r-pod Nation Homepage R-Pod Travel Trailers At Jeff Couchs RV Nation
Forum Home Forum Home > Forest River r-pod > Modifications
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - Water Filtration/Purification Unit..ONBOARD R-Pod
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Events   Register Register  Login Login

Water Filtration/Purification Unit..ONBOARD R-Pod

 Post Reply Post Reply
Author
Message
VenturaTom View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie
Avatar

Joined: 10 Oct 2009
Location: Ventura, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 34
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote VenturaTom Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Water Filtration/Purification Unit..ONBOARD R-Pod
    Posted: 16 Feb 2010 at 2:29am
A common thread on a lot of RV sites I've looked at is the quality of water either put into the onboard tanks or where you got it from in the first place.  Myself, I've been less picky about it (I remember vacationing at South Carolina beaches where we'd get a glass of tap water and wait for the sand to settle out before drinking! ), but Diane is big on her water, and likes bottled or purified...and I guess that's rubbed off on me too.  So far we've taken large 2.5 gallon purified water bottles with us but that gets real old and fast.  At home, I put in a reverse osmosis purification unit made by Watts Premier and have been very happy with it.   Now if only I could get that into the 177.....

Well, Watts makes such a unit and even better yet, it's sold by Costco at a really great price and includes extra filters, enough for a year of household use.  If you've thought about these units, there are a few drawbacks.  RO units usually have 3-10 gallon reservoir tanks, and take not only time to fill (and refill) but also need continuous water flow and pressure to work.  Ok for your house, not good in the Pod.

I found that Watts makes a unit, the UF-3 model 3 Stage Ultra Filtration system that promises near RO quality taste and purification WITHOUT the tank or need for water flow UNTIL you use it.  This unit also promises excellent performance at lower water pressures, as low as 20 psig, much lower than most households, and well within the performance of the R-Pod pump which I think is about 35-40 psig.   The water filtration specs are available in the installation .pdf which you can get from either site I'll put at the end of this piece, but they are pretty impressive!  Pretty much 99% of the crud in water should be removed by this unit!  The unit is also supposed to remove chlorine from water too, if that works a nice feature.  The .pdf from the websites have nicely detailed water flow schematics etc. and more install info.  Geek

Well, I got it, and put it in, and here's how:

First, here's the sink unit in the 177,  remember its center located in the 177 in the pop-out on this unit:




Here is the complete filtration unit from Watts.  It has 3 filters and measures about 15" tall, maybe 3" deep.  It uses only two water lines, one to come in, one to go to the faucet I'll show mounted later.  The first two cartridges last about 6 months, the last the actual main filtration unit about one year.  Neat thing is that they snap in and out and you don't have to shut the water off or drain anything to change them, in fact they tilt up (and out) making tight spaces easier to manage.  I'll post the link to the Costco site later, and you can find a .pdf installation/specs file there.   During installation I removed the filters to more easily mount the upper metal bracket.



Now a look under the sink, in the cabinet below. The 177 has only the top half of this cabinet available, the lower has a LOT of wiring and water hoses as well as the motor and drive unit for the pop-out!



The two panels are held in with two screws each, you can see one part way out already!  Remove the panels, and here is what you'll see:



At first I thought to use the light colored panel the the left rear to mount but the small cubby to the front left was better and easier to reach.  Although the amount of water (and weight) in minimal, this mount keeps all this more "inboard" and that just seemed a better idea to me.  

First I had to make a bracket to mount the unit with.  I used a piece of 1x6 polar board I got from Lowes home improvement store in the "handi-panel" section.  They sell shorter/smaller "project" size pieces of wood there.  The 1x6 cut down to fit between the 1x1 uprights in the cubby measured about 10" or so, and fit flush between them.  I cut a small piece of 1/4" thick poplar that also measured 6" wide (so it matched the 1x6).  I cut this panel to fit over the main board and would use this to make a kind of "saddle" to hold the whole thing in place.  I could have included measurements but you're better off measuring your unit for a more custom fit.  I clamped and glued the two together and below is what the resulting "sandwich" looked like:



Next I predrilled this panel to both mount it and then attach the filter assembly (the "dogears" on either end mount to the framing in the Pod compartment), here is what it looked like in the space under the sink:



It almost fit a tad tight, but few taps with a rubber mallet fixed that.  It was easier to pre-mount the filter bracket with filters off, mount the wooden bracket, then the metal filter bracket.  After that I snapped in the filters.  In the next picture you can see the mounted filter assembley and the two 1/4" water lines it uses.  The green goes to the water supply, the blue to the actual filtered water faucet to be mounted on top.  Fittings for these hoses are really simple to use.



The bucket in the front was for any spills from the cold water line where I disconnected it from the faucet way back other side of the sink.  I had wanted to pull the sink out (Diane was really worried about that!) but it must be glued down or something...so I gave up on that!.  You'll have to reach way back and up under the faucet to remove the cold H2O line where it goes to the faucet unit.  The Watts kit included the brass water adapters to connect with, shown below:



It's all there and all that you'd need.  The piece to the left of the pic comes off, and that is what I attached to the bottom of the faucet.  The knurled wheel in the middle left tightens onto it (after attachment to the faucet).  The green water source line goes to the valve top center and the water line connected to the right threaded section.  No other parts were needed except for some thread tape.  You could maybe hand tighten, but I did gently use a wrench...I think the faucet connection is plastic, not metal, so be careful there.  I don't have any pics of the panels replaced, but both panels can be mounted though the left hand one now will go behind the filters.  I'm contemplating what could be done with the empty space behind the sink but will let that go for now.  The next pic shows the mounted faucet.  It's a nickel color and does not match the existing unit, but while a replacement that might match could be had, I opted not to spend money on that.  During the project, Diane "modded" by adding some 3M mount control hooks for potholders and such  Smile



The unit flows great with both city connection and with the Pods own internal water tank/pump supply.  A nice feature of this faucet is that is a simple non-"air gap" unit.  This might not mean much to you, but it means it is a simpler (if more expensive to purchase) faucet to install.  You will need to drill a 1/2" hole in the counter top.  I didn't use a standard twist drill bit, but instead one that had more of a "cutter" tip, sort of like a Forstner bit.  If you do this mod, before mounting the faucet check first for the metal flanges that secure the sink and the side walls of the slide out.  The space is tight there, but more than adequate to install.  You would need to clear the existing faucet handles as well!

This should supply clear reasonably pure water for our trips.  My testing is prelim still...no leaks and water flow is even better than my home RO unit, we have yet to "field test" the unit but I think it will be just fine!  I did sneak an early taste and it seemed clear and improved over our city tap water.

All in all, I spent about $135 for the unit from Costco, expect to spend maybe $40 more at Watts, and maybe seven bucks more on wood etc, though some was scrap I had around.  Watts does have a very nice e-mail notification for filter changes and sales over the Internet.  It looks like a 1 year filter kit from Watts would run about $80 ($65 at Costco), but I think I should be able to get more than a year of use from it given that we won't use the Pod full-time!  I'll update as this project evolves when usage becomes more known.

Here is the link to Watts:


And here to Costco:

2006 Dodge Ram Mega Cab
Cummins 5.7L Turbo-Diesel
R-Pod 177 Owner

Former VW Camper then Tent/Dirt Camper
Back to Top
Larry View Drop Down
Senior Member
Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: 22 Jan 2010
Location: Fairfield, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 344
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Larry Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Feb 2010 at 7:11am

I’m planning on attaching a water filter to the sink faucet.

Back to Top
HuronSailor View Drop Down
Senior Member
Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: 10 Jun 2009
Location: Owosso MI
Status: Offline
Points: 860
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote HuronSailor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Feb 2010 at 7:35am
An excellent mod, skillfully installed and nicely explained.
.: Mark & Beth :: Silverado 5.3L :: "arrrr"Pod 172 :: My Albums :: OurPod Blog ::
Back to Top
David and Danette View Drop Down
Senior Member
Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: 31 Mar 2009
Location: Fort Myers
Status: Offline
Points: 317
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote David and Danette Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Feb 2010 at 9:11am
 Ventura Tom      I liked your post as has I already beed said great explanations of your work. We are new to camping with a trailer and using the water at some campgrounds the water taste and smells like the chemicals used in the holding tanks. I thought I had heard that some campgrounds have there own water treament facilities. I thought that maybe this would explain the chemical smell, they are unable to remove the holding tank chemicals from the treated water. A filteraton system in the camper I don"t think would be able to either, but I am sure it would help, better than no filters. We have well water at home, we are not used to the chlorine and what ever other chemicals they add to city water. I think that we were at a campgroud once that had well water that felt like home.     David and Danette
SWFL   171
2010 Jeep Liberty
Back to Top
PodPatrol View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group
Avatar

Joined: 24 Sep 2009
Status: Offline
Points: 22287
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote PodPatrol Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Feb 2010 at 9:38am
Excellent Mod Tom !!!!

Thanks for posting w/great pics and even better instructions !!

It's on our 177 List !!!!
Back to Top
VenturaTom View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie
Avatar

Joined: 10 Oct 2009
Location: Ventura, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 34
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote VenturaTom Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Apr 2010 at 8:33pm
Water filtration update:
After our recent Emma Wood State Beach trip I am happy to say that our addition of the Watts water filtration unit to our 177 works EXCELLENTLY!  The flow was just fine and worked well with pump pressure and even when the pump was off for a bit..same as the regular tap.

The taste is not up to true reverse osmosis quality, but it was better than from the tank, and in the future if we top off the tank water from locations that dont have the relatively high water quality we have at home (a bit hard for SoCal standards but decent) we have the peace of mind that this filter unit will sift out most chemicals, bugs and other nastys that might be in potable water.  The unit even takes chlorine taste out, though I can't vouch for that yet.
2006 Dodge Ram Mega Cab
Cummins 5.7L Turbo-Diesel
R-Pod 177 Owner

Former VW Camper then Tent/Dirt Camper
Back to Top
PodPatrol View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group
Avatar

Joined: 24 Sep 2009
Status: Offline
Points: 22287
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote PodPatrol Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Apr 2010 at 9:56pm
We are considering the "outside" double filter system. I plan on attaching the filter housings bracket to the Pod axle via tie-wraps in a up-right position. This will keep the filters out of direct sunlight. I just need to measure the length of hoses needed from the water source to the filters, then to the city inlet.
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply
  Share Topic   

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 11.0
Copyright ©2001-2014 Web Wiz Ltd.