VAN FEATURES - Water & Plumbing 2.0
After more than two years on the road, we’ve decided it’s time to upgrade our water tank and plumbing. While there was nothing really wrong with the previous system, an existing back injury was making it difficult to carry the full water tanks around and fill the front tank.
So with the new water setup, we go from using a footswitch to activate the pump (which then pumps water through the filters to the tap) to a system where the pump builds up pressure in the system, then when the tap is turned on the water comes out and the pressure drops in the system which triggers the pump to turn on automatically, similar to most house setups, but with a pump instead of mains water feed.
old system vs new system comparison
| Old System | New System |
|---|---|
| Press foot switch to get water | Turn on tap to get water |
| Water comes out slowly and the flow can't be adjusted | Water flow can be adjusted at the tap |
| All water flows through the filters | We can choose to use filtered or non-filtered water |
| 130L capacity | 140L capacity |
| Had to fill multiple tanks seperately | One filling point to fill both tanks |
| Had to carry heavy tanks from the back to the front of van | No need to move tanks |
| Had to lift greywater tank out of van to empty | Open valve to empty greywater tank |
| Noisy pump | Quieter pump |
| Not better | Better |
Tanks
Not going to lie, finding the right tanks was a LOT harder than we thought it would be. After hours of scouring the web searching for a cost-effective water tank that was a) food grade and b) wasn’t an odd, space-wasting shape, we decided to settle for 2x Fiamma Tank70 70lt water tanks. We got a great deal on the tanks online through a camping store in QLD. This would, in theory, give us a total of 140lts of freshwater. The next challenge was going to be how to install and link the two tanks together.
Even after all our research, the tanks weren't quite the right dimensions to fit anywhere out of the way in the main living area, so we decided to install them in our "garage" area under the bed.
Ideally, for weight distribution, the tanks would lay flat on the floor side-by-side. But this took up a bit too much room and left a large area above the tanks basically unusable without risking damage to the tanks inlets. So that wasn’t going to work.
The next best layout would be on top of each other in the centre, but alas! Not only did this block access to the electrical cabinet (which, granted, we don't really need to get to very often) but it also left an empty area behind our new freezer that would be rather difficult to use for storage. And as any vandweller will tell you, every square inch of storage counts.
So short on options, we eventually decided to install the tanks on top of each other, hard up against the wall behind our new freezer.
To join the two tanks together we ended up using some clear food grade PVC hose and a few tank fittings. This allows water to flow down from the top tank to the bottom tank whilst letting air out of the bottom tank as it fills. It also doubles as an easy way to see how full the tanks are while we're filling them.
Pump
Our old, noisy, el-cheapo water pump had to go: It was so loud you could clearly hear it from inside neighbouring vans (as some of the people we’ve met on the road will attest to - sorry guys!) So out with the old and in with the new.
Our new Seaflo 43-series water pump is more than capable of what we’re asking of it and it’s a lot quieter than our old pump, thank goodness. This was super-easy to install: we simply ran a new cable from our house fusebox through a power switch (so we can turn the pump off if we ever need to), mounted the pump to the underside of our bed frame and hooked up the hose from the tank and the hose to the tap.
Hose/pipe
In the spirit of keeping costs down, we chose to stick with the old reinforced food grade garden hose. With the pump outlet pressure being 55PSI max we knew the hose would be fine as far as pressure goes. The biggest issue is running the hose from the back of the van where the tank and pump are, to the front of the van where the sink and tap live. We couldn’t quite get the hose through behind our cabinets, which meant we had run the hose underneath the floor of the van, which was great fun*. Hopefully, the decision to use hose instead of the semi-rigid pipe that so many others use won’t come back to bite us on the butt.
*NOTE: Actually not fun in any way. The opposite in fact. Very UN-fun.
Tap and Sink
The new pump was not going to work with our old style of tap, which meant we got to choose a new style of tap. Ooo la laa!
The style we went with is a 3-way tap: It has combined cold water, hot water, and filtered water outlets. Those of you who are familiar with our van will know we don’t have a built-in water heater, and after all this time we‘ve found we’re fine without one. So right now both the hot and the cold water options operate as cold water, but we have the option to connect a hot water supply later on if we wish. Now that we have a “separate” tap for our filtered water we won’t be filtering all of the water we use, and our water filter cartridges will last a lot longer before needing to be changed.
Our old sink didn’t need to be changed, so that has remained the same.
Grey Water
Now that all of our freshwater is coming from the rear tanks we don’t need both fresh and grey water tanks under the sink. We decided to convert the old 30lt freshwater tank into the new the grey water tank, giving us an extra 10lts of greywater storage. While changing the plumbing over to the new tank we also added on a valve and ran a drain hose through the van floor to outside. This way we can drain directly onto the ground or hook up a wastewater hose to the new outlet and divert water to a drain or garden bed.
No more lifting heavy grey water containers manually for us - HOORAY!
Hot Water
With our second-hand Companion AquaCube hot water system no longer working (long story short, it broke) we were considering our options to replace or fix it.
On the one hand, we rarely used the AquaCube (maybe two or three times in the last 2-years of travel) but that may have been mostly down to the fact that it was chunky as hell, was a pain to dig out from our under-bed storage and then have to set up every single time we wanted to use it. We are lazy creatures, we’re not ashamed to admit it.
On the other hand, having access to running hot water for a shower now and then made parking up in the one spot for a week or two (particularly by the beach) that much sweeter. Tricky tricky tricky…
Eventually we made a decision. Given that we’d only be using it sparingly, we didn’t want to spend too much money on repairing the old AquaCube or buying an expensive new one. So instead we jumped on trusty eBay and started looking at cheaper, more streamlined options. Something that could be stored within hands reach and took minimal effort to use. We found the Gasland Portable Gas Hot Water System and rather nervously clicked “Buy”. Fast forward a few weeks and it proudly arrived on our doorstep. We unboxed it, hooked it up in about 2 minutes, and honestly, we’re impressed! It’s very easy to use, has a heap of temperature settings, and actually has decent pressure. We still need to arrange a tap to connect it to our pump, but all in all we’re excited to road test this baby out in the wilds.
