Our Fresh Water Tank

Our first weeks on board we used a leaky 5 gallon jug for all our kitchen/galley water uses, washing dishes and cooking. When my hubby bought the new water pump and wired it up, we had running water in our galley and head, oh what a glorious day that was.

Now I had to research and purchase a water filtration system that will take us into the future, sustainably. So I got a basic 10 inch filter to attach after the tank (easily replaceable filters) it will remove most of the chemicals and a 3m whole boat filtration system for drinking water it will remove chemicals and microbes. 

We currently have a aluminum water tank and its got white oxidation stuff on the bottom and outside of it. We are Leary of this tank and do not cook or drink from it. We are worried about the corrosion causing holes and for the tank to leak. Eventually this tank will need to be replaced. We just are not sure if we do it soon and replace all the hoses and install the water filtration, or wait until later. Probably, we will have to bite the bullet and replace it sooner than later. We've been looking at replacing it with the PVC tanks, which cost about $500, a spendy and time consuming replacement (aren't they all!).

For now, we'll keep filling up the current tank and lug in drinking water. Below is a picture of how we fill up the tank, we don't have a filling hole on deck to use, so we bring a water hose down to tank under our stair hatch. No big deal, it's easy to do, and the deck hole will come in time, once we get the new tank. Sometimes I get to close and it runs over or the hose gets stuck and sprays everywhere, well when things get wet it just gives me the opportunity to clean the area. 

We are also learning our water usage, on heavy use weeks we fill it up every 4 days on low water usage weeks we fill it up every 7 days. This will be important in our future to know how much water we use, and to conserve appropriately. The hard part is retraining our brains and teaching our son to not let the water run.