9 Things You Must Have for “Clean Water” – RV Camping

Even the most experienced RV camping set up person may find something new and helpful from reading this post. Don’t hesitate to forward a link to someone who you feel will benefit from the information within.

Clean water items are an important part of recreational vehicle camping (RVing). Detailed in this post are nine very important things needed before you go on that RV trip. This doesn’t mean this is all you need but this is a great beginning. If there is something more you feel you should get or something better out there that you can purchase (other than what I have listed in this post), get it.

One more thing, read the instructions that come with anything you buy, before you use it.

(1) 12″ Channellock Tongue and Groove Plier

You arrive at your campsite on a Sunday night at 6:00 PM. You put your RV into it’s space. You go to hook up your water. You see that someone before you had attached a water filter directly to the spigot and left it behind, still attached.

You try to remove it, but the threads won’t budge. You don’t want to use that water filter because it isn’t safe to do so (who knows what might be inside that filter). There isn’t a camp host to be seen anywhere. Now what?

You go to your tool box and grab your 12″ Channellock Tongue and Grove Plier, clamp down on the water filters attachment collar and twist. It easily unthreads for you now. After you are all done with your RV set up, go throw that troublesome water filter into the dumpster.

Don’t forget to put your trusty Channellock plier back in that toolbox (you never know when you might need it again).

(2) Y-Shaped Brass Water Spigot Splitter

When you go to connect to that water spigot, you will notice it only has one source for water out. You need to connect 2 hoses though, (your drinking quality clean water hose and your expandable hose for spraying down dirty items).

You can read about the expandable hose in my next post, coming on Tuesday, 7/12/22.

Right now, you need a Y shaped brass splitter for the spigot with on and off switches.

The on and off switches make it so easy to use one hose, then the other, without having to disconnect one hose then reconnect the other when you want to spray something dirty, down.

(3) 2 Fresh Water Filters

Most campsites you will visit are many years old. The same goes for their water spigots and the piping that the water flows out of.

It is important that you provide your RV with water that has been passed through a water filter before it goes into your drinking quality fresh water hose and eventually, your RV inside faucets. Note that the picture is also showing a flexible hose protector for the water-in port on your RV. You can read more about that when you get to number (5) in this post.

We usually leave with 2 filters when we go camping. We might have the one from the last time we camped (that we can use at the next campsite). We also bring a new filter in case it’s time to throw old one out later.

You can connect your water filter directly to one side of your Y-splitter.

The filters have an arrow to show you that the water should flow in a specific direction through the filter. In this picture, you can see that the left side of this filter should be attached to the Y-splitter. Your drinking quality fresh water hose should be connected on the right side of this filter.

Camco provides protective caps for each end of the filter and a place where you can write the date you first started using it. They seem to think of everything to make camping simpler for you.

Later, when you start working with the black and gray water, you will hook up your expandable water hose with attached nozzle to the other side of the spigot.

(4) Drinking Quality Clean Water Hose

Not all hoses are made equal. You can not use just any hose when you are supplying water to your RV. You need to have a drinking quality clean water hose.

These hoses are made specifically for the sake of your health. Camco (a company that I trust for RV supplies), sells hoses that are made of NSF certified FWH hose. These hoses are certified to NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 for drinking water. They are lead and PBA free.

My husband recommends you purchase 2 drinking quality clean water hoses. He says make sure you take both of them with you on your RV adventures. You would not want to be on a camping trip and find out something bad happened to your only drinking quality water hose.

That is exactly what happened to us once. We went to set up at a campsite at Armitage Park Campground in Eugene, Oregon and found our hose had mold inside. We couldn’t use it.

It wasn’t easy finding a replacement that was for drinking water, of the exact length that works best for our RV. We had to go to several stores before we found the last one on the shelf. Lucky for us it wasn’t the off season too, because some stores assume people only camp in the spring and summer. They don’t restock as their RV supplies deplete. My husband and I often camp in late fall and early winter. Had it been later in the season, we may not have found a hose at all that trip.

Here are some links for you, in case you want to get yourself one or 2 of these drinking quality water hoses.

• 50 foot long, 1/2 inch internal diameter (ID)
• 50 foot long, 5/8 inch internal diameter (ID)
• 25 foot long, 5/8 inch internal diameter (ID)
• 10 foot long, 1/2 inch internal diameter (ID)
• 4 foot long, 1/2 inch internal diameter (ID)

You will hook up your drinking quality clean water hose to the open end of the filter.

(5) Flexible Hose Protector

One end of your drinking quality clean water hose is now attached to the water filter. The other end needs to be attached to the water-in port of your RV.

To prevent strain on that port and to prevent hose crimping, you need a flexible hose protector. These eliminate hose crimping and straining at your RV water connection.

(6) Extra Hose Washers

At this point, you have attach your Y-splitter to the spigot. You have attached your water filter to one side of the splitter. You have attached your drinking quality clean water hose to the open end of the water filter and the other end of that hose to the water-in port of your RV.

Lets say you have also done the next step, which is attaching the gray water spray hose and nozzle to the other side of the Y-splitter. It is time to turn on the water spigot and turn both switches on the splitter to the on position.

Even though you attached the hoses tightly, water starts spraying out from both hoses.

You turn off the water and remove the hoses. You see that both of your washers fell out of the hoses at some point.

Lucky thing that you are smart and had purchased a packet of spare hose washers, just in case something like this happened.

Just grab a couple of those spare washers you have. Install the washers. Reconnect the hoses and turn the spigot back on to verify the leaks have been stopped.

At this point in water set up, you can turn the gray water hose’s Y-splitter switch to off (until you need to spray something nasty down). You should leave the drinking quality clean water hose side in the on position.

(7) A Small Container for Clean Water Related Items

When you are performing tear down of your RV site (so you can pull out and leave), you need to store all of your small clean water related items in a small clean container. This kind of container should be marked “Clean Water”.

The items you will store in it are as follows;

• Flexible Hose Protector
• 2 Fresh Water Filters (1 may be the filter you recently used at your last campsite)
• Y-Shaped Brass Water Spigot Splitter
• Extra Washers for the Hoses

This is a container that we use.

Here is a link to a 5 gallon black and yellow storage container that might work well for you.

Note, at the time of this writing, even though this picture shows 6 containers, the link indicates you can purchase one.

(8) Storage Bag(s) for the Clean Water Hose(s)

If you have done or seen RV set up or tear down, you may have seen someone struggling with the hoses. Hoses don’t like to stay coiled up when you put them into a storage container. They can be like a snake in a basket (always trying to get out and not wanting to be coiled at all).

As my husband is the outside guy he does about 95% of the set up, tear down and troubleshooting for our RV. He has asked for a couple of things to make RV set up and tear down a little easier for him. One of those things is a set of hose storage bags.

Ristow is a vendor of RV supplies. They really thought into what makes for a good bag for the process of handling and storing heavy and often wet hoses. The bags they sell are designed to carry and store hoses and electrical lines. They come with tags to identify the item stored inside.

They are made of 600DPVC waterproof material. Each bag has 2 grab handles on the sides. They have what looks like sturdy semi-solid sides half way up from the bottom of the bag. The top half of each bag is made of a breathable mesh. The mesh allows for evaporation of excess water to prevent mold.

Guess what my husband is getting to make our next trip no much easier during set up and tear down!

(9) A Large Container for Clean Water Related Items

One of the most important things you will do while RV camping, is protecting yourself and/or friends/ family from contaminating your clean water source.

It is very important to have one or more container that is dedicated to the storage of clean water related items. This kind of container should be labeled, “Clean Water”, so you don’t accidentally put other kinds of items in it.

My husband is the outside guy. In our family, that means he primarily deals with the set up of our RV. Over time he has had various containers, but he says the best containers he has ever used are the black and yellow stackable storage containers.

These containers are the 27 gallon size. One of these would be used to put the bagged drinking quality fresh water hose(s) in.

Can You Think Of Anything Else That Is a Must Have for Clean Water, Pertaining to RV Set Up?

This is all I have to say about clean water during campsite set up and your RV at this time. If you think of something else, drop me a line and I’ll check it out.

I hope you have safe and joyful adventures when you are out and about in your RV.

If you haven’t already read them, make sure you go read my posts titled, “5 RV Camping Things You Must Have “Electrical or Electronic” and 10 RV Camping Things You Must Have for “Gray and Black Water, (Sewer)“

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