T&T: Drinking water

[Ken Bloomfield]

Chuck,
On the subject of water treatment, your comment is good to the effect 
that water management is not a "set it and forget it" system, and the 
periodic tank cleaning may be needed is exemplary.  I would suspect that 
if you are particulate filtering the water prior to entry to the tank, 
you would have virtually nothing to clean. 

Your comment that chlorine is not used by most municipalities I think 
you will find is not correct.  I believe that you will find that nearly 
all municipal water systems use a bactericide, and that it is chlorine 
in one form or another.  Here is a clip from the website "History of 
Water Filters":

"Chlorine has now been a major part of municipal water treatment for 
nearly 100 years. About 98% of municipal water treatment facilities now 
use chlorine disinfectant as their disinfectant of choice, and about 200 
million U.S. residents receive chlorinated drinking water through their 
home faucets ...."

Granted, the old simple form of sodium hypochlorite (a.k.a. bleach) has 
changed to some other water treatment forms (i.e. chloramines) but 
essentially it is the good old chlorine that does the job.  It is true 
that chlorine is an enemy of stainless steel, and not hard to find info 
on that.  However, it must be put in the perspective of drinking water 
levels, where the effect is very minimal.   Our old 1984 Marine Trader 
has the original 400 gallon water tanks it was built with, and they are 
literally pristine inside and have never had prior filtration. 

Just one word of caution here, and that is that there really is such a 
thing as "too much of a good thing" in terms of filtration.  One of the 
most corrosive forms that water can take is the de-ionized form.  DI 
water will attack almost anything, and quite aggressively so.  I note 
from your website picture, that you are showing a "Stain-Less" water 
filter hooked up to your "Y" filler arrangement to your potable water 
tanks.  That filter does contain an ion-exchange resin bed (according to 
the mfr. website), and therefor, in the interest of potentially saving 
you a future problem, I will post the following clip from Wikipedia:

"Deionized water, however, is inherently acidic and contaminants such as 
copper, dust, stainless and carbon steel and many other common materials 
rapidly supply ions thus re-ionizing deionized water. The very lack of 
ions make deionized water unusually corrosive and one of the most 
aggressive solvents known."

What intuitively seems like it would be a good thing to do -- can be 
counterproductive.  So, again I think that if anyone is going to filter 
PRIOR to their water tanks, just use particulate filters, and steer 
clear of any charcoal (which is really quite efficient at removing 
chlorine) and more importantly ion-exchange filters.  I often see these 
latter sold to prevent "spotting" after washing a boat, and they do 
achieve this wonderfully well, as they sweep the minerals from the 
water, and normally do so via a resin-bed trap.  This is fine for 
washing, but I would advise that you don't put that water into your tanks.

All the best,
Ken Bloomfield
Tellico Lady, 50' MT- Walkaround
Maryville, TN