Portable Electric Auto Water Pump: Product test

This product is made from food grade, non-toxic materials (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, polyethylene, polycarbonate and acetal plastics and 316 grade stainless steel) and is powered with two D-size alkaline batteries. The batteries and motor are housed in a sealed compartment in the handle. It is 730mm long and weighs just under 1kg with the batteries installed, so is easy to store in the RV.

Depress the button on top of the handle and water flows at 3L per minute. Simply release the button to stop the flow. Leaving the button in the down position results in continuous water flow, which is good when filling larger containers.

The height of the intake tube can be altered to suit the depth of different water containers. The bottle cap fastener on the pump can be screwed on to most large water storage bottles when the pump is being left in place for regular use, but the JRoc pump will still operate on odd-sized containers that the bottle cap fastener does not fit.  A lock-tab clips on to the discharge spout when not in use to prevent contamination from dust or insects.

This model may be used with other liquids, such as soft drinks, sauce and alcoholic drinks, but it is not suitable to use with fuel.

Clear instructions are provided, including a troubleshooting section. Like most electric pumps of this type, it should not be run dry.

OUR TEST

When the pump arrived it was in two pieces, and I fitted the discharge spout to the main pump assembly and put two batteries in the handle.

First, I tried the pump on one of the large bottles of drinking water sold in supermarkets and service stations, and carried by some RVers when travelling away from safe water supplies. The bottle cap fastener fitted perfectly and depressing the top button caused water to flow at the rate claimed by JRoc – around 3L per minute.

I then tried the pump on a different sized container (see photo) on which the bottle cap fastener did not fit. Denyse uses this container at home for rainwater for her iron and I use it for the vehicle battery. We decant it into smaller bottles for use, but this involves lifting the heavy container and it is easy to spill some of the water. The JRoc pump was perfect for this purpose, and we found there were no leaks or spills and, again, it pumped around 3L per minute.

For camping, this pump would be useful for filling glasses of drinking water direct from storage containers, and it could be useful when filling containers from a shallow river or creek, or for transferring water from containers into your RV tanks. It is unclear at this stage how long the batteries would last, but we would expect good quality alkaline batteries would run this small motor for an extended period.

JRoc also has specialised fuel pumps to handle both petrol and diesel and we will review one of these in a future issue.

The full feature appeared in Caravan World #539 July 2015. Subscribe today for the latest caravan reviews and news every month!