Where Do the Pressure Regulator and Water Filter Go with a Heated Hose?

The short answer: regulator first, filter where it is easiest to protect

Mechanically everything fits. A regulator, an inline filter and a heated hose all use garden hose threads, as the page on fittings and adapters shows. The question is the order, and what winter does to it.

No heated hose maker we read names an order of parts. PIRIT's manual and Miller Manufacturing's sheet describe the hose alone, and Camco's hose instructions are not online. The order above rests on one filter maker's sheet and on plain reasoning about where a regulator has to sit to do its job.

What Camco's filter sheet says

Camco prints four sentences that settle most of the question for its TastePURE inline filter:

• Regulator required. “A water pressure regulator must be used to limit water pressure to 60 PSI or less.” The sheet lists Camco's own regulators as sold separately.
• Two positions. The filter attaches “to RV or watercraft as shown”, and it “can also be installed ahead of hose at faucet.” The drawing of the faucet installation is labeled with a water pressure regulator and the flexible hose protector that comes with the filter.
• Direction. Attach the incoming water supply “with arrow pointing in direction of water flow.”
• Frost. “Protect filter from freezing. Do not winterize with antifreeze of any type.”

The sheet also says the filter is designed for outdoor use only. It does not say how to protect the filter outdoors on a freezing night.

Unheated part

Camco TastePURE inline filter

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Camco · Unheated hook-up part

The inline filter many RV hook-ups carry, with an instruction sheet that names its own frost and pressure rules.

Why here: Shown because its instruction sheet is the one maker document we found that names positions, a pressure limit and a frost rule for an inline filter. It needs its own frost protection.

Best for: RV hook-ups that filter the water at the spigot or at the inlet. In freezing weather it needs protection of its own or has to come off.

What speaks for it

• Camco's instruction sheet shows both positions: at the RV, or ahead of the hose at the faucet
• Garden hose threads; flexible hose protector included (Camco sheet)
• Listed to NSF/ANSI 42 and 53, CSA lead-free certified to NSF/ANSI 372 according to the listing

What to know first

• “Protect filter from freezing” (Camco sheet): a heated hose does not heat it
• Needs a pressure regulator that limits the pressure to 60 psi or less (Camco sheet); sold separately
• For outdoor use only, and not for water that is microbiologically unsafe or of unknown quality (Camco sheet)
• Replace each camping season or when taste, odor or flow change (Camco sheet)

Type

inline water filter, part no. 40043 (listing)

Certification named

NSF/ANSI 42, 53 and 372 (listing)

Pressure

regulator required, 60 psi or less (Camco sheet)

Frost

“Protect filter from freezing” (Camco sheet)

Warranty

limited 1 year (listing)

Why the regulator belongs at the spigot

A regulator limits the pressure only for what comes after it. On the spigot it covers the filter, the hose and the RV. At the RV inlet it covers the RV alone, and the hose and a filter at the faucet see the full park pressure.

Hoses state their own limits. The PIRIT manual gives a working pressure of up to 200 psi; Camco's listing for its heated hose names a maximum of 100 psi. Camco's filter is the part with the lowest stated limit in this chain, which is the reason the regulator has to sit ahead of it.

Winter changes the question

In summer the order is a matter of pressure. In winter every part outside the hose is a part that can freeze.

• PIRIT: “This hose is NOT designed to provide freeze protection to your water supply. Be sure to take appropriate measures to protect your water supply.”
• Miller Manufacturing, in the sheet for its DH25 and DH50 hoses: “Never let water that is under pressure freeze in the hose.” The same sheet repeats that the hose is not designed to provide freeze protection to the water supply.

The regulator at the spigot shares the fate of the spigot: it sits on a cold riser in open air. The measures for that end are on the page about the frozen spigot, and the unpowered materials are compared under insulated water hose and pipe insulation. One limit applies to any wrap or cover there: the thermostat of the heated hose must stay in open outside air, as PIRIT and Miller both require. The question page on insulating a heated hose explains why.

For the filter, three options follow from Camco's sentence. They are our reading, not Camco's instruction:

1. Take it off for freezing nights and store it where it cannot freeze. The sheet's own storage advice is to store the filter capped in a refrigerator.
2. Move it to the warmer end. If the RV's inlet sits in a heated compartment, the position “at the RV” keeps the filter out of the open air. The hose's thermostat must still hang outside.
3. Leave filtering to another point. Whether a filter inside the RV does the job is a question for the RV's own manual.

How this fits the hook-up

The complete hook-up, with the thermostat and the question of which end goes to the spigot, is in the guide on how to install a heated water hose. What the hose does and does not protect is answered under will a heated hose keep RV pipes from freezing. Drinking-water claims of hoses, filters and fittings are separate claims; drinking-water-safe heated hoses sorts them. More single questions are collected under questions and answers, and the hoses themselves are compared on the page for heated RV water hoses.