Fresh water tank

I never knew folks were so sensitive to water and different water issues until I joined this Forum. Maybe it's the difference in water quality between home base and different regions when traveling that seems to intensify the issues.

I grew up drinking out of garden hoses, well water that was so mineralized that if you filled a container and waited 15 minutes, you'd have yellow water. Until I became more culturally assimilated I thought that the well water was what good water was supposed to taste like. I never liked "city water".

At my house I have a 260' deep well and an old well fed artesian in the back yard. The latter was the community well for many years and folks used to drive out from the city to grab a few bottles now and then. It had a hand pump but I've converted that to a shallow well system. The well that serves the house (the 260' deep) is always highly mineralized and we use filters and a softener to make household water clean and usable.

For the RV, if I'm taking a longer trip, I'll rinse out the tank with bleach and the house water, then travel to a nearby spring that has the cleanest water around. I pipe a half tank of that into the holding tank. I drink it, cook with it, shower in it, and wash the dishes with it. Actually, I don't do dishes very much....;)

We drink bottled water and also for coffee...just prefer to. We camp almost exclusively at a State Park. I fill up the tank through a filter ( Camco- Blue One that atraches to hose?) and we drain when I head towards the dump station. By the time I get to my storage site the tank has usually completely drained. Like the shampoo bottle states : "Repeat".....every weekend we do it all over. I don't like the idea of water sitting in a small plastic tank for a week in 95 degree weather. I'm sure it would be fine but I prefer to do it this way.

My trailer is about a year old with 7 or 8 trips so far. I will empty the tank if it will not be used for a couple weeks or more. The drain is on the bottom so just assumed it would all come out, but maybe not.

I will use the stored water for kitchen stuff; cooking, coffee etc. Also have never done the sanitize procedure. No odor, color or bad taste so far. It is filled with city water.

RobWNY wrote:
We never drink the water from the fresh water tank either. It's strictly used for washing dishes, showers and flushing the toilet. We bring bottled water for drinking and coffee.

I always like these answers. When you rinse the soap off of the dishes (which should have "cleaned" them up to that point) you are then contaminating them with water from your holding tank again. And when you put that fork in your mouth that was rinsed with water from the holding tank - OMG can you imagine the germs on it???? And then don't let me even think about the coffee cup that was rinsed in water from the holding tank.


We leave our water in the holding tank for up to 5 months and have never had problems with smell, taste or germs. We do run our water into the holding tank through a three filter set up to get rid smell, taste and sediment from the local water supplies we use.

We're still alive, well and happy.

Bill

There is no substitute for scientific discovery.

That's a quote from...me.

I have a chlorine test kit. If the water is .5 ppm or more it is safe to drink. Anything else and you are just guessing. 3 weeks may be a sewer, or it may be just as good as the day you put it in. It depends on how clean the tank was to start, and how good the water was when you put in.

We have a charcoal filter under the kitchen sink to take out the chlorine flavor at that point.

We have well water at the house, but I chlorinate it for safety when it goes in the tank. We and our dogs have been drinking out of our FW tank since 2007.

Did you ever look at the bottom of a fresh water tank? Most cannot be drained completely so that water will harbor whatever is living in there. Drain, flush and sanitize as best you can, but it may never be 100%. But then, city water is never 100% pure.

Our experience......well water (no chlorine), 100+ weather, three weeks you have a sewer in your water tank. :) It all depends on whether the water is treated and the weather outside. :)

We ue our fresh water tank for everything, and have no problem drinking it. However, we do use a lot of bottled water for drinking also, because it is easy to storem keep cold in the fridge, and carry with us when we go out. If it worries you, after flushing and filling, let water sit for a week or so, than take a sample to your local water department, and have them test it. If they say its save, then it probably is.

We never drink the water from the fresh water tank either. It's strictly used for washing dishes, showers and flushing the toilet. We bring bottled water for drinking and coffee.

tenbear wrote:
I sanitize my tank in the spring, before my first trip. I use chlorine and water. I drain the tank and refill it as many times as it takes to get rid of the chlorine smell. During the season I keep the tank about a quarter full.

I drain the tank after the last trip when I winterize the RV.

Same here, occasionally for convenience I'll even fill the FW tank completely before leaving home. We camp frequently enough (every few weeks) that there's no need to drain the system at all during the season and there's certainly no way I'd drain the system after just 5 days, let alone jack the trailer up to drain the FW tank completely ... good grief! :h

I drink water from the tank and have never had a problem.

Here's where we differ, as any water we ingest we bring from home ... others may disagree but we prefer it and we've found our dog is less likely to upchuck. :E