How Can You Upgrade Your RV’s Water System?

Upgrading your RV is part of the fun of ownership. From cosmetic upgrades to functional upgrades, nearly every part of the RV is upgradable, including the water system. There are many upgrades that can be done to your RV’s water system for improved function  and comfort. 

The first few upgrades happen outside the RV. In fact,  some  of the most important upgrades  happen at the campground faucet. Regulating the water pressure supplied by campgrounds is very important, because there are components on the RV that can become damaged by too much water pressure.

And since  the water pressure at campgrounds can vary greatly, having a dedicated water regulator is an excellent way to upgrade your water system and protect the water systems in your RV.

Having a dedicated hose to supply potable water to the RV can also be considered an upgrade.

There are drinking water-specific hoses designed for this purpose, either labeled or color-coded to keep you from confusing them  with other water supply hose like those used for rinsing the sewer discharge.

Keeping an electric-powered heated hose for cold weather camping can be another great upgrade to your RV if you use your RV in later fall or winter months. These hoses are wrapped in insulation with a heating element to keep the hose from freezing when temperatures drop below freezing. 

Now we turn to the RV itself. Before connecting the new hose to RV, the next upgrade for your RV is a water filter system. These can range from simple in-line water filters, to three-stage electrically-driven filters, all the way up to full reverse-osmosis water filtration systems.

These filters can improve the taste of your water and keep unwanted things out of the water. A word of caution about reverse osmosis systems: as part of the filtration process, RO systems create lots of wastewater that will need to be either stored in the gray water holding tank or allowed to flow into the sewer port at a full hookup campsite. If boondocking or dry camping is your preferred way to camp, a reverse osmosis system is probably not the upgrade for you. However, if you camp mostly or exclusively at full hookup campgrounds then an RO system may be an excellent upgrade to your RV’s water system.

Water softeners can also be installed on RVs as an upgrade. In conjunction with filtration systems, these can help to improve the overall quality of the water by removing minerals such as calcium deposits. Water softeners will not work  when you are dry camping because they  require pressurized water from a source other than the freshwater holding tank and onboard water pump. 

By the way – if you are dry camping or boondocking, you should consider freshwater tank sanitation as less of an upgrade and more of a maintenance item.

Whether you use  bleach or a chemical like Purogene, you should sanitize your freshwater tank and water lines about once a year. 

Inside the RV, there are a few things that can be done to upgrade your water systems. The easiest and most cost effective way to upgrade your RV’s water system is to install strainer screens at each of the sink(s) and over the shower drain(s) to block unwanted debris from entering the gray water holding tank and  sticking on sensor heads, causing them to misread.

Saving water is especially important if  you are more inclined to dry camp. There are several helpful steps you can take. First, keep buckets or wash basins in the sinks and showers to collect water that can be used to flush the toilet(s). Next, add an accumulator tank to the RV water system. This will keep water pressure up while operating the onboard water pump as well as keep the pump from overheating. Low flow shower heads are another good solution for saving water.

If you’d like to extend the time you can boondock, make sure to invest in some black water auxiliary totes, so you don’t have to break down camp and dump as often. You would also benefit from auxiliary freshwater holding totes, which will increase your fresh water supply and your time in the great outdoors.

If you prefer full hook-up camping, one of the best ways to upgrade your water system is to place a P- trap in your sewer discharge hose along with a sewer hose support.

As long as there is some water in the P-trap, it will act as a vapor barrier that will help keep foul odors out of your RV.

Another helpful tip is to add one or two clear fittings to your sewer discharge pipe. This way you can keep an eye on what is flowing out of the black and gray water holding tanks and also  be able to tell when either one has been fully emptied.

If you are staying at a campground where the  sewer port is farther away from your RV than you expected, or is uphill from your campsite, then a macerator pump that attaches to the RV waste manifold is another upgrade option that will serve you well.

These typically run off 12V DC, and they have the ability to break down the waste coming from the black and gray water tanks so that it can be pumped a much farther distance or uphill. 

Other upgrades can save water and even alleviate odors. These include installing a tankless water heater, which will help you save water  because it allows water to be delivered hot nearly immediately instead of requiring you to run water at a fixture until it is finally warm or hot.

This benefits both your freshwater tank and your gray water tank because you will use much less water each time you run it. However, this upgrade can be expensive and it requires knowledge of electrical, propane gas,  and freshwater plumbing. So if you would like to keep things simpler and stick with the standard tank-style water heater that came with your RV, there are still upgrade options available. For example, many RVs come with a magnesium anode rod that attracts hard water minerals and bacteria rather than allowing these substances to eat away at the tank.

Unfortunately, the magnesium can contribute to a sulfur or rotten egg smell when you run hot or warm water. To avoid these odors, you can upgrade to an aluminum/zinc rod that will continue to protect the water heater tank. Many original equipment water heaters only use propane. You can  upgrade to an electric-powered heater that will have the ability to heat the water with either propane or with shore power, which can be a much cheaper heat source than propane.

Water heater bypass kits can also be a helpful way to upgrade your RVs water system. (These are sometimes installed at the factory, so it is a good idea to check if your RV has a bypass kit before ordering one.)

A bypass kit bypasses the water heater tank or tankless heating coil when you winterize your RV before putting it into storage. This will allow you to pump the pink RV-specific antifreeze into the hot water supply lines without needing to fill the hot water tank or the heating coil.

Similarly, some RVs include a winterization kit that allows the water pump to pull directly from a gallon bottle of pink antifreeze. But in other RVs this is considered more of an upgrade and will need to be purchased and installed by either a certified RV technician or by you when you perform  the first winterization of your RV.

Another possible upgrade is the water pump. Most RVs come standard with a 3 gallons-per-minute water pump. This can be upgraded to a 5 gallons-per-minute water pump (or more), which will allow for greater water pressure.

This will, of course, come at the expense of using more freshwater more quickly, so if dry camping or boondocking is your preferred method of camping, you should probably skip this upgrade. The same can be said for high pressure shower faucets. These can be an excellent upgrade if you primarily do full hookup camping, but just like the water pump, will come at the expense of using more freshwater. 

RV holding tanks themselves can also be upgraded, not so much from a capacity standpoint, but the liquid level monitoring system can be upgraded for greater accuracy. Most original equipment holding tanks have a relatively simple sensor setup that measures the liquid level in thirds or quarters of a tank. But this can leave a fair amount of guesswork as there can be multiple gallons of liquid that is not accounted for. Aftermarket sensor kits can be far more accurate for measuring a more precise liquid level in each of the holding tanks.

Companies such as Garnet SeeLevel and Horst Miracle Gauge as well as others have come up with truly clever ways to accurately measure the liquid levels in RV holding tanks. However, these can be difficult to install so it is a good idea to make a plan before tackling these upgrades. 

Upgrades to the various parts of your RV water systems do not have to be limited to off the shelf items. Many RVers have come up with  very creative DIY upgrades to their water systems; we encourage you to explore some of these upgrades (a simple YouTube search should give you lots of results)..

Every RVer has different goals and priorities when it comes to upgrading their water systems. For boondockers and dry campers, they are often trying to save as much water as possible in order to extend their stay at a campsite without needing to dump or refill holding tanks. Full hookup campers tend to upgrade their water systems to allow for higher quality water or increased water pressure. But whichever camp (pun intended) you happen to fall into, we hope that you have found some upgrades here that will help make your camping experience better.

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