How long does fresh water stay fresh?
I haven't seen this bantered about or discussed, (couldn't find it in a search either), so here goes. I have never dry camped for more than a couple of days but anticipate doing a lot more of it. A...
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Chuck,
As said, your question is pretty much unanswerable. That sure did not slow many people down.
Here is a set of simple answers that I know from have worked in water quality for only a few years several decades back.
You live in Portage, if that is the Portage just south of Kalamazoo, you are probably on K'zoo city water or another municipal water system. That system will be run to have a chlorine residual. If you leave a glass of water out and it tastes better after a day, that is because the chlorine left. If that is the case, sanitizing the tank is never a bad idea, but when you put city water in that tank (at Mi temperatures) it will be good a real long time. Like, at least until you drain it to winterize.
Want a nice way to sanitize? Better than the bleach (blech!) method?
Get a jug of high density hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). This not the drug store grade for use on injuries, but stuff for cleaning hot tubs. It is somewhat dangerous to handle (Please read the label), but you are only going to do this once a year. Just pour it in and add about 5 gallons of city water and run it out all the taps. Let it sit a while, over night is OK but not necessary. Then try to run it all out. You will now have peroxide loaded water in the black and gray tanks and that is not bad either, but you did lose some waste water capacity until you dump.
Peroxide water (there will be some left no matter what you do) tastes much better than chlorine water.
This is what we have been doing for decades and we do use the tank water for everything. I do have a carbon filter tap in the galley, because we have loaded water in some places (we travel a lot) that was terrible for coffee.
Matt - Near DTW (Metro Airport)
As said, your question is pretty much unanswerable. That sure did not slow many people down.
Here is a set of simple answers that I know from have worked in water quality for only a few years several decades back.
You live in Portage, if that is the Portage just south of Kalamazoo, you are probably on K'zoo city water or another municipal water system. That system will be run to have a chlorine residual. If you leave a glass of water out and it tastes better after a day, that is because the chlorine left. If that is the case, sanitizing the tank is never a bad idea, but when you put city water in that tank (at Mi temperatures) it will be good a real long time. Like, at least until you drain it to winterize.
Want a nice way to sanitize? Better than the bleach (blech!) method?
Get a jug of high density hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). This not the drug store grade for use on injuries, but stuff for cleaning hot tubs. It is somewhat dangerous to handle (Please read the label), but you are only going to do this once a year. Just pour it in and add about 5 gallons of city water and run it out all the taps. Let it sit a while, over night is OK but not necessary. Then try to run it all out. You will now have peroxide loaded water in the black and gray tanks and that is not bad either, but you did lose some waste water capacity until you dump.
Peroxide water (there will be some left no matter what you do) tastes much better than chlorine water.
This is what we have been doing for decades and we do use the tank water for everything. I do have a carbon filter tap in the galley, because we have loaded water in some places (we travel a lot) that was terrible for coffee.
Matt - Near DTW (Metro Airport)
