first time sanitize fresh water tanks
About to sanitize my tanks for the first time (we haven’t drunk the water from the tanks, we just use for cleaning and bathing and so on,, but we are about to go on a long trip with many dry days so w...
Forum Discussion
RVshrinker, I'll assume you've never used or drained your water system based on the questions and over complicating this procedure.
1. Find the water heater drain (anode). Check, you found that
2. Find your freshwater tank drain valve.
3. Starting with relatively empty FW tank.
4. Drain hot water heater
5. Fill freshwater tank full, add bleach while filling. 4-8 oz of 5% household chlorine for a 50 gal tank. More won't hurt, within reason, but will take longer and or more flushing to neutralize though. If your using more concentrated chlorine, adjust accordingly.
6. Run some water through lines, filling hot water tank. Top off FW tank of you feel it necessary to get it more "bleachyyy".
7. Drain everything incl hot water tank.
8. Let sit for chlorine to neutralize, or add any number of neutralizing bases, or simply fill and flush once or twice. Bottom line, residual will smell for a few days or longer unless you actively neutralize or flush repeatedly. But the smell isn't hurting anything unless you want to start drinking the water in short order. Then it just smells is all.
I've disinfected many potable water sources from small municipal water lines to large distribution pipelines and 10s of million gallon storage facilities and reservoirs.
It's not rocket science. Get diluted chlorine contact on all surfaces. Remove chlorine to residual levels before drinking. It's literally that easy and you can't really screw it up.
1. Find the water heater drain (anode). Check, you found that
2. Find your freshwater tank drain valve.
3. Starting with relatively empty FW tank.
4. Drain hot water heater
5. Fill freshwater tank full, add bleach while filling. 4-8 oz of 5% household chlorine for a 50 gal tank. More won't hurt, within reason, but will take longer and or more flushing to neutralize though. If your using more concentrated chlorine, adjust accordingly.
6. Run some water through lines, filling hot water tank. Top off FW tank of you feel it necessary to get it more "bleachyyy".
7. Drain everything incl hot water tank.
8. Let sit for chlorine to neutralize, or add any number of neutralizing bases, or simply fill and flush once or twice. Bottom line, residual will smell for a few days or longer unless you actively neutralize or flush repeatedly. But the smell isn't hurting anything unless you want to start drinking the water in short order. Then it just smells is all.
I've disinfected many potable water sources from small municipal water lines to large distribution pipelines and 10s of million gallon storage facilities and reservoirs.
It's not rocket science. Get diluted chlorine contact on all surfaces. Remove chlorine to residual levels before drinking. It's literally that easy and you can't really screw it up.
