Sterilising water system

[DerekBrad]

Does anyone know how many cases of water related poisoning have occurred among the caravanning fraternity? I've caravanned since 1973 and have always used water straight from the drum both for drinking and for washing etc.We're still going strong!
Is it another case of caravanitis, where we are told we must have something ,or else ?
Regards to all
Dererk

 

[dougie201]

Hi All.

I use milton tablets and steralise twice a year, we use our van all year round and we drink from the van taps. And we have never had any illness due to this. If there was a funny taste to the water then i suppose we would stop.

Dougie....

 

[Parksy]

It's not a case of 'caravanitis, it's entirely up to you if you want to drink straight from your caravan taps. As I wrote earlier having seen for myself the slimy gunk that can build up inside caravan pipework I personally prefer not to.
It's no problem for us to take an empty water bottle to the site tap for drinking purposes and who knows, the extra bit of exercise probably does me good.
I've really no idea if anyone has ever suffered any ill effects from drinking from the caravan system, but after two heart attacks, triple bypass surgery and then a stroke I prefer not to take any chances when I take my daily load of tablets with water.

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

hi all,
I think parksy has got it about spot on, it supprising how much gunk comes out of the system when cleaned out, in my case at the begining of the season furry depostits build up during the year and when the system is drained these deposits dryout and turn into flakes.
I personnaly prefer these out of the water before use like parksy we dont drink the tap water not for any medical or bacteria reason just that fresh water out of the site tap tastes better,
I also dont think it's a case of caravanitis mererly preventive measures in caravan maintanance like greasing the steadies, and cleaning the stabiliser pads, before use.
regarding Mr Bell's enquiry it is possible his bailey does not have a filter a lot do not have one some have a in line charcoal filter under the sink as described earlier, if there is not one dont worry as they are not a essential bit of kit,

 

[TD42]

Other clive. thanks its what I have always done, but I was'nt sure if the old filter was actualy filtering out the effectivness of the solution

 

[ValA.]

Does anyone know how many cases of water related poisoning have occurred among the caravanning fraternity? I've caravanned since 1973 and have always used water straight from the drum both for drinking and for washing etc.We're still going strong!
Is it another case of caravanitis, where we are told we must have something ,or else ?
Regards to all
Dererk

We used to drink the water from our Aquaroll for years and years, but I used to be ill on almost every caravanning holiday - with bad dizziness, nausea, some numbness and 'strange' feelings in my arms and legs, plus strange head pains, and a variety of other symptoms - and underwent serious investigations, including an MRI scan and various other tests over quite a long period of time. It was never given a complete diagnosis, by the Neurologist and various others I saw, but thought eventually to be due to some sort of neurotoxin (a poison which causes nerve damage). At one time our Ford Mondeo air-conditioning was thought to be the problem, and the problem was taken seriously enough by OH's company that his car went back to the Ford factory for extensive tests, and was eventually replaced by Ford. However, I continued to be ill after our French trips even in the replacement car.
We'd always kept the system clean, made sure we flushed out and refilled after sterilising the water, and allowed the pumps and other bits to dry out properly when not in use and it never occurred to us that the water supply could be a problem - it looked clean, tasted fine, and we knew we'd sterilised it all properly. One time our pump stopped working on the first day of our French holiday, and OH stripped it down. He was horrified to find a build up of greeny-black sludge throughout the pump. He cut along the blue pipes connecting the pump to the socket, and the same sludge was built up all along the pipes. After that we decided we'd never drink from the aquaroll again. We bought a new Whale pump from a local dealer, but didn't drink the water from the caravan taps. I wasn't ill that holiday, and haven't been since. We don't generally use bottled water, but take a five litre container which we fill up from the campsite tap, fresh each day, and we wash the container out each day too.
Now I've no proof whatever that the green-black algae build up was the cause of my illness, but algaes and moulds in general can be neurotoxic - you only have to read of people being advised to keep out of lakes, or the sea, because of an Algal bloom. The Americans, too, take 'black-mould' very seriously as a toxin.
It has long been a bit of a bee in my bonnet that no-one appears to want to do serious testing of what actually comes out through caravan taps - and just how pure this is. At times I've suggested it as a topic for this magazine, but it hasn't been taken up.

 

[DavidKlyne]

Val
A scary story, I assume since you stopped drinking water from the caravan system you have been OK?
It stands to reason that any water system that is left ideal for months at a time has the opportunity to develop toxins in the system. We long ago decided that we would use bottled water for drinking and I scurry off the the campsite tap to fill the kettle for hot drinks. We only use our water system for washing up and for showers. Any water from the system that is use for consumption is always boiled.
David

 

[JohnGriffiths]

We too had a Year 2000 Ranger 460/2 so I can with some confidence there is no filter. Like most here though neither us or our dogs drink from the caravan tap. We use a 5 litre clear bottle, rinsed and refilled every day and replaced pretty regularly with another from the supermarket.

 

[ValA.]

Val
A scary story, I assume since you stopped drinking water from the caravan system you have been OK?
It stands to reason that any water system that is left ideal for months at a time has the opportunity to develop toxins in the system. We long ago decided that we would use bottled water for drinking and I scurry off the the campsite tap to fill the kettle for hot drinks. We only use our water system for washing up and for showers. Any water from the system that is use for consumption is always boiled.
David

I've been absolutely fine David. No recurrence of any of the problems I had in the past! I always drink a lot of water, so perhaps had more to drink from the system than most people. I also think that perhaps a system which is used in hot sun is more at risk - heating up during the day in the sun, and cooling at night, so perhaps our experience isn't typical, but even so the stuff that was in our pump was really quite horrifying! As I said, we now drink water from the campsite taps still, but always freshly drawn in the morning, into a clean container, and we also use this water for boiling, for tea and coffee, and even for teeth cleaning. I have too much at risk to try the aquaroll ever again!

 

[graham_somersham]

The following are a few observations I have made regarding water systems and the sterilising debate. I might be totally out of line with my thinking and I am certainly no expert on the toxicology of algae.

There seems to be some confusion between sterilising and cleaning. Sterilising fluid will certainly kill off a lot of bacteria and probably also reduce any viral load in the water system, but it is not the same as cleaning (example if you pour bleach over a pile of faeces and stir it up a bit it will probably kill off the bacteria present but at the end of any actions it is still a pile of sh*t). Cleaning involves the removal of any foreign matter from the system and chlorine based sterilising fluids do not inspire me with confidence after using them a few years back (Milton) and then soon after having to remove a section of pipe that on inspection was lined with what looked like dead algae. Puriclean certainly appears to be better at removing this 'gunge' but it is by no means 100% effective and therefore a nice breading ground is provided for bacterial growth.

Algae is known to release toxins as it dies off so is simply hitting it with Milton etc going to release more toxins than were present before the sterilisation commenced.

I don't know the answers to the above and it would probably take some serious scientific research to come up with indisputable answers.

At the moment I stick to a regime of cleaning at least a couple of times each year with Puriclean, that is Aquarolls, pumps, pipework and waste pipes. Additionally I dose the Aquarolls with Aqua Clean tabs about once a week when using the caravan or more frequently if I am uneasy about the quality of the water supply such as borehole water. So far I have never gone down with any illness that I could trace to the water system but there is always the chance that I have been fortunate to date.

 

[ValA.]

Mr Val A has been reading this and commented "You should mention that even now, within three days of starting our holiday, there is sometimes a slimy feel to the pipe from the aquaroll to the socket, and that's the outside of the pipe that I clean each time. This comes back about every three days..............".
I know most people will disagree about this, but for us, we're much happier not drinking the water!

 

[Parksy]

We were on a seasonal pitch for a few years and there were a few elderly people with caravans that hadn't turned a wheel for ten years or more. None of them ever thought of having their caravans serviced or maintained in any way and at the start of every season in March they'd turn up, open their caravans and carry on as normal.
As you may imagine quite often the various systems on the caravan wouldn't work, often through sheer neglect and because I carry a few tools and felt sorry for the older people they'd come round to see me and I'd try to help them out so that they could continue to use their caravans.
Some of the things that I've seen in pipework, water pumps etc would turn your stomach and convince most to reconsider drinking straight from the caravan system even if it was 'sterilised'.
The slimy algae was also very common inside plastic water pipes but you'd never know from just turning the tap on.
Nests or clumps of earwigs and woodlice were a common cause of water failing to arrive at the taps

Each to their own but for me - no thanks, I'll take an empty clean see through plastic bottle and fill it from the site tap.

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

that's quite scary parksy but I concur with your findings,
I am sure most of us could relate some stories, in fact I had a similar event last year we arrived on site and were setting up well I was the wife was at reception buying the 5liter bottled water that I had forgot to buy before we set off

the couple in the next van came round while I connecting the aqua roll and flushing the system. excuse us ,for asking the woman said but we noticed you have the same make of van as us a wondered if you knew anything about the water pipes, we cannot seem to get any inside the van the pumps running but the taps are dry, I agreed to have a look when I had finished setting up and casually asked if they were new to caravanning "oh no" said the guy we have had it about 10 years and used to tour but since my stroke we have left it on here as a seasonal and store it on site, it was fine last year but since we came 2 weeks ago have had no water.
later I went round to look at it, taps on pump running no water pulled the hose off the housing, water was pumping through the pipe but it looked new is this a new pipe and pump er yes we bought it thinking the pump was faulty, so I then looked at the filter it was a sort of a browny black colour has this been changed also I asked "no its the same one we have allways had on" so it's 10 years old "er yes" I removed it and it was solid with gunge, dead insects, and slime, when was the system serilised and cleaned oh never the woman said but it allways seemed ok up till now. I explained they would need a new filter but for now I cut the old one in two to use as a bung and cleaned the housing, this got thing working ok but suggested they did not drink from the taps untill it had been serilised oh how it that done we have never thought of it or considered it nessesary.
sometimes it does make you wonder??

 

[ValA.]

Uuurrgh! Colin! Good job you helped them out!

 

[Sproket]

 

[Parksy]

Nice one Colin! Some of the old 'uns must have cast iron stomachs