This post details how I got running water in my campervan conversion…
I did separate posts on the shower and hot water and also mounting the shurflo water pump so this post will cover the rest of the water related stuff:
- fresh water tank and filler inlet
- sink and drain
- grey waste tank
- water pump and accumulator (shown in image below)
[expand title=”Show list of materials”] This work was completed over quite a few weeks so apologies for the widely varied supplier list but hopefully it helps people who are trying to find out what all the little bits are [table id=7 /][/expand]
The water tank
The fresh tank was the first thing I put in the van and everything else was build around it, in a make it up as I go along kind of fashion. I used a common Fiamma 70 Litre fresh water tank (for on-board use) from… you guessed it, Amazon (the cheapest I found online was £58 here but most big caravan shops stock them – Magnum and O’leary).
The sink and drain
The sink/hob unit is from a donor caravan. Matt built a custom frame for it to sit on while I did the cupboard doors. I covered this in the making the kitchen cupboards post.
Grey waste tank
This tank will be used to collect drain water from the sink and shower. It’s not really essential but will be useful when parked up in cities or anywhere I’d like to remain a little inconspicuous. The tank will have to be custom made and will have an inlet (to fit 28.5mm waste pipe) and outlet consisting of a tap mounted directly on the underside of the tank for emptying. Most of the time though, I’ll probably just keep the drain tap open so the water runs through onto the floor and just close it when It is needed.
I decided 20L would be more than enough capacity to collect drain water since I’ll only be using small amounts of water at a time. I contacted Barratt tanks and emailed him over a sketch with my dimensions and rough location for inlet and outlet. He was the cheapest and most helpful person I found (I found him after a recommendation on the SMBCC forum)
The pump
I’ll be using a 30psi Shurflo trail king 7
. It seems like a great bit of kit – solid, heavy and sounds like it really knows what it’s doing. I did have some trouble with the noise at first but I solved it by hanging the pump rather than fixing it which I explain here – mounting the shurflo water pump. I fed the pump into an accumulator (Fiamma A20 from O’leary motorhomes) after some unsatisfactory bench (pulsating) tests with no accumulator. The difference is night and day and for £20 its an obvious choice to get the water running nicely.
Hopefully this give you an idea of how you get install a running water system into your campervan conversion. Please leave any questions or comments below…
