Drinking water and sullage hoses

We're off on a year's trip in May so took our Coromal caravan on a 4-day trial over Easter. All went fine except for the morning cup of tea. Yuk !

OK we'd done as others had done and used the garden hose to connect up the water supply. This is a no no. We've now purchased a 20m (x12mm) length of light blue "Drinking water hose" made by Neta, which complies with AS/NZS 4020 for drinking water use. Bunnings and others stock it. It comes without end connectors. As others have observed it is more difficult to coil than the garden hose type. We've put brass female connectors at each end.

Hint number 1... if you dip the hose end in warm water for 30 seconds it makes it much easier to do the one-off original fitting of the brass connectors.

Hint number 2..... 20m is too long for most use, so we've cut it into 2 lengths of 7m and 13m respectively and fitted 2 more brass female connectors an purchased a brass male-male joiner. You now have a choice of 7m, 13m, or connect them both together for 20m.

Hint number 3.... When purchasing the brass connectors you can get a pack of 2 females + one male tap connector all together for less than the price of buying the separately.

Problem 2 was the black sullage hose. It's quite important to have the type that may be ribbed on the outside but needs to be smooth on the inside; otherwise food will stick in the ridges and smell. Our friend who is an expert told us this, which we did, and also told us that 7 metres would be sufficient. Wrong! At our trial site the sullage drain was 10m away from the van. We've now purchased a further 7m length with a rubber push-on connector so we can extend if required.

Hope this helps.