RE: [A/S] Courtesy Parking / Inline Water Filtering

["Perry Joe Scudder" <perryjoe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jack,
I had always skipped the filtering of the incoming water on my trailers
until heading for Alaska. I had heard from several sources that some of the
water supplies up there could be full of rust particles and such. I
purchased a small blue filter (about 1 1/2" in Dia and 8" long) from Camping
World that goes in between the campground supply and your white hose. It
would pass a flow of 7 gallons per minute as I recall - it did not cause any
problems with flow at all. I was amazed at the "stuff" I got out of the
input end of the filter. It ranged from sand to small lizards and such. It
taught me that some kind of gross filter is needed in the lower 48 states as
well. The little blue filter turned out to have a major design flaw. You
needed to get it so tight on the input side to keep it from leaking that you
ended up cracking the connecting flange along the mold seam. I went through
4 or 5 of them (I found out they are available in RV stores and Wal-Mart)
before I decided to try some other kind of in line filter. I now have a
white (about the same size - maybe a little longer) inline filter (my first
one) from Camping World that has brass fittings on each end. It too passes
plenty of water to not restrict flow, and so far is doing the job for me.
The only problem I have with both types of inline filters as for as hookup
is the fact that there is not enough clearance between the screw on
connection point and the ground in some campsites to fit the filter into the
hose line. I purchased a short piece of good hose with a spring around it
for making short turns, and use it when there is clearance problems (the
blue filter came with a cheep version of something like this in the
package). I will always keep some type of filter like this in my incoming
hose from now on.
I also found out there is a wire screen in the female connector for the hose
on my trailer. This got plugged with stuff one time and was really
restricting my water flow to the trailer. I could not get the screen out of
the connector, so used a small kitchen brush Mary had in the trailer to
clean the coupler while it was in place. We could not believe how much water
pressure we had after that. The screen had apparently been partially plugged
when we purchased the trailer used about a year before that time. I check
and clean this screen at least on time per year now, but the inline filter
has kept it clean sense I started using one.

Joe Scudder
WBCCI 8624
34' Limited FK