Do you bleach / santize your hot water tank?

If you don't you should, especially if you shower with the water.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires%27_disease

Always. Do it in the spring when I dewinterize. Then once in the middle of summer. I run the sanitized freshwater tank through the entire trailer. It may not need it in the summer. But it gives me a reason to have a beer or 2 while I'm messing with the trailer!

rockhillmanor wrote:
....I do not drink or cook with RV water.

Then why bother doing any sanitizing at all? And? If you don't drink or cook from the RV water, do you still do dishes with it? If you are that concerned about the water being contaminated or something, then you don't want to wash dishes, and you definitely don't want to rinse your dishes with that water either. Come to think of it, if it WERE really that contaminated it was not safe to drink, I wouldn't be bathing in it either! Do you use the on-board water to brush your teeth? Bathe? and wash dishes?

If all the answers are "No", then I'll complement you on your consistency!

If you have a water fill like this: vent
what do you think goes in that hole?

Captain_Happy wrote:
If your using city water, why are you worried about sanitizing your water system? It's already in the water your using.DAH

You home is a constant free flowing system. Bleach is added at the water treatment plant to bring all microbes within standard. By the time it reaches your house all you have is the smell of bleach. Not a level of bleach high enough to kill bacteria when used to fill a holding tank or to kill bacteria from CG well water.

You RV is NOT a free lowing water source it is a "plastic" "holding" tank subjected to bacteria bloom because plastic is porous. The RV water holding tank also takes on the ambient temperature of the outside. The warmer it is outside the better of a petrie dish it becomes for bacteria build up.

I sanitize often. Bleach in tank and run thru all of RV including the hot water heater. I do not drink or cook with RV water.

Check the inside of your water hoses sometime -- you may want to also put some bleach inside your hose. We also use both city/treated water and well water. We do use a whole house filter. We have had contamination from a forestry campground and then had algae and etc growing inside everything and had green water. We DO treat the entire water system including the water heater at least 2X per year, including the hose which does get gunk growing in it. The water goes thru that before it gets to our filter. If using city water sometimes took care of any problems, we wouldn't have ever had a problem. We are full-time so our system doesn't sit unused.

slacker cruster wrote:
I was worried the bleach would interact with the hot tank, so that was what was holding me back.

The water heater is not turned on during the sanitizing. Only after the system has been rinsed.

If you would ever cut apart the fill and vent hoses, then you might well see the biological garden growing in there. I have seen enough for me to sanitize the system all the way to overflowing.

That rain water and whatever, that makes it's way down the poorly designed vents, has no chlorine.

No.

I drink from my 30 year old garden hose too!

But I do occasionally bleach the black tank! (really)

If your using city water, why are you worried about sanitizing your water system? It's already in the water your using.DAH