Fresh Water Tank

The rotten egg smell is from sulfur dioxide in the water. It is unlikely to be due to the water heater but warming water with dissolved SO2 will increase the odor.

The cause is generally the water source itself and not in your RV.

Hi,

How much bleach?

Did the water smell like bleach too?

It does not take much, 4 ounces can treat about 100 gallons. How large is your water tank?

What I normally do is add some water to the tank, then about 2 ounces of bleach to the fill hose, and then finish filling the tank to about 3/4 full. Drive around a bit to slosh the water around, and it will clean the tank. Be sure to drain the hot water tank, then run the pump a bit to flush the water lines, put in the drain plug loose, fill the hot water tank, and hot water lines, clean the cold water lines, so you will smell the chlorine a little bit from the water.

Let it sit about 1 hour, and the free chlorine will kill any bacteria, but also go from being about 2 PPM free chlorine to 0 while killing bacteria. Flush all the lines again (start by drain the hot water tank, and then flush all the other lines with strong chlorine water from the fresh water tank. Let that water sit overnight - it should still smell a bit like chlorine still in the morning.

What brand is your water heater? One brand uses a anode, the other brand will not have a place to install a anode, because it has a glass lined tank, and the anode will not help it.

Of course before leaving on the trip, fill the fresh water tank with clean water, remove the WH drain plug again, pump out some fresh water, fill the tank, dump again, and refill with clean chlorine free water. (a little residual chlorine will not hurt, but it should not smell as strong as a swimming pool).

Good luck,

Fred.

WyoTraveler wrote:
May want to change the probe in hot water tank.

Yes, this. Changing out the anode rod in the hot water tank would be likely to help.

I'll bet that it's the well water you're filling up with.

When we moved into our present house we almost couldn't shower because of the strong rotten egg smell of the water. Talked with the neighbors and everyone with a well of our depth had the same sulfur smell, neighbors that had drilled significantly deeper didn't. Talked with some water people and it turns out our water has a lot of iron. We installed a small water treatment plant in our basement and now have great water.

Can't really fit the water treatment stuff into a camper so I'd recommend filling up from a different source. You could run water supply for a minute first and smell to make sure you won't have the same problem. Another solution would be to find a way to aerate your water as you fill (will release the gas so what goes into tank won't smell as much).

Good luck

WyoTraveler X2

May want to change the probe in hot water tank.