Dometic GO Hydration Water Jug review
Today’s RV gadget is the Dometic GO Hydration Water Jug. This is one of those gadgets that has become part of our regular travels for a variety of reasons. Dometic gave me this to try out and it’s now often at home in our truck as we travel.
Dometic GO Hydration Water Jug
What this is is a plastic insulated container designed for water. It’s the exactly half the size of a Jerry can so two of these can fit into a mount that would normally hold a Jerry can. There’s also an optional powered spigot to get the water out so now you have a way to store water and get that water. Now you see why this is often in the back seat of our truck.
It’s like having a water dispenser right there. In fact, it is a water dispenser in the back seat of the truck. Nice. But wait, there’s more.
The Dometic GO Hydration jug in the back seat of our truck
Creative thinking
I love finding creative new ways people are doing things and Dometic, it seems, has the same kind of thinking. As such the Swedish company has Owen Mesdag as a team member who already has a laundry list of products to his credit. So when he decided to tackle portable water storage, he wasn’t just messing around.
Plastic water bottles and transporting them commercially is a much bigger burden on the environment than many people assume.
One of the solutions many overlanders seek out is a Jerry can. It just makes sense - you strap five gallons of water on the back of your Jeep or whatever and you’ve got plenty of drinking water. Until you spill it all over the ground trying to get at it.
I’ve seen a lot of van lifers and other self-builders using something like Jerry cans under the sink of their RVs and then working to figure out a system of delivering that water.
Let’s talk jugs
I think we all know what a Jerry can looks like and, because it’s such a ubiquitous thing, many overlanders have a provision to hold one or more of them on the back of their vehicles. The new water jug from Dometic is sized such that two of these jugs can fit into the space of a Jerry can.
Nice thinking.
Getting that water is well thought out as there’s a lid included with them that has an integrated spigot. The design of the jug is such that it allows air in while the water’s being drained out, let’s say into a portable water bottle you’d take hiking with you.
If you have two of these, which fit into the space of a Jerry can, the height is such that you can stack them and then put a water bottle underneath the top one and fill it. Easy. No spilling.
Further, by splitting the load into smaller containers they’re very easy to transport to refill at one of those water bottle filling stations or, heck, right out of the tap. It’s okay to drink that water, trust me.
Recently we got our hands on the BKLES portable water filtration system so you could easily fill this container using that filtration system right from a stream or something like that.
We often fill the Dometic container with ice and then pour in the water. It’s pretty delightful.
The jugs are well insulated and we found another use for them. We keep the jug in the back seat of our truck while we travel and then use another Dometic product, a power spigot, to fill our own water bottles in the front.
The power faucet provides access to the water in the Dometic GO in the back seat.
Power spigot
Another product that is designed to work with the water jug is the Dometic GO Hydration Water Faucet. This little faucet features a magnet on the bottom and has an included hose to reach the jug.
You could easily put the power spigot on a sink on a van or cargo trailer build and put the jug under the sink. You can also stack two of the jugs and use one to feed the other. Now you’ve got five gallons of water in an insulated container. But you can go fill one while the other one is there to serve the people in the camper.
The power faucet features a rechargeable battery which operates the water pump in it. There’s a button on top to turn it on and off and, when it’s running, there’s a light below the spigot. Nice for at night.
We had a gathering at our trailer last week and put the power spigot on a metal table, which worked well because of the magnet, and then the jug under the trailer. Now we had cold water for anyone who wanted it.
That’s in tents
I can also see this being perfect for when we truly go off the grid and camp in our vintage trailer, which presently doesn’t have a working water system.
It would also do well for tent or true off-grid campers and I could see mounting one of the plates that comes with it to a portable kitchen. The two little plates that are included with the faucet allow its magnet to stick to surfaces.
Who is this for?
I can see tent campers, van dwellers or just people who want to use fewer water bottles being served well by this. The materials and fixtures on it all have a quality feel to them. This isn’t a cheap solution but, considering how many water bottles you can potentially never have to buy, you could end-up saving quite a bit.
Of course if you’re a bit silly this could also be used for margarita mix or some sort of distilled spirits, though I don’t know how easy it would be to clean out the spigot mechanism.
I do have that Cuisinart battery-powered blender and a Alpicool 12 volt cooler in which I can make ice so, technically, I might be one of the more popular people at the tailgate portion of a Jimmy Buffett concert.
