Hi Fish,
I’ll comment on my questions and your answers below. Again this is an open minded discussion, I have some time today, snowing out and 8F so it is an indoor day… So I typed…
Prior to the TT days, I was big time into backpacking and canoe camping, both way away from a potable spigot. Learned the ways of back country water sanitation from streams and lakes. And when we were in Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario (Boundary waters area of the US) the inland lakes only accessible by portage, you could and can still drink direct from the middle of large bodies of water. BTW, Quetico and the White Otter Wilderness area of Canada are a canoe paddlers dream come true.
As I stated before I deal with sterilization machinery for work which has to keep water born organisms in control during our processes at levels way below potable standards. Thank goodness they do not have to be sterile but darn close to it. After troubleshooting microorganism infections in piping systems where we heat the water to temperatures of 260F and yet they still survive… puts a whole new perspective on camper water system. I may be skewed to the far end of the RV spectrum, however here is how I came to grips with my camper water system.
When the camper came to be, I knew how we handled back country water sanitization and I know how we deal with the machines at work, how in the world does an RV ever stay in micro check with all the conditions it is exposed to? That is a good question… It is actually in some cases easier and less likely to have a water caused intestinal infection from back country water sanitation then in an RV… I researched many places on the web and in books on how RV’ers keep their campers in control micro wise. I never really found a lot of hard science backed data.
There was a lot of, never had a problem. I do not drink from the camper. I leave the system full all the time and the list goes on. Those that never had a problem did not know why they never had one or didn’t not explain in depth how they use their camper. Many times I heard, “An old Timer told me to do it this way” and with blind faith and no understanding many just follow it. It worked for them, why not us?
So here I am, how do “I” figure this out? I took the good science I could find from documented RV practices and what we do at work to keep our systems in check. To not make this any longer, I’ll answer in the questions below.
Fisherguy wrote:
JBarca wrote:
Hmmm, we had our old trailer 16 years, it didn't have a filter and I don't filter it when we fill the tank. (We only dry camp). Never worried about it, never had a problem.
This new trailer has an under counter filter, I change it at the start of the season, that's it, never worried about it. It's not like we drink the water, we use it for coffee, tea etc, and for cooking, we pack bottled water for drinking.
Hi Fish,
You are actually drinking the water it sounds like. Just maybe not straight up. And since you have not had problems, you have come into a delicate balance with nature and the way your body deals with it.
I'll ask these few questions: (Not trying to be a wise guy, just trying to help explain possibly why you may not have had issues. And then what might tip the scales to have issues. You are doing "something" if known or not that is getting you by. And we always learn from each other too.)
When you do tea, coffee and or cooking does the water come to a boil?
Tea yes, water is boiled, for coffee we use a percolator.
This is a good practice, the boiling is sanitizing the water. The common water born organisms we are targeting die at 212F in seconds, if the heat gets to every one of them in a pot on the stove. At 180F it takes some time to penetrate but it too can kill them all. At temps of 140F to ~ 150F, that is not enough to kill them and some varieties this is their peak reproduction temperature.
Boiling water is one of the top methods in back country water sanitization.
Do you sanitize (chlorine shock the system) the camper and at what frequency?
Beginning of the season I use a bit of bleach in a tank full of water, run it through al the lines and flush it out.
This is good practice. I do want to expand on your method through. Come spring time we really do not know how big of an micro infection our camper may have. May be very little or a serious concern. Even if an RV’er is not drinking from the tank, sanitization of the system should be done. Chlorine (bleach in this case) takes “time” to kill a micro infection. There are 2 states of chlorine in your system when you put the bleach in. Total chlorine and free chlorine. Free chlorine or active chlorine is what we need to do the sanitization action. When chlorine works it dissolves the outer cells of the micro and kills them. In this process once it is used, it breaks down into total chlorine (non-active chlorine) and no longer has very much sanitization effect. It also breaks down into total chlorine burning/oxidizing through food sources. If all you have left is total chlorine, while you can smell it, but it is not doing a whole lot of sanitizing. There is a pH effect on how effective chlorine is, however since most of us are using municipal water as the source you will be OK.
To make sanitizing your camper practical, a chlorine shock treatment is used to know for sure you totally knock out any bio growth or food source that is thick and into nooks and crannies. 100ppm of a good free chlorine solution and time is the practice. You find this in many RV books on how to sanitize your system. 1/4 cup of “fresh/new” unscented house hold bleach to every 15 gallons of fresh potable water is a popular advertised RV sanitized solution. This comes close to the same 100ppm target we use in industrial water tanks. And or wells etc.
Fill the system totally full to coat all areas of the fresh tank, HW heater piping and let it sit. Here comes the time part. You do need time to allow the solution to burn out the total infection. Published RV books have this sort of all over the map on time. You need long enough, and to be safe, many tell “several hours”. OK what is several? 2, 5 or 8 hours? An hour or two with a good solution should do the trick unless you are burning out green sludge. In that case, it is better to repeat the process. Then drain it out and flush with clean water. Do “not” put this down your septic system as it will really mess up the septic system. I also follow this up with 1/4 cup of baking soda mixed up in a clean fresh tank fully flushed through the system to sit for a 1 to 3 days to absorb out all the chlorine smell/taste soaked into the plastic piping.
Assuming you do several camping trips a year, approx how many camping trips do you do since the last time you sanitized?
3-5 trips a year,, 5 days to 3 weeks long.
Do you drain the camper during periods of non use? (including the HW heater and fresh tank)
Drain the tank, not the water heater.
Do you full time or a weekend warrior camper?
don't do weekends, not full time.
What is the outdoor temps when the camper is stored and not used?
Up to 30*C (86F) but not that hot very often.
At home are you on a well of city water?
city water
When you fill up with fresh water is the source chlorinated?
on the road we fill up from city (or small town) water, so I guess it's chlorinated.
You are a weekend or extended trip camper like myself and many others. Point: There is a period of down time with increased temperature in between campouts. This is what I was after.
The 1st campout after sanitizing your camper piping, the system is all cleaned up. And if you or your family are sensitive to water/skin reactions I’m sure they feel it. My wife is so I’m the dish do’er for the 1st campout or too. The baking soda trick here helps a lot.
You are putting in good clean potable water. A must. Here in most of North America municipal water supplies use chlorine as a sanitizer to keep potable water, potable sitting in tanks and piping systems until you get it. This water is under pressure and not exposed to a lot of open atmosphere. It is also pH controlled and the free (active) chlorine is monitored and boosted as needed to stay within health regulations. Not too low and not too high. Every time I have tried to get one of our microbiologists to tell me, what is the lowest limit needed? I get the somewhat text book answer. “You need a residual.” OK what ppm is that?
This comes down to, if you have free active chlorine at any ppm, then you have an active sanitizer. But.. if you have an infection or a food source, it will consume the free chlorine in the sanitizing process leaving only total chlorine which does not do anything. Point: You need a residual of active free chlorine in a clean system and the system will remain clean/potable. If you have an infection or excess food source, depending how bad the infection is, you may not have any residual left when after trying to knock it out.
Here are a few other attributes about microorganisms that are in potable water systems and our RV’s.
Water born microorganisms need food, water and oxygen to survive. Take away any of the three and they die. (They are just like us)
At optimum temperatures water born microorganisms reproduce every 20 minutes if they have the 3 essential parts of life, water, food and oxygen. When you are in the approx. 100 to 150F temp range with a high food source, in several hours you can get an out of control situation.
Cold well water that is clean, micro does not like to reproduce at cold temps, ~ 50F or less clean wells stay clean.
Chlorinated water exposed to air, flashes off to nothing in time and sunlight can accelerate this too. This is the case in our RV fresh tank. Even enclosed tanks with no exposure to sunlight are vented. After 3 to 4 days normal potable amounts of chlorine can be very low.
If your water system is clean, being at very low chlorine does not present an immediate problem but can once an infection starts as there is no sanitizer left to stop if a food source is available. Again you need all 3 to have micro multiple.
Carbon filters work well at stripping out/reducing micro, sediment and chlorine and other non wanted things. Carbon filter beds left unchecked are a micro breeding ground. The use of KDF or silver is an effective method for RV’ers to get past the micro breeding issue with the effective carbon filter. Drying them out is another way.
Filtering incoming fresh water is a good way to keep unwanted sediment, food sources and incoming micro from getting into your camper. The filter however only traps the stuff. You need to deal with the filter. If they contain KDF or silver that is a method of dealing with it along with drying them out. Other types need something done to deal with it. Disposal/temperature etc.
If you have a clean camper water system and add fresh chlorinated water to it, the incoming chlorine helps sanitize your camper and keep it that way. Again until the chlorine is gone or until it is consumed killing off an infection or oxidizing a food source.
The camper HW heater can be a problem pending the type of water you have. When heating water, the chemistry changes. The heat and pH shift also accelerates chlorine breakdown. If the HW system is clean and your using it all the time, it is not a problem as you keep flushing it with good clean water and purging out the problems. When the HW tank water is left siting for long periods of time, bad water can come from the breakdown byproducts. Sulfur smelling stink in heavy cases have been reported. Micro growth also has a smell attributed to it. I’m not saying all stink in your water system is from a micro issue, but if you have an infection odds are high it will stink.
Stagnate water with no sanitizer in it, a level of living micro, the correct temperature and now throw in a food source and micro starts to multiple. The rate depends on the food, water, oxygen and temperature. Nature will find a way to survive.
Now to tie this all together with in-between camping trips. Whatever chlorine is in your fresh tank will flash off to nothing from the last potable water fill up after 3 to 7 days during summer temps. It’s gone and the is no sanitizer left. Now you are left to the rest of the needs of micro to survive and or multiple. If there is zero food source, odds become lower micro will multiple. Then there is the temperature effect. The inside of a camper can get up to 100F sitting out in the sun during storage if day time temps are 80 to 85F.
Now you are left with nature trying to find a way to survive. This comes down to the odds and one’s situation. If the camper is stored inside all the time in a cool area, out of the sun solar effect, odds are lower micro will not grow wild. If you filtered out the food source, odds are better micro will not grow out. If there are just plan less micro to start with, odds are better they do not start to grow out.
For myself coming to grips with this, I asked some of the microbiologists at work, if in one of our water tanks when we shut that tank down for weeks on end, it is on an equipment deck that can get to 100F, the water was clean when we started, the tank is vented to atmosphere, would you drain the tank or leave it full of water? Good question… after they thought about it, they all agreed, drain the tank. The odds are better in your favor to not have a growth area grow out including mold. So I applied this same thing to my camper system. Start with a clean system, filter all the water going into it or is from my home proven source, monitor the chlorine, when non camping for long periods, drain the entire system to better lower the odds of a problem. And any filter needs to be dealt with.
Do you shower in the camper?
yup
Do you brush your teeth with water from the sink?
yup
Do you wash dishes in the camper?
yup, sometimes with lake water heated on the fire.
Boiling water on the camp fire for dishes from a backcountry lake is good practice and part of back country camping sanitization. Swimming in a lake will not give you intestinal dysfunction. Animals live all the time in the wild and survive. They do however build up natural internal resistance to certain water intestinal infections and they do not complain to us when they get infected. Their instinct is better than ours is on what water “not” to drink.
I have less concern of large bodies of moving lake water not infected by pollution then our RV water system… I’m sure none of us would want to brush our teeth or wash dishes in river water near a large city or even shower in it… Swimming can be bad enough. Point in all this is, brushing ones teeth in high bio count water can make us sick. Even showering can infect your eyes in high bio count water. Granted these may be the higher extreme ends of the spectrum, however it can happen.
In reviewing what you have been doing, consider these 4 things to help lower your odds of an infection of your water system. You are not doing real bad now, just these areas can help cover more conditions.
1.Review your sanitization method if it is enough to kill a heavy infection.
2.Drain the HW heater each trip. Get a valve setup on the drain port to make it quick and convenient.
3.Drain and remove the under the sink filter. What method is used to keep it from growing between camping trips?
4.Consider filtering CG water to keep food sources out of the camper. If filtering, figure out the filter technology you need for your situation and what it does to chlorine for the sources you use. If it reduces the chlorine to too low a level, work through that. Figure out how to control the filter from becoming a breading ground between camping trips. The filter can be a double edged sword, it can do a good job of keeping your camper clean, however not used right it can infect your camper.
If you made it this far in reading... Hope this helps
John
