Water

The water system on the outback camper trailer is as useful as a chocolate teapot!  Perhaps that’s unsurprising, given it’s designed and made in China.

It has multiple problems

• The manual pump has a very small capacity which means you exert a considerable amount of effort to extract a small volume of water
• The handle has already come off once resulting in me Sikaflexing it back into place
• The nozzle fills with dust when on the move.
• It’s impossible to establish how much water is in the 50 litre tank.

I’ve decided to remove the pump and replace it with a vertical clear length of hose which can be used as a sight gauge.

I’m going to remove the bung from the bottom of the tank and replace it with a gravity fed hose.  That proved to be not as easy as I had anticipated.  The bung had an unusual thread which resulted in me visiting variously outlets looking for suitable parts.  Eventually I managed to purchased all the required items at an air and hydraulic coupler distributor.

 

Original bung on the left.  The elbow, hose tail and food grade hose will go under the trailer with the black valve on the other end of the hose.  When I want water it will gravity feed from the bottom of the tank.  A very simple system which should mean few problems.

Unless something goes desperately wrong I won’t be drinking the water from the tank.  I take treated water in sealed containers for drinking.  The water from the tank is used for cooking, washing dishes and showering.