Reverse Osmosis Water System

[Galileo]

I found that @KarenLukens mentioned this in an o-l-d post, but didn’t see that it got much traction. 

I’m a bit of a water purist (ahem) and have installed R/O water systems in all of the last four homes I’ve lived in and even gave one a a Christmas Gift to my sister and BIL. (I can hear the snickering..) 

Even when you have great water available, I like to get rid of as much chlorine, fluoride, lead, etc, etc, etc as possible. Also - regardless of how clean my “fresh” water system is, I’ve never drank the water from an RV or marine water system. (I’ve seen the crud that builds up in the lines…) Without adding chlorine or maybe iodine to water, even “good” water will go bad and can start growing stuff. 

I was curious if any water-nuts out there have installed R/O systems in their Ollies. NOT “whole house” systems, just ones to supply drinking & cooking water. 

Of course, the main problem to solve is “where to put the tank?”. The filters are pretty easy to find a home for. It looks like there might be enough room in the curb side basement - and it’s close to the water valves and pump.

I’d likely set it up so it only filters water while hooked up to city water, and delivers it to an auxiliary faucet near the galley sink. Maybe even feed an instant hot water thingy for tea or instant beverages as well. 

If the “wastefulness” of an R/O system is a concern, that “waste” water could even be diverted to the main fresh water tank - where it could be used for toilet flushing and handwashing. 

Any others have thoughts?

[topgun2]

Have you taken a look at THIS YouTube Video?

Bill

[Galileo]

25 minutes ago, topgun2 said:

Have you taken a look at THIS YouTube Video?

Bill

Just now I did.

I haven’t used one with UV before, but could be interesting. I never thought I needed that feature because I’ve always been hooked up to “safe” water before. Tested, treated sources. 

My concern about the one in the video is that it’s only got a flow rate of .4 gpm. The nice thing about the conventional ones I’ve installed is that they have 4 gallon (supposedly) tanks - so the system can crank out water at a trickle, but when you want it, it’s ready there for you. 

That said, the room that the tank takes up is a major factor. The one you posted the video for has an optional .4 gallon tank. Still not much.

Then again, I’m not filling a lot of big pasta pots or filling 3 or 4 water pitchers for a big dinner party from the trailer. 

I probably have too many higher priority projects on my to-do list to take this one up soon. Just curious if anybody else has gone down this road.

[jd1923]

There is a local company that advertises there whole house water filtration systems. They state emphatically that RO systems remove the minerals that are important to our health, that you ant filtration of "chlorine, fluoride, lead, etc," but do not want to remove minerals that are already depleted from our soils in the foods we eat. Blah, the blah, blah, blah!

We bring bottled drinking water and would not want our FWT to be filled with RO waste water nor RV antifreeze... We want to shower in relatively clean water!🤣

[Galileo]

10 minutes ago, jd1923 said:

We bring bottled drinking water and would not want our FWT to be filled with RO waste water nor RV antifreeze... We want to shower in relatively clean water!🤣

We’ve been using bottled water as well - but it’s frightening how many bottles you can go through. 

I bought a stand-alone R/O system to refill liter size water bottles. At least that way, I could claim a little of that “saving the planet” karma. 

Yes, R/O does pretty much remove everything from your water (not PFAS perhaps…) but I figure there’s more potentially bad stuff in water these days than good stuff anyway. 

As for R/O “waste” water - if you shower in campground “city” water, or local water that you fill your FWT with, then R/O waste water likely only has 20-25% more “bad” stuff than the water you’d normally be bathing or dishwashing with. (Figuring 4 gallons for every gallon of R/O water produced.)

[jd1923]

8 hours ago, Galileo said:

I’d likely set it up so it only filters water while hooked up to city water...

Another point to be made re this comment, but btw for or against, I love the dialogue and thank you for being a fresh face in our wonderful OTT Forum!

From a recent post, from what I could tell, I'm not alone in that many of us use the FWT and internal water pump vs. using the City Water inlet which can vary in pressure and have other issues. I prefer when we arrive at a campsite that we have power and water and do not need "hook-ups!"

We use a two-stage filter like this, but I made one myself using their parts and filters, but way cheaper than buying the complete system: https://www.clearsourcerv.com/products/clearsource-premier-mini-rv-water-filter-system

We have good mountain water where we live but since we do not have our own well, of course the city adds chlorine and fluorides, etc. I use the City water line only sometimes to fill the HWH and prime the plumbing and leave home with 30 gallons filtered in the FWT, 6 more in the HWH, 2-3 in the plumbing lines and yet another 35 gallons in the TV bed and we're ready to go for near 10 days!

Yeah, I drink hundreds of bottles of water, day in and out, whether home or away. I should get a home filtration system at least as good as the one I made for the Oliver (coming soon). Someday, but in the meantime I would not vote for banning plastic straws or anything equally crazy!

When we visit friends, I hope they offer us a simple plastic bottled water vs. what comes out of their tap or even worse, their tap water with refrigerator made ice cubes, yuck! To be certain, this will not cool my Texas Vodka nor Kentucky Bourbon! 🤣

[Mike and Carol]

We have an RO system at home for drinking water.  We get electrolyte drops to add to put back some of the minerals lost through RO.  We try to drink out of stainless steel or ceramic with the new warnings about microplastics.  Micro and nanoplastics seem to be everywhere and have been found to contribute to artery clogs, brain issues and other bad things.  I checked with Berkey and was told their regular black filters should remove most microplastics, but they haven’t tested for that.  Their new ceramic filter is advertised to remove microplastics.  We’ll replace our black filters with the new ceramic filters when the time comes.  Mike

[Galileo]

12 hours ago, jd1923 said:

From a recent post, from what I could tell, I'm not alone in that many of us use the FWT and internal water pump vs. using the City Water inlet which can vary in pressure and have other issues. I prefer when we arrive at a campsite that we have power and water and do not need "hook-ups!"

I guess I’m in the other camp - using the FWT only when I can’t get a water hook-up. 

Downside, of course, is unless you’ve done research, you don’t know what you’re gonna get out of that campground tap. 

I always travel with all tanks empty. Primarily for the weight savings. That way, I can feel better about my cast iron cookware and my wife’s skin care products…..

If we camp at an “electric only” site, there’s always been a potable water tap on the CG someplace. So I’ll stop on the way in and put in maybe 25% in the FWT. Once I had to stretch 200’ of hose to fill after I forgot to tank up. 

I carry a collapsible 5 gallon potable water “tank” that I -could- use to tote water if I had to. I’ve found ways to avoid carrying 40# of water though.

[Galileo]

12 hours ago, jd1923 said:

I love the dialogue and thank you for being a fresh face in our wonderful OTT Forum!

Thanks!

I’ll try to keep the wild(er) conspiracy theories to a minimum. 

Since I’ve sworn off Facebook, quit using LinkedIn, never tweeted in my life, and don’t know nuthin’  ‘bout Tik-Tok, Instagram, or Etsy - this is pretty much my only “social media”.

[Galileo]

13 hours ago, jd1923 said:

Yeah, I drink hundreds of bottles of water, day in and out, whether home or away.

THIS is why I feel the need for R/O in the Oliver.

Wife and I TRY to drink more water (except in Italy or France of course - where wine is less expensive…) and I was literally alarmed as I saw we were going through a 24 bottle case of water every day or two. The gallon jugs cost more than the equivalent number of 16.9 oz bottles, and the 2.5 gallon jugs are even higher - and still add to the plastic in the ocean or landfill.

I had this issue licked last season with my portable (no tank) R/O system. I’d fill 8 1-liter recycled plastic bottles and fill our totable water bottles or coffee maker from those. Unfortunately, I seem to have left my R/O system (and my pressure regulator) in storage in Texas. So we’ve been pretty bad for the environment lately. 😥

[Felix]

Galileo, maybe I'm wrong and trust me, it wouldn't be the first lol. My question is, you're looking for a filtration system, not an RO system, right? To me an RO system takes sea water and makes it into drinking water. Maybe there's different types?

 

Just watched a YouTube video about it. wow, that is an awesome idea. Definitely will follow and consider after awhile. Learn something everyday!

Edited yesterday at 01:53 PM by Felix
new info

[Galileo]

9 hours ago, Felix said:

Galileo, maybe I'm wrong and trust me, it wouldn't be the first lol. My question is, you're looking for a filtration system, not an RO system, right? To me an RO system takes sea water and makes it into drinking water. Maybe there's different types?

 

Just watched a YouTube video about it. wow, that is an awesome idea. Definitely will follow and consider after awhile. Learn something everyday!

While a marine “watermaker” certainly IS an R/O system, it’s more of a specialized system for making drinking water out of sea water. They’re quite expensive and overkill for most of our purposes. (We also have a sailboat and briefly considered a watermaker.)

I just like bottled-water quality without the waste of all those plastic bottles going into the waste stream (then into the ocean, landfill, or into our bodies via microplastics) a conventional R/O system as one would install under their sink at home can be had for $150 or so these days. 

Conventional water filters (like Camco sells) are basically for particulates and maybe taste via a carbon filter. They won’t remove dissolved stuff in the water. 

These days, with industrial waste in the ground and agricultural runoff, you really have no idea what’s in your water supply and I prefer to ingest as little of the unknown chemicals as possible.

[MAX Burner]

On 3/2/2025 at 12:41 PM, Galileo said:

Of course, the main problem to solve is “where to put the tank?”. The filters are pretty easy to find a home for. It looks like there might be enough room in the curb side basement - and it’s close to the water valves and pump.

I’d likely set it up so it only filters water while hooked up to city water, and delivers it to an auxiliary faucet near the galley sink. Maybe even feed an instant hot water thingy for tea or instant beverages as well. 

If the “wastefulness” of an R/O system is a concern, that “waste” water could even be diverted to the main fresh water tank - where it could be used for toilet flushing and handwashing. 

Any others have thoughts?

 

On 3/3/2025 at 7:09 AM, Mike and Carol said:

We’ll replace our black filters with the new ceramic filters when the time comes.

All excellent points here.  

We used to have an RO system at our old house, primarily to eliminate the 0.010ppm arsenic that our shared well had.  Larger RVs can easily rig an RO system because they've got the real estate available, the OTT, IMO, just doesn't have the available space.  

We run like @Mike and Carol with a Travel Berkey and as Mike mentioned, we too will switch the activated charcoal filters over to the ceramic filters once they've been exhausted.

[Galileo]

7 minutes ago, MAX Burner said:

We run like @Mike and Carol with a Travel Berkey and as Mike mentioned, we too will switch the activated charcoal filters over to the ceramic filters once they've been exhausted.

I know Berkey has a long history and a loyal following, but I’d wager dollars to doughnuts that it doesn’t (can’t) remove the stuff from your water that R/O can. 

There’s actually an awful lot of wasted space under the dinette seats. I know someone on here made up drop-in bins that fit under said access panels to store stuff. I’ve already got some lightweight items stashed under there.  (“Not a storage area” be damned! 😋)

Of course, something bulkier, heavier - and potentially -wet- requires considerable more care in siting, securing, and leak-proofing to avoid causing problems. I like to keep plumbing runs short, so I’ll be carefully scrutinizing the areas on the curb side of the trailer. 

Most home R/O systems come with a tank that holds 3-4 gallons. That IS too big to find a home for, so I’ll likely have to source one that holds 1 or 2 gallons at most. 

R/O systems are also all but impossible to  winterize, so that may be another reason this never sees the light of day. 

Anyway, these are projects for when I get bored. So they may end up on that great to-do list in the sky. 

[Mike and Carol]

1 hour ago, Galileo said:

I know Berkey has a long history and a loyal following, but I’d wager dollars to doughnuts that it doesn’t (can’t) remove the stuff from your water that R/O can. 

I’m certainly not suggesting that the Berkey does what an RO system does.  We have had an RO system for 20 years that supplies drinking water and water for both of our fridges with ice makers (we’re actually on the second system, we wore the first one out).  The RO removes everything, which is why we add back electrolytes to our glasses of water during the day.  For camping, the Berkey has been effective.  It gets top ratings by the EWG.  I asked them about microplastic removal and they said their carbon filters remove some but that their new ceramic filters remove most/all micro and nanoplastics.  Plastics is becoming a major health issue, they’re finding them in our arteries, artery blockages, brains, organs, etc.  I applaud anyone who engineers a good RO install in their Oliver.  I’m not that smart or talented so we’ll just roll with our Berkey.  Mike