Sep
07
2014
Water Pump
I've used a Jabsco water pump and accumulator to provide water pressure.
All of the pump components are held in a custom made aluminium box underneath the chassis. I just used some scrap aluminium from an old box and re-cut it to fit the new requirements.
I made a lid for this out of HDPE and welded it together.
The box is waterproof and extremely light.
To weld it, you need a hot air welder like this Leister unit.
The welding rod comes in a continuous roll and you 'push' it into the join while fanning hot air over the joint and the welding rod.
This is how the pump/accumulator fit into the box. There is a pre-filter (the thing on the left of the pump) to stop really big particles from being ingested. A small compartment in front of the accumulator will hold spare parts for the water system, like spare joiners, clips, T pieces, and so on. The whole thing sits on rubber mounts to decrease vibrations.
Filtering
There are two primary filters for water, and a 'final filter' for drinking water.
Some water is not filtered (cold water for the shower) but everything else goes through a sediment filter, then a charcoal filter.
The taps shown above are for the outside shower.
Hot Water
We have a 22L Gas/Electric hot water service, by Suburban.
The internal tubing is all all linked together by John Guest 12mm fittings. All the water lines are colour coded:
- Black: unfiltered
- Blue: filtered
- Red: hot
You can see in this picture the internal cupboard holding all the other water related stuff, with the final water filter at the top right. The 'final filter' for drinking water is a "Seagull" type unit that filters down to 1 or 2 microns which is enough to remove cryptosporidia, e-coli, salmonella, and so on.
When plugged into 240V the HWS takes about 50 minutes to get the water up to temperature, and quite a bit less than that if you use gas.
Shower
At this stage there is an outside shower, but eventually we will also have an inside shower too.
Nice to have a hot shower available for rinsing off & etc. Pressure is not super high but is very adequate.
Taps
The sink has a normal hot/cold water faucet, plus a mini spout for drinking water.
The tap is from Ikea. Good quality at a reasonable price!
Outside tap
There is also an outside tap, fully pressurised but not filtered.
To the left, there is an infra-red sensor/timer (PIR) which detects movement, and turns on 3 LED lights to 'light the way' around the truck at night. The LEDs are not very powerful (only 1W I think) but it is enough to light things sufficiently to get to/from the steps without tripping over anything. There is 2nd unit on the other side of the truck too.
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