Trailer update: We have water

8/16/2017

That wonderful life-giving substance that is the bane of every homeowner's existence. Water gives, and it destroys. As such, we gave a lot of thought to how we would get water into the tank (that we installed in a previous episode), and how we would get it back out, as well as how we would assure that it won't destroy the trailer around it. There was a lot to consider. What materials would we use? Where would the plumbing go? How do we want to fill it, exactly? Do we want to rely on purification tablets? Would it store drinking water, or will we keep that elsewhere?

What we came up with is a solution that we're really happy with. And frankly, we're pretty pumped (haha!) to get to use it. In the near future, our use will mostly be relatively local state parks where potable water is easily accessible. However, we intend to eventually pull the trailer with us to some very remote areas where it's not. The trailer is quite small, so we were reluctant to give up storage space for drinking water. We imagined a scenario where we need drinking water and the only nearby source is a pond. We designed the plumbing in the trailer to work for us in this situation. Here's how.

We sourced a coarse sediment filter that is designed to be used inline with a garden hose. And we also picked up a pretty compact 50ft collapsible garden hose. We put the two together, and drop the filter into our dirty water source. Connect the other end to the inlet fitting on the trailer.

The filter and hose!

The fictional pond is shown as grass here.

Next, we turn on our water pump in "suction" mode. This draws the water up through the hose and filter. Once it meets the trailer, it is passed through a much finer charcoal filter. The water goes through a maze of PEX plumbing to the pump and is then pushed into the tank. Bear in mind, it's rather difficult to photograph it all in one shot from the floor looking up.

The charcoal filter is critical for remote fill-ups.

There was concern about suction capacity but the pump works perfectly.

Water tank connections.

Once the tank is full, the pump is turned off. We put the hose and filter away. Two three-way valves are switched, and the pump can be turned back on to build pressure in the supply lines. The pump is now in "normal" mode, and the sink and shower can be used as normal. Water will be drawn out of the tank, through the pump, and sent out to each point of use.
Here are some images of what it all looks like.