Sanitize Water Tank Every Six Months

[Eagle5]

I must admit that I have not sanitized my water system in over a year. I have a tube in my right ear drum, and after showering, I apparently did get contaminated water in my middle ear which lead to an infection.
I am putting reminders on my calendar to sanitize the water system regularly:

• ¼ cup of bleach per 15 gallons
• get this solution through all your lines
• let sit for eight hours
• flush out the system

Having not done this at least every six months is proof that I do indeed have a hole in my head!
Eagle5
https://www.doityourselfrv.com/sanit...s-water-system

Sanitizing your RV water system

[Americanrascal]

I tend to snaitize mine about every 3 months using the bleach method

[be happy]

I guess I have to be honest on this one. My system gets sanitized once a year with the bleach system. Its part of my de winterizing routine, after draining the rv antifreeze flushing the system then the bleach.

So with that said how many of you bleach your fresh water hose? Mine gets it once a year as part of de winterizing. I put straight bleach in the hose fasten the ends together and roll the hose around so as the bleach moves then flush.

Second thought I understand we use water from many different sources through out our yearly travels and many times water sets in our lines for awhile. But this topic made me think have we ever, and even how santized the water lines in our homes?

[wahoonc]

Originally Posted by be happy

I guess I have to be honest on this one. My system gets sanitized once a year with the bleach system. Its part of my de winterizing routine, after draining the rv antifreeze flushing the system then the bleach.

So with that said how many of you bleach your fresh water hose? Mine gets it once a year as part of de winterizing. I put straight bleach in the hose fasten the ends together and roll the hose around so as the bleach moves then flush.

Second thought I understand we use water from many different sources through out our yearly travels and many times water sets in our lines for awhile. But this topic made me think have we ever, and even how santized the water lines in our homes?

I have sanitized the home water lines after a major waterline break. You are usually moving a larger continuous volume of water through a home system, and if you are on city water it is chlorinated.

As far as my RV, typically once a year in the spring unless there is some compelling reason to do otherwise. We also don't drink from the water system in the RV. We have a separate filtration system that uses the 5-gallon jugs for drinking.

Aaron

[Noah4448]

We travel a lot and some places are pretty sketchy. Sooo.. we sanitize spring and fall and have three filters: one to take the mud out, one charcoal to take the heavy metals out, and a .2 micro for bacteria. The viruses are killed with an Acuva UV light.

[marudnick]

Originally Posted by be happy

I guess I have to be honest on this one. My system gets sanitized once a year with the bleach system. Its part of my de winterizing routine, after draining the rv antifreeze flushing the system then the bleach.

Same here.

Originally Posted by be happy

So with that said how many of you bleach your fresh water hose? Mine gets it once a year as part of de winterizing. I put straight bleach in the hose fasten the ends together and roll the hose around so as the bleach moves then flush.

We take the mixture we use to sanitize the system and fill the hose with it, using a funnel. Cap the ends, shake it up and leave it sit for 6 hours or overnight.

[KeithB]

A question I have: when sanitizing fresh water tank and lines in your RV, do you bypass your hot water tank?

[Eagle5]

Originally Posted by KeithB

A question I have: when sanitizing fresh water tank and lines in your RV, do you bypass your hot water tank?

I am planning for my next sanitizing:

1. drain the hot water tank
2. add ¾ cup of bleach to the fill hose
3. fill the 40 gallon fresh water tank
4. run the hot water tap with the water pump to re-fill the hot water tank
5. purge all other lines to make sure I smell bleach
6. top-off the fresh water tank
7. let sit for eight hours
8. drain the hot water tank
9. drain the fresh water tank
10. refill the fresh water tank
11. run the hot water tap with the water pump to re-fill the hot water tank
12. purge all other lines to make sure I no longer smell bleach

Thanks, Eagle5

[The Raptor]

In Australia we have reasonably Clean Chlorinated Tap Water & Tank Water rarely gets contaminated, but we have Not yet gone Remote.

After 9 months I have yet to Open the Water Heater on my Alpine to see the internal Condition, my beast sat for 2 years before being sold, I noted there was new Thread tape on the Drain / Anode Plug on the Water Heater, have Not yet gotten around to looking at that.

However before RV life, we used Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide, 6 percent mix at 1 millilitres per litre of water for First time, then 1mill per 10 litres of water there after !

That was in IBC Tanks & Large Plastic Drums of Water we put drinks into to keep Cool & Our hands went into the Water recovering the Drinks etc. Never had any ill effects using Hydrogen Peroxide.

I will do the Same with our RV Water System.

[be happy]

Originally Posted by KeithB

A question I have: when sanitizing fresh water tank and lines in your RV, do you bypass your hot water tank?

Yes the water heater is bypassed

With that being said, I do use a hose attachment made for rinsing out the water heater. I rinse it out twice a year.

[delhawk]

To be honest, I've only sanitized by freshwater tank once or twice in about 15 years of RV'ing. In that time we've spent anywhere from 2 - 10 months living in the motorhome. I have never added RV antifreeze to my freshwater system during the winter. What I do, is drain the freshwater system when I plan a long time between trips and leave all of the taps and the system drain valve open so water can drain freely. With the first fill, I let water run from the taps and the freshwater hose for several minutes to flush the lines. On the road we only use the freshwater tank for toilets, showers, and washing. We tend to drink bottled water because it just tastes better. So far no illnesses attributable to contaminated water.

[Morich]

A thought on whether to sanitize the hot water heater tank may help?
Consider what we are trying to avoid in the tank and it may help. The small things that multiply to a point that they may make us sick are much less robust in our RV than may be found in the public water tanks and systems. If we are using certified public water supply, we are not prone to having the larger organics like snails, etc, as the treatment plants should have those clear well before they get to us.
We are more likely only needing to knock down the increase in levels of microscopic bacteria which multiply from what is in the normal city water after treatment back down to acceptable levels which we normally deal with every day.
It is not that we want to treat and kill ALL the bacteria as that would be far more than the treatment plants do and certain to wreck our digestion!

When we think of that small stuff, not the cysts and snails, etc. in raw water, we find it is easy stuff to kill and one thing that does kill it is heat! We don't need 8 hours of treatment to let it kill the hard shelled things but just a quick treatment as the treatment reaches the bacteria almost immediately! We don't have to wait for it to crack open the shell!

When speaking of the water in the heater, it gets treated by heating, so how much we need to do on sanitizing the tank is reduced way down!

For my use, I do not worry treating the water heater for two reasons. One is that it gets treated when we heat the water. Two is that the chlorine residual in city treated water will be mixed into any water in the tank and be enough to clear any small stuff in the hot water.
We are likely to be safer drinking water from a water heater tank full of freshly added treated water than we are if we buy a bottle of "spring water" that has been on the shelf for 6-8 months or a year! Think of the amount of bacteria growing in all those bottles stored for years by preppers? YUCK!

Consider that boiling water is one way to make "found " water safe to drink when in a crisis! If you think there might be some hard shelled things in the water, you need to boil it longer but if is just the small stuff, it needs less time to clean it up enough to be safe.
So, for my purposes, I don't go to the trouble of draining and sanitize on the hot water tank but just run some hot water down the drain or make sure not to drink water from the hot lines before it is heated.

[Twells]

Is this method with bleach ok for the 6 gal water heater also?

[Eagle5]

Originally Posted by Twells

Is this method with bleach ok for the 6 gal water heater also?

The mixture is one part bleach to 960 parts water, so it is very dilute. The only tank to see full-strength bleach for a very brief time is the bottom of your fresh water tank (and also your fill hose, briefly.) I cannot see how it would hurt the hot water tank, as what enters there is the very dilute solution.
Eagle5

[Ray,IN]

Originally Posted by be happy

I guess I have to be honest on this one. My system gets sanitized once a year with the bleach system. Its part of my de winterizing routine, after draining the rv antifreeze flushing the system then the bleach.

So with that said how many of you bleach your fresh water hose? Mine gets it once a year as part of de winterizing. I put straight bleach in the hose fasten the ends together and roll the hose around so as the bleach moves then flush.

Second thought I understand we use water from many different sources through out our yearly travels and many times water sets in our lines for awhile. But this topic made me think have we ever, and even how santized the water lines in our homes?

[wahoonc]

Originally Posted by Twells

Is this method with bleach ok for the 6 gal water heater also?

I have done it for years with no problems.

Aaron

[SeeTheUSA]

I use Purogene rather than bleach. It can be used to sanitize the water system, but can also be used in much smaller doses after that to treat the water in the tank. This product has been discussed here before, search for earlier discussions if you like.

This place sells it for less than Amazon: (I have no affiliation with the place)

https://www.rvwaterfilterstore.com/p...water-additive

Hope this helps

[Morich]

Bleach will not hurt most tanks at any reasonable concentration!
The thing about bleach is that we adjust the amount of bleach in the mix to fit what we want and that makes it safe. Most of us drink chlorine mixed in our water every day. There are groups who don't want to understand much and would rather just go with scary stories that they read somewhere instead of looking for the truth!
It doesn't take a very big brain to know we should not drink bleach straight out of the bottle!

The truth is that there is NO one specific concentration of bleach to fit all situations. We can get those very precise numbers many places but then we may find the numbers different on different sites and it makes sense that each source may be correct for their situation!

I don't like chemistry and don't really try but there are some very simple ideas that can tell us why the concentration may need to vary at times.
In our city water supplies, the amount of chemicals varies all the time and they have folks who adjust it as needed.
If the source is an isolated, really cold lake in Minnesota, they may have very little organic matter from pollution, very cold water and little need of the expense of much treatment. They used to drink it straight out of the lake!

But if the water comes from the Mississippi River at Memphis, it may take a barrel of chemicals to do the job. Step one is to get through the mud, then it takes a lot more to clear the water after it picks up runoff from Chicago, Omaha, and St. Louis!
If you want honest info on your water supply, do a bit of search for the reports that the water suppliers are required to post, depending on the number of customers supplied. Search for the CCR (Consumer Confidence Report for your water supplier. Be aware that many cities have multiple suppliers and you do need to choose which supplier sends water your way!

How much do we need for RV use? It depends!
So we pick a number that seems to suit where we normally go and try to knock the bacteria down to acceptable levels. What that level of treatment will be is not going to be the exact same from place to place for lots of reasons.
In the United States, the rivers tend to drain North to South and they tend to have far more pollution as we go South! Most of the state of Texas drains into Houston and takes lots of garbage with it!
A second factor is weather and that changes constantly. Cold weather tends to retard bacteria growth, so the buggers grow slower in cold water compared to warm! That's why we put things in the frig!
When we apply the same simple thinking to how we sanitize the RV water, we have the same situation of where we get the water, what the temperature has done and how long we have between treatment. When we have water in the RV that came out of the local private well in the South and we haul it around for three months in 80 degree temps, it may need lots more treatment chemicals than if we have a tank we filled from a pristine lake in Wyoming two weeks ago!
But we have no way to really know and have to go with an amount that seems correct but there is no real reason to sweat if we put 3 ounces instead of 4!
We will never know exactly how much organic we have in the tank, so sweating how much chemical we need to react with it is just not rational thinking!

It's an estimate and estimates are rarely meant to be exact!

[Twells]

on the same yet other note, we tried for the first time ever to use the water pump instead of city fill aka dry camp.
Cannot get the pump to pump water. Is running no water pushed with about 20 gal.

[Eagle5]

Originally Posted by Twells

on the same yet other note, we tried for the first time ever to use the water pump instead of city fill aka dry camp.
Cannot get the pump to pump water. Is running no water pushed with about 20 gal.

I have had a hard time priming my water pump when starting with a less-than-filled fresh water tank.
Eagle5