Water quality

George where are you at the moment,in the south west, as i am in Bunbury,

Cheers for now...William H...Bunbury...WA.

Some of the water over there is pretty crook, a carbon cartidge should remove most of the taste, but I find running a few open topped containers like jugs or large bowls and leaving it sit over night makes a big difference.

It's probably 'hard water' and full of minerals... Surely it'd be better for you than city water!!

Hi George

I don't know of any filter than will take out the taste. Usually until you make the first cup of tea you don't know just how the water will taste. We have one dedicated drinking water tank and use that for drinking if the water we pick up is horrid. It lasts us a long time, as most water we get is just normal town water supply and fine for everything including drinking. We also carry a couple of jerry cans of good drinking water in the tow vehicle for emergency supplies. If you want good water - head for Kununurra!

Motherhen

George,
I'll agree that some of the SW towns have crap tasting water but it is potable, and as such, won't cause any problems except taste.

Denmark water was particularly bad but I found that boiling it and allowing it to cool makes a big difference and you won't notice it in cooking or showers. (After we had some serious rain which replenished the town dam here, the water quality improved big time, previously the water was taken from the Denmark river and then treated as per the usual way.)

If you find it is too bad, take the easy option and consider buying plastic 10 or15 litre bottles and use them for tea,coffee,drinking and diluting whisky (if that's your choice of tipple).

The locals have acclimatised to the taste or as in my case, have solved the problem by using Mr Rudds Xmas bonus and installing a rain watertank.

(Before any health concious idealists tells me that is only for the garden because of the health risks, let me assure them that I am aware of the risks but choose to ignore them, as I have been doing for the last 40+ years.)

Hope this helps

Disco.

boil the kettle 3 or 4 times

If the taste is due to bore water, then it is more than likely due to the dissolved salts.

The problems with bore water inherantly is dissolved "salts", iron and manganese (also a dissolved mineral but can be treated easily compared to other dissolved minerals), and hardness, but the taste component usually comes from the salts.

If the taste is from the dissolved salts, then the only effective form of treatment is desalination, through either reverse-osmosis or distillation (boiling and condensing etc).

A portable RO system would help, though these aren't that cheap. Boiling the water and condensing the steam (AKA Malcom Doulgas style) would also work.

Hope that helps.

Andrew

ay thanks to everyone for your suggestions/replies. It seem that we could try the 1 micron carbon filter, failing that, carry a seperate drinking water only supply in a plastic jerry can. Any other filtration system is going to be too expensive, I think. Cheers

Carbon Filters ain't carbon filters and oils ain't oils. LOL

I have lived with different bores throughout the NT and the only solution is a superfine filter. they come in ratings of microns. The jobby you want is a 0.05 which is abig difference to the standard fine filter of 0.5 filter.

0.05 will remove lot's of the taste and odour - not all but a big difference none the less. The only problem is the do require a bit more pressure. Nothing ridiulous and you should be fine but to cover my a$$ it would be sensible to check what you have and what it will need.

The big advantage of the 0.05 is that it will remove 99.9% of bacterias and cysts etc etc

regards,

Sam.

Here in Adelaide we have enjoyed cod ordinary water (and worse) since settlement it would seem. But on our 11 week trip around WA last year it was hoot to see all the orange stains on buildings, road signs, kerbing and anything that ever gets watered splashed on regularly - even right up the coast around Shark Bay and beyond - talk about minerals - maybe that water could be refined for $$ :-o).......... as for drinking...... we just take 120L of rainwater when we leave home (camper's belly tank), top it up with the best water we can find as we go and pray that it will see us out..... I try and remember in each town camp to top up continually .....that way, we always seem to have enough decent water in those Bremer type towns.... oh .... and we use one of the Brita jugs with the disposable cartridges.

Use a carbon cartridge.
I use a .5 micron aqua pure at home
and for travel .2micron ceramic/carbon
that takes out all crappy flavours,may need a pre filter if water is dodgy quality,but town water wont have too much in the free
bacteria area,so should be ok.