campground's water pressure regulator?

[dosby]

I saw this small metal adapter on a campground's faucet during our camping past weekend. It has a small hole in it, and it was occasionally spouting some water. I had to open that faucet just enough to get water in our trailer - when I tried opening it more it was spouting all the time, basically flooding the area below the faucet.
I did have my own pressure regulator and a water filter on the other end of the hose.
I am just wandering now what that adapter was - was it really a pressure regulator or just some quick fix for broken threading on the faucet?

[7Gentex]

Appears to be a backflow prevention / anti-siphon device - not a pressure regulator.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by dosby

I saw this small metal adapter on a campground's faucet during our camping past weekend. It has a small hole in it, and it was occasionally spouting some water. I had to open that faucet just enough to get water in our trailer - when I tried opening it more it was spouting all the time, basically flooding the area below the faucet.
I did have my own pressure regulator and a water filter on the other end of the hose.
I am just wandering now what that adapter was - was it really a pressure regulator or just some quick fix for broken threading on the faucet?

That's a vacuum breaker. It prevents water from siphoning or flowing backwards and contaminating a drinking water system. They can go bad and leak.

The little threaded hole is where a set screw is usually broken off to prevent easy removal.

[Bea]

This reminds me of a time we drove into a campground and planned on filling up with water once we got there. Since there was no water spigot near our site, before we unhitched, we drove around, found a spigot, attached a hose and while filling up with water, we hear this person (turned out to be the camp host) yelling at us and running over to tell us to stop and unscrew the hose from the spigot, immediately! He said unless we had a back flow preventer we could not fill up with a hose. That was first. We had no idea - no signs anywhere saying we couldn't. So we apologized and agreed not to then I think he felt bad for yelling because he pulled a back flow preventer out of his pocket and said we could us his! .....Ok, a little strange but we accepted and thanked him for his diligent campground service - and added a back-flow preventer to our trailer plumbing box after that trip. -Bea

[C&G in FL]

Originally Posted by Bea

This reminds me of a time we drove into a campground and planned on filling up with water once we got there. Since there was no water spigot near our site, before we unhitched, we drove around, found a spigot, attached a hose and while filling up with water, we hear this person (turned out to be the camp host) yelling at us and running over to tell us to stop and unscrew the hose from the spigot, immediately! He said unless we had a back flow preventer we could not fill up with a hose. That was first. We had no idea - no signs anywhere saying we couldn't. So we apologized and agreed not to then I think he felt bad for yelling because he pulled a back flow preventer out of his pocket and said we could us his! .....Ok, a little strange but we accepted and thanked him for his diligent campground service - and added a back-flow preventer to our trailer plumbing box after that trip. -Bea

Kind of ridiculous. Filling a fresh water tank with a hose is not likely to “suck” and undesirable compounds out of your trailer and into the fresh water supply, especially when there is water flowing and it is being monitored by you. And when not spraying water out of a hose the spigot is likely turned off which would prevent backflow anyway. Probably another stupid campground rule (that has to be followed) but written by someone who was clueless and did not understand when and why needed. And if a campground has that rule, they should install backflow preventers on all spigots people would use.

[dosby]

Got it, thanks! Eastern WA has a lot of irrigated lawns along the Columbia river, so it makes sense.
I wonder if occasional spouting was caused by us shutting cold water abruptly, it would create a water hammer raising pressure and pushing the water back to the campground faucet.
Anyway, it was a bit annoying not to be able to open the faucet fully without it spouting all the time.