The humble water carrier – it’s a faithful workhorse on just about any camping or caravanning trip yet how often do you give a second thought to moving with the times and getting the carrier that is best suited to the job?
Water carriers
When you are on a camping trip or outing in your caravan, you will need plentiful supplies of drinking water. According to the BBC’s Good Food Guide, you will need to drink six to eight glasses, or upwards of two litres, of water a day – and maybe even more in hot and sticky weather or if you are exerting yourself.
Your caravan is undoubtedly fitted with its own water tank and, provided you are scrupulously careful in keeping the tank clean and fill it only with fresh water, there should be no problem drinking water from it, suggests the Camping and Caravanning Club.
Many people may prefer to drink water that has been drawn from the tap more recently, however, and that means using a water carrier to get it from the onsite tap to your caravan.
Collapsible water carriers
However big your caravan, extra drinking water takes up space – a gallon of it is roughly 4.5 litres and occupies a volume of some 277 cubic inches.
Collapsible water carriers maximise the amount of water that can be held while occupying the minimum amount of space when you are packing your caravan. There are further benefits besides:
Durability
- one of the reasons why you probably never gave your old water carrier a second thought is because it is so durable – it seems it would last forever;
- a collapsible water carrier remains just as durable and will serve you well for many years;
Portability
- a collapsible water carrier is portable – simply pick it up in your arms if it’s empty;
- typical sizes range between five litres and twenty litres and you might want to weigh the advantages of having several smaller water carriers rather than one big one;
- a 20-litre water carrier is very heavy when it’s filled, of course – but carriers of this size may also have inbuilt wheels to make getting back from the tap to your caravan so much easier;
Storable
- when it’s not in use, your collapsible water carrier will take up precious little space – whether that’s in your garage or stowed in your caravan when you’re ready to roll;
- as you fill it, the carrier simply expands to occupy the same space as the volume of water itself;
Eco-friendly
- it’s durability and more or less endless reusability over many years makes a collapsible water carrier eminently green and eco-friendly;
- those eco-friendly credentials are enhanced still further since a water carrier you can fill straight from the tap saves you buying – and eventually disposing of – umpteen individual single-use plastic bottles of drinking water.
BPA-free
If you plan on buying a collapsible water carrier, it is worth insisting that it is BPA-free.
BPA is the chemical compound Bisphenol, which has been used in the manufacture of plastics – especially clear and translucent plastics – since the 1960s. It is a moot point whether BPA is hazardous to health, although research has suggested that it might act as an endocrine disruptor, imitating naturally produced oestrogen, and responsible for potentially adverse health effects.