Clean Water

We filled all our tanks at Boulia with bore water. No smell and tastes fine. The locals have been raised on it. I can understand the concern for bore water, but when there is nothing else, what can you do.
Chris.

The problem may be that your taste buds are so used to chemically added and treated "city" water that your palate has to adjust to the (mostly) beautiful bore water. For example the bore water in Winton smells like rotten eggs(sulphur) when used in the shower or poured out of the tap, but sit it in a jug in the fridge overnight and it is the "nectar of all nectars". Marie and I have lived for weeks at a time on various properties in the eastern states and in only 3 properties out of 40 have we found the bore water "less than adequate". In that case I used the filtration system installed by BT. Additionally, every time I fill the tanks I run the water through one of those single water filter units and put a carbon filter in it that removes taste objections.
Len

We only filter water that is for drinking. The other three tanks have never had filtered water. They are only used for shower, washing hands and washing dishes. We have filled them out of creeks, bores, lakes and dams.

The drinking water tank must always contain potable water. We look for rainwater tanks because that is the water we have had all our lives. If it has any "taste" eg dusty or musty, then we'll filter it before it goes into the tank. If we have to use town water for our drinking water tank, we filter it before it goes into the tank, to get rid of the chlorine and fluoride tastes.

On the last day before returning home we empty all tanks, then put 2 tablespoons of sodium metabisulphate in 4 litres of water in each tank. This is thoroughly swished around the tanks and pipes as we drive along.

Just before arriving home, I'll park the van on a steep side slope, drivers side down, so I can drain the tanks before the van goes into storage.....with very clean tanks.

Cheers.....Rob

You can buy the sodium-met at the home brew section in your supermarket (about $4).

Folks,
thanks for the information from all who responded to our post re Clean Water.

We have elected to load some filtered bore water from Julia Creek. We did a 24 hour test on the water and detected no"rust" component or colour and almost no odour so we are reasonably confident that we will not contaminate our non-potable tanks.

cheers


Searenity

"We started with nothing and still have most of it left"

I would like to add a post script which has little to do with the discussion at hand, BUT, having worked in the Julia Creek/ Cloncurry areas for quite a few years it was a known fact that you could tell the children brought up on Julia Creek bore water by the little black spots in the centres of all their teeth! However that is long term usage and nothing to be concerned about. Something in the water apparently!
Len

We were concerned at where to top up last year, and we pleasantly surprised to find the water at Boulia excellent. We do not put water into our tanks unless it pass the the 'cup of tea test', just using direct from buckets if it doesn't, thus saving what is in the tanks for drinking (and cooking if the local water is that bad).

Motherhen