Without trying to beat a dead horse on this thread, I think the main point
is that
you need to know your equipment and it's limitations and deal with your
individual
situations case by case.   If you don't trust the tank to be used for
drinking water
or at all then you're carring around an large empty piece of plastic that is
taking
up valuable real estate in your already confined space.

It has already been stated several methods of maintaining this piece of
plastic for
reasonably acceptable drinking, washing & hygene water.     I think most of
the
list can gleen (if necessary) what they need to know and how to proceed if
they
want or don't want to use the water storage tank....

But if you're going to rely on bottled water... well, I think David covered
that
pretty well....

Steven
91 Westy

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 9:47 AM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net> wrote:

> At 01:26 AM 5/18/2011, neil n wrote:
>
>> least a few times. That said, if I'm low on drinking water, tank water
>> is boiled for coffee or tea. Otherwise, it's for dishes and brushing
>> teeth.
>>
>
> Why?  The Westy water tank is a big polyethylene bottle.  You buy
> milk in the supermarket in a big polyethylene bottle (you buy little
> bottles of water in PETE bottles that aren't nearly so chemically
>  benign, according to stuff I've heard on PBS lately).  It uses
> food-grade hoses to the faucet.  It's nicely sealed up.  Sanitize it
> occasionally, put clean water in it, it will stay clean for a long time.
>
> If you want a shock, have some cultures taken of the Westy water
> system, and similar cultures taken of your portable water bottle
> after you've been drinking from it all day.
>
> Yours,
> David
>