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Drinking cut water


RufusR

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Heard a nice little piece on Radio 4 from our home correspondent today about lock down on a narrowboat . One couple talked about installing a water filtration system that allowed them to drink canal water . I am intrigued is this for real? I can’t see me ever installing one but have heard that desalination works on lumpy water boats . So any or a secret canal water drinker and if so please tell all ? 

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My filter system would produce drinking water but I'd only be doing it in an emergency.

 

The filter :

 

* Ideal for outdoor recreation, hiking, camping, scouting, domestic and international travel and emergency preparedness...

* The MINI removes 99.99999% of all bacteria, such as salmonella, cholera and E.coli; removes 99.9999% of all protozoa, such as giardia and cryptosporidium...

* High performance filter fits in the palm of your hand, weighs 2 ounces and filters up to 100,000 gallons (30 times more than comparable filters)...

 

To which is added an inline Activated Carbon filter :

 

The Platypus GravityWorks™ Carbon Element helps remove flavours and odours and organic compunds from the filtered water. The filter element can be attached in line to the filter systems in Platypus GravityWorks models. With this compact filter element, you will enjoy the fresh drinking water from your Platypus GravityWorks filter system. The element is supplied with a short extension of the drinking tube.

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42 minutes ago, RufusR said:

Heard a nice little piece on Radio 4 from our home correspondent today about lock down on a narrowboat . One couple talked about installing a water filtration system that allowed them to drink canal water . I am intrigued is this for real? I can’t see me ever installing one but have heard that desalination works on lumpy water boats . So any or a secret canal water drinker and if so please tell all ? 

 

On here recently, a YouTube video of a couple that had started building a filtration system to filter canal water. Someone may be along to direct you to that video. 

 

NARROWBOAT LOCKDOWN 5... Water freedom!!           That's the YouTube title.

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5 hours ago, Higgs said:

 

On here recently, a YouTube video of a couple that had started building a filtration system to filter canal water. Someone may be along to direct you to that video. 

 

NARROWBOAT LOCKDOWN 5... Water freedom!!           That's the YouTube title.

 

I think I moaned about something in that thread (yes, how unlike me). I'll see if I can find it.

 

ETA: This is the thread:

 

 

 

I spoke to the person in the video regarding my concerns about reverse osmosis filters and he assured me his wasn't one. Even so, I think I'll stick to tap water filtered through the silver thingy I have.

 

 

Edited by eid
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Try the Lifesaver system (see iconlifesaver.com).  They have a range of products from filter bottles for individuals to tank-based systems for a whole village.  I have used the bottles while trekking in the wilds and can confirm that I have lived to tell the tale.

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About ten years ago we went on a Nile cruise.  A Thomas Cook boat with 50 passengers rather than the Movenpick-type floating gin palaces with 300-400 passengers.  the captain was very proud of his boat and took us on a full tour.  One of the things he showed us was his water filter setup which is when we found out we had been drinking Nile water.  He proudly told us they had never had a case of food poisoning.  the setup seemed to consist of three or four increasingly fine filters followed by a fairly hefty UV treatment.

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2 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

It seems to do no harm to the residents of Crewe and Nantwich, maybe.

TD'

When I first moved to the Nantwich area over 30 years ago and passed the treatment plant at Hurleston I joked “Hope they aren’t using water from the canal ha ha”.

 Little did I know...

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I wnt for an interview in London, it was very high power [Whitehall], I got a bit nervous toook a gulp from the gleaas of water, i nerly spat it out .... chateau thames embankment

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When we were boating in France a few years ago, on a boat lived in permanently by a French couple, I drank some water that was out of the canal. It was filtered through large, gradually finer filters and then finally passed through an ultraviolet bathed glass tube. It was fine, crystal clear  and I would not have known that it was anything other than domestic water. And, the boat's sewage in France is discharged into the canals and rivers mainly as there are very few pump out facilities despite the existence of regs that were trying to get them installed. Indeed in one port the pump out machine was installed and then on a following visit it had been removed and was chucked over a nearby wall. So, it is possible but the kit to treat the water is quite bulky and certainly the full kit wouldn't fit in the average narrowboat.

Roger

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1 hour ago, LadyG said:

I wnt for an interview in London, it was very high power [Whitehall], I got a bit nervous toook a gulp from the gleaas of water, i nerly spat it out .... chateau thames embankment

Water does indeed vary considerably, even treated water in the UK. In yorkshire at my old house its very hard, in Cornwall at my house it was so soft soap became slimey. At my present mooring its brilliant untreated water from a bore hole and is streets ahead from any of the others.

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Just now, mrsmelly said:

Water does indeed vary considerably, even treated water in the UK. In yorkshire at my old house its very hard, in Cornwall at my house it was so soft soap became slimey. At my present mooring its brilliant untreated water from a bore hole and is streets ahead from any of the others.

We have moved from Oxfordshire to Yorkshire and have found the water up here much softer than Oxfordshire but our water there didn't come out of a borehole.

Roger

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3 hours ago, bizzard said:

Guinness is brewed using water from the Grand canal in Dublin, next to which the brewery stands.

That will explain why it tastes like muck.

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4 minutes ago, Albion said:

We have moved from Oxfordshire to Yorkshire and have found the water up here much softer than Oxfordshire but our water there didn't come out of a borehole.

Roger

Ahh so yav gone oop t norff then. depends where you are as Yorkshire has many regions with differing types of water innitt. Are you somewhere posh like Harrogate or proper working class Yorkshire?

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2 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Ahh so yav gone oop t norff then. depends where you are as Yorkshire has many regions with differing types of water innitt. Are you somewhere posh like Harrogate or proper working class Yorkshire?

Skipton looking over the L&L. 
Roger

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  • 1 year later...

Has anyone had any experience with these setups? I've been following https://waterfreedom.co.uk/ online for about a year now and they seem to be doing good business amongst the liveaboard community. Not sure exactly what the installation cost is but the filters are cheap and it seems like it could be worth it, especially when cruising waterways with sparse facilities.

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Just now, frangar said:

In 30 years of living aboard and some fairly long term cruising not once have I been caught short of needing water…there’s always a tap a days cruise away at most….beer however has run low…..

Fair enough, but I can recall at least 2 times recently where I have been really stuck. Once getting iced in on the K&A and all the water points being turned off at the stop cock (we fought through 2 hours worth of ice only to have to turn round and go back with no water) and once on the River Nene where conditions meant we were stuck on a pontoon for weeks on end.

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21 minutes ago, BrumBargee said:

Has anyone had any experience with these setups? I've been following https://waterfreedom.co.uk/ online for about a year now and they seem to be doing good business amongst the liveaboard community. Not sure exactly what the installation cost is but the filters are cheap and it seems like it could be worth it, especially when cruising waterways with sparse facilities.

 

 

It will not be a cheap system and pretty power hungry and a very poor design that takes the 12v DC from your battery, convert it to 230v AC to then take it back down to 12v DC with all the attendant efficiency losses.

 

The Standard system draws about 8 Amps continuous and 16 Amps maximum at 12 Volts and the UltraMegaFlow System draws roughly double that.

 

So I'm not sure if you should work on 8a / 16a / 32 amps, whichever it is going to be a huge drain on your domestic battery bank

 

For legal and insurance reasons we can’t guarantee that the water is safe to drink. 
Where customers do want to drink the water, we recommend the addition of a medical grade 0.05 micron undersink filter.  The smallest bacteria, viruses and cysts are about 0.2 micron, so the water should in theory be free of these pathogens.  As an added precaution, we recommend the use of a ZeroWater filter jug to remove any remaining contaminants and dissolved solids that may have made it through our extensive filtration process.

 

The smallest virus's are considerably smaller than 0.2 micron.

Zika virus 45nm

T4 Bacteriophage

E-Coli

225nm

 

Coronavirus
COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2)
0.1-0.5μ

 

It doesn't  say if the filtration is 'absolute' or 'nominal'. If it really is 0.05 micron absolute** then it is going to be an extremely slow filtering. My filter is 0.1 Micron absolute and it takes around 4 minutes to filter 1 litre of water. I also do not see any activated charcoal filtering to remove 'tastes' (earthy, chemically etc).

A 0.05 micron filter is going to slow the filtration rate down considerably, will be easily blocked and create a large backpressure in the system. They quote the 'standard system' as having a flow rate (with new clean filters) of 10-12 litres per minute - I reckon with the additional 0.05 micron filter in the line it will be less than 1 litre per minute (and could be as slow as mine even tho' pumped.)

 

The cost of replacing filters is between £200 & £300 with the primary sediment filter being ~£72 per annum.

 

Apart from the initial purchase price the running costs (both electrical power and filter replacements) look to make it a very expensive option when compared to just filling a couple of extra '20 litre water carriers' if the weather forecast looks as if you may be stuck for a few days.

 

If it works for some - then thats great.

 

**

 

Assume a 'medical grade' filter will be absolute.

Absolute rating

The absolute rating, of cut-off point, of a filter refers to the diameter of the largest spherical glass particle, normally expressed in micrometers (mm), which will pass through the filter under laboratory conditions.
It represents the pore opening size of the filter medium. Filter media with an exact and consistent pore size or opening thus, theoretically at least, have an exact absolute rating.

Nominal rating

The nominal rating refers to a filter capable of cutting off a nominated minimum percentage by weight of solid particles of a specific contaminant (usually again glass beads) greater than a stated micron size, normally expressed in micrometers (mm). I.e. 90% of 10 micron.
It also represents a nominal efficiency figure, or more correctly, a degree of filtration.



 

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On 28/05/2020 at 17:46, dor said:

About ten years ago we went on a Nile cruise.  A Thomas Cook boat with 50 passengers rather than the Movenpick-type floating gin palaces with 300-400 passengers.  the captain was very proud of his boat and took us on a full tour.  One of the things he showed us was his water filter setup which is when we found out we had been drinking Nile water.  He proudly told us they had never had a case of food poisoning.  the setup seemed to consist of three or four increasingly fine filters followed by a fairly hefty UV treatment.

I went on a Nile Cruise like that.

 

The tour guide quoted us the saying...."Those who gaze upon the waters of the Nile always return... those who drink the waters of the Nile never return!"

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