Fresh water sanitizing

[WrigleysWagon 32]

As a general rule, how long would you let your camper sit before you sanitized the tanks?  We don't get ours out as often as I'd like, and sometimes it's a couple months between trips. Its a bit of a drag having to earmark 4+ hours every time to sanitize. Although, admittedly less of a drag than dysentery!  Thanks

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

We never use our freshwater tank, therefore never sanitize it.  We did sanitize it 11 years ago when we first bought it used.

Why does it take you 4 hours?  Add bleach, fill with water, let it sit a few hours, drain, fill with fresh water again to flush, drain.  Maybe 20 minutes of actual work.

[WrigleysWagon 32]

Just the waiting 4 hours for it to do it's thing. We don't use the fresh water tank, but I still want to sanitize the water lines. 

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

38 minutes ago, WrigleysWagon said:

Just the waiting 4 hours for it to do it's thing. We don't use the fresh water tank, but I still want to sanitize the water lines. 

Okay, that makes sense.  We carefully drain our water lines and don't feel the need to sanitize them between trips.  Just run a lot of water to flush everything out.

[caveat lector 181]

Fill the fresh water tank with the bleach mixture, then use the pump to run it through all the lines. Do it every time I dewinterize. Why not?

[bdm 47]

When we are getting ready for a trip I usually make a few trips to the camper the week before, Check tires, start fridge, bring food and cloths.  Usually on one of those trips I will add the bleach  and fill the tank with water.   Then on a return trip to load more stuff up drain the water and flush with fresh water.

[keith_h 420]

For me it depends on where the last water I used came from. We use our water tank about as often as we hookup to campground water. If I know the water is from a treated municipal supply I will fill the tank before we leave and go a couple of weeks without worrying about sanitizing the system. All I do is drain/flush the tanks and lines before the trip. For water of unknown quality I will sanitize the system if it sits without use for more than a couple of days. If it is from my well I will go about a week and just flush everything before our trip. A key thing is I leave the tank full when sitting so mildew or mold doesn't have a chance to develop on the tank walls. I could probably go out every few days to drain and flush the system to avoid sanitizing but that seems to me to be more work than sanitizing once a day or two before we travel. 

[twiceblessed....nacole 433]

On 8/10/2017 at 9:20 PM, caveat lector said:

Fill the fresh water tank with the bleach mixture, then use the pump to run it through all the lines. Do it every time I dewinterize. Why not?

How much bleach do you use?

[keith_h 420]

54 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

How much bleach do you use?

I have a 20 gallon fresh water tank and use about 1/2 cup. I hookup my hose to the water source and pour the bleach directly into it then put it in the tank fill tube. Since the hoses  sits for long period too this sanitizes them as well. I open each faucet and the toilet one at a time and run until I smell bleach then let it sit overnight. The next day I drain everything, including the water heater, and flush the system. I start with the fresh water tank by filling and draining several times, fill it and flush the lines and water heater.

[caveat lector 181]

13 hours ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

How much bleach do you use?

I use 32.95793 micro liters with 566.3552 quarts of water..........just kidding. I have no idea.

I put about 3/4 of an inch in the bottom of an old rv antifreeze bottle, then fill with water. Dump it into fresh water tank and fill fresh water tank.  Then use pump to run it through all lines and hot water tank.  I let it sit in the lines for "awhile", then flush with fresh.

It's all very scientific.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

I can tell you at our mobile home park the we have to clean our tanks every year. 

The tanks hold 100 gallon and 40 gallons.   The ration that the Oklahoma DEQ tells us is 1 cup of bleach for every 10 gallons of water.  100 gallon tank takes 10 cups of bleach.   40 gallon tank 4 cups bleach.  We drain some water out and tank and add the bleach and fill back up. Let tank sit for 24 hours.  Drain. Fill with fresh water and drain again.  Repeat.  The second fill and drain is usually enough to get almost all the bleach out.  We use test stripes to test for bleach(chlorine). The same kind you use for your swimming pool.   Just make sure the chlorine level is less than 4 ppm.   After the second rinse it's usually less than 1 ppm. 

[PghBob 31]

Since our home water supply is on a "city" water system, with a chlorinated supply, I don't do the bleach sanitation.  I feel if the chlorine in the water supply is good enough to sanitize our home water, it will be clean in the tank as well.  I should add that I remove the water filter from the hose before filling the water tank as most filters will remove the chlorine.  After every trip, I drain the fresh water tank so that the water doesn't get "stale".

Further, we only use water in the fresh water tank for "household" purposes.  We carry about 4 gallons of bottled water for coffee & drinking.

[keith_h 420]

1 hour ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

The same kind you use for your swimming pool.

I use plain old bleach you buy in the cleaning section of the store. This is what our state/local health departments recommend using to treat wells. I just make sure I use bleach that has no scents or other additives. At Walmart it is labeled as Cleaning Bleach. I've also seen that if after a couple of rinses you still smell bleach to add some baking soda to the water you use to flush the lines. Not sure how much or if it is a wives tail as a little short term bleach smell doesn't bother us.

1 hour ago, PghBob said:

We carry about 4 gallons of bottled water for coffee & drinking

We do the same thing but it is only because the vinyl hose they used to plumb the trailer makes it taste funny.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

5 hours ago, keith_h said:

I use plain old bleach you buy in the cleaning section of the store. This is what our state/local health departments recommend using to treat wells. I just make sure I use bleach that has no scents or other additives. At Walmart it is labeled as Cleaning Bleach. I've also seen that if after a couple of rinses you still smell bleach to add some baking soda to the water you use to flush the lines. Not sure how much or if it is a wives tail as a little short term bleach smell doesn't bother us.

We do the same thing but it is only because the vinyl hose they used to plumb the trailer makes it taste funny.

" We use test stripes to test for bleach(chlorine). The same kind you use for your swimming pool.   Just make sure the chlorine level is less than 4 ppm."

 

I was referring to the testing strips.    Not the bleach.  Yes, we have to use regular chlorine bleach. 

[keith_h 420]

On 8/12/2017 at 8:21 PM, h2odivers...Ray said:

" We use test stripes to test for bleach(chlorine). The same kind you use for your swimming pool.   Just make sure the chlorine level is less than 4 ppm."

 

I was referring to the testing strips.    Not the bleach.  Yes, we have to use regular chlorine bleach. 

Ah.

[twiceblessed....nacole 433]

On 8/12/2017 at 11:50 AM, caveat lector said:

I use 32.95793 micro liters with 566.3552 quarts of water..........just kidding. I have no idea.

I put about 3/4 of an inch in the bottom of an old rv antifreeze bottle, then fill with water. Dump it into fresh water tank and fill fresh water tank.  Then use pump to run it through all lines and hot water tank.  I let it sit in the lines for "awhile", then flush with fresh.

It's all very scientific.

 

On 8/12/2017 at 1:05 PM, h2odivers...Ray said:

I can tell you at our mobile home park the we have to clean our tanks every year. 

The tanks hold 100 gallon and 40 gallons.   The ration that the Oklahoma DEQ tells us is 1 cup of bleach for every 10 gallons of water.  100 gallon tank takes 10 cups of bleach.   40 gallon tank 4 cups bleach.  We drain some water out and tank and add the bleach and fill back up. Let tank sit for 24 hours.  Drain. Fill with fresh water and drain again.  Repeat.  The second fill and drain is usually enough to get almost all the bleach out.  We use test stripes to test for bleach(chlorine). The same kind you use for your swimming pool.   Just make sure the chlorine level is less than 4 ppm.   After the second rinse it's usually less than 1 ppm. 

 

Thank you, both!