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration System
Our 5 Stage Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration System is next. At this point you are probably like, what, there is more? Oh yeah, there is more! Under the sink we have the 5-Stage Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration System for our drinking water. Now this filter is a good filter on its own, but by the time the other filters filter the water it makes this one even more effective and makes the filters last longer. This system provides up to a 99% rejection rate of 1000+ pollutants such as arsenic, chlorine, fluoride, lead, mercury, sulfate, Ammonia, etc. The overall health benefits of drinking reverse osmosis water are purity levels. Reverse osmosis water is one of the few drinking sources that contain no minerals or impurities.
Links for products we use or recommend:
5-Stage Under Sink Reverse Osmosis Ultimate Purifier Drinking Water Filter System
Peace of Mind
With our water setup we have a greater peace of mind that not only is the water we drink a good quality but the water we shower in is as well. Not to mention the water we cook with and give to our pets, not that they would complain.
With this water setup we are not affected by varying water quality from the various campgrounds and RV parks that we stay at.
Check out other posts as well as videos we create on our Northstar Nomads YouTube Channel!