Do you bleach / santize your hot water tank?
I've always just done the cold water system. And only every few years at that since I don't drink it. I had read someone bleached the hot water tank too. What do you recommend?
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My comment above does not mean that I am averse to doing some sort of treatment to an RV water supply, only that legionaire's disease is a long way down on the risk list. We had a house on the beach in the Bahamas for 2 years and our water supply was a rainwater cistern under the house. Not only did it grow a nice crop of algae, but small frogs lived in it too. Our drinking and cooking water was run through the RO system under the kitchen sink, but we used straight cistern water for all other needs, including brushing our teeth, with no issues. We lived there full time for 2½ years, and no diseases were contracted.
As mentioned above, the bacteria have to be introduced in some way, and if they are coming from the city water that is used to fill the RV tank, then having a nice clean tank is not going to do you any good unless you sanitize every tankful. We used bleach (about one cupful monthly) in our 12,000 gallon cistern. I don't know if that was enough to kill everything or not (certainly didn't seem to have any effect on the frogs), but we never got sick, and never smelled bleach in the water.
As mentioned above, the bacteria have to be introduced in some way, and if they are coming from the city water that is used to fill the RV tank, then having a nice clean tank is not going to do you any good unless you sanitize every tankful. We used bleach (about one cupful monthly) in our 12,000 gallon cistern. I don't know if that was enough to kill everything or not (certainly didn't seem to have any effect on the frogs), but we never got sick, and never smelled bleach in the water.
