I'm planning on mostly doing boondocking.
I thought it would be as simple as getting a fresh water tank with two holes: 1 for the hose running to the spigot for filling (which then gets sealed by a cap afterwards), and 1 for a tube running to a foot pump which then runs to the faucet. But now I understand that the tank will also need a vent for changes in pressure. But a vent that's constantly open seems like it would also be constantly exposing your drinking water.
Wouldn't it be pretty important to have my week's worth of drinking water properly sealed? How can I prevent contamination if the vent is constantly open?
Thanks in advanced for your input!
You'll also need either a dedicated tank drain or a drain fitting teed into the supply hose going to your foot pump.
West Marine has a fresh water tank vent filter. I couldn't find one on Amazon.
I'm not comfortable with using the freshwater tank for drinking water.
The fresh water tank vent/overflow is important. When I bought my Scamp, I could not fill the tank without the filler tube gurgling and it was filling very slowly. After poking around, I found that the vent tube, about 1/2 inch O.D. Tygon, had a kink and was not letting the air out. After removing the kink, by detaching it from the underside of the bench seat, everything was good.
The vent tube is pretty long. It goes up from the tank and then down through the floor. I would be very surprised if there are any bugs that would crawl through almost two feet of thin tubing. If you overfill the tank once in a while, the vent gets flushed anyway. I am not worried about drinking water out of the Scamp faucet. Over a number of years, I remember only once or twice that the campground water was kind of off.
-Paul
2004 Scamp 19 Deluxe,
2021 Tacoma, Double Cab, 6 cyl. 4WD
Colorado