Drinking water

[Neil]

From what I'm reading, people don't use their freshwater tank for drinking water. 1) how come? We have a 97 28'TE were the plastics not reliably food safe in 97? How many of you use the tank for drinking versus not?
2) if any of you are using it, what is your yearly cleaning protocal?
Thanks for any opinions!
Neil

[Jeremyvmd]

I haven't owned my albin long enough to have a cleaning protocol for it or knowing if ill be drinking the water, however my dad has owned a Whaler with a cabin since new in 92. we never had any issues with drinking the fresh water on that boat. At the beginning of the year the boat had the system flushed 3x with clean potable water. Until there was no trace of the pink stuff (its non toxic and "flavorless" but its creepy, lol). Then the tank was filled and a commercial water purification tablet dropped in. That was allowed to sit for 24 hours then run through all the pipes. Then it was refilled a new water purification tablet dropped in and sniff tested. If it smelled and tasted ok we ran with it. every time the tank was filled and wasn't being emptied immediately we use the tablets (they help prevent alge formation, etc) if running off shore water we didn't bother until we disconnected then the tablets were dropped in. Once a year (usually at the end of the year) we would flush out the system then use a RV water system cleaner/deoterizer and then fill the system with the pink stuff.

edit - one important thing...his boat is cold water only - it had no water heater so it was much easier and quicker to do the above - not sure how long it would take on m 28

[drbob]

We use the Camco TastePURE Water Filter to filter the water going into the tank. You can get them at Wal-Mart for $17 or so dollars.

We started doing this when we had our big DeFever doing the Great Loop and what a big difference that made in the clarity and taste of the water.

For a new or used tank that has not had the water cleaned before going in, it may take three to five tank refills to get it clean enough to drink. That means running the tank dry and then refill. The trick is to never put unfiltered water in the tank and never use a hose that's not approved for drinking water.

Bob DeGroot
2005 Albin 28 TE
Cape Coral, FL

[Neil]

This is good info , thank you both for your opinions it helps this newbie make more informed decisions!

[johnmurray]

We don't drink the water from our freshwater tank because we fill the tank at various places and we are never sure how good that water is. We carry bottled water for drinking (including making tea and coffee) and rely on the fresh water tank for all other uses.
Each spring we flush out the fresh water system a couple of times to get rid of the anti-freeze, and then on the final filling we add a cup of bleach.

[sweetwater]

We installed an inspection plate on top of the tank(2005) and clean it well once per year. I have a filter on the faucets and drink the water all the time.

[whwells]

We do drink water from the tanks. However, we do have a pure filter system. Probably would not drink the water directly from the tank, although we did in our former motorhome days. We did flush the system and clean annually.
whwells "Howard"

[Neil]

I'm installing an 8" clean out on the tank as you folks recommended. We drained it dry for the winter and added antifreeze to the pipes only. I like the idea of a filter under the sink but will give this season a shot as is before making any changes. Thanks for the opinions!

[catalina_mike]

On our regal we had a uv filter on the pump so everything got sanitized.. On our 28 TE we just use bottled water and forget about all the frills. There is simply not enough room for me to get fancy IMO. A case of water fits under the flip down bolster at the helm nicely.

[Mntry_Goodson]

State side, we have always used the water tank without issue. A little clorine bleach added to a tap fill up and then fully pumped out is sufficient to clean the tank.

In Mexico, all the port water was suspect. What we did without issue was run our drinking water in the fresh water tank through the hot water heater and let it cool in one gallon plastic water jugs. Our water heater takes the water to nearly boiling and apparently killed anything bad as we had no issues on a couple of long range trips.