water lines in the winter bad tatste

ticki2 wrote:
After flushing and sanitizing in the spring I fill once more and add a quart o white vinegar , run it through all the lines including the WH . Let it sit overnight or longer , drain everything and refill . Nice fresh water I use for everything including cooking and drinking.

x2

This works like a charm for me as well.

What I always find interesting is that commercial bread bakers use the same glycol in RV antifreeze as a dough extender so if you eat sponge bread, you are eating it....

We blow out the lines with compressed air, 25 to 30 psi, opening the valves and faucets one at a time until no more water comes out. Then we disconnect the water pump, let it drain and stay disconnected. Finally, we put in antifreeze, but only in the drains. So the fresh water tank and lines are never exposed to the antifreeze.

In my experience no amount of flushing ever 100% gets rid of it. I flush 3-4 full fresh tanks of water through the system, and still have a heavy antifreeze smell, especially the hot water. You can almost shower without burning your eyes about halfway through the summer. By the time it gets tolerable it's time to winterize again.

I really don't have a good way to winterize the camper. No winterizing kit on the pump, and no bypass on the water heater.

Not going to install them, either. Too risky. Had too many problems trying to change things in the plumbing. Leaks, broken fittings from when the pex goes "sproing" and won't flex back to reconnect.

Antifreeze followed by bleach sanitizing always left a smell/taste, until I discovered white vinegar like tiki2.

There are a couple different "flavors" of RV antifreeze. I am not sure who makes what but there is one that makes me sick smelling it. VERY sweet and a flavor added that I cannot identify that gives me a headache even if it is just in the drain traps.

Once winter is over I add a half tank of fresh water to the water tank (I do not add any antifreeze to the tank so no having to get this out), then I pump that through the system to clean out the lines. Then I add a cup or two of bleach and fill up the tank to the overflow and pump this through the lines then leave it sit for a day or two. Then I drain all the water out and flush with fresh water, when I no longer smell bleach I open the hot water bypass valves.

Between leaving the system over the winter in the freezing cold and the bleach every spring the system is drinkable. Then I only fill up where I know that the water is good. I also keep water in the fridge as I like cold water but will take that out of the RV tank without a problem.

I'm with adamis. We have a separate 5 gallon collapsible container for water we drink and if we run out, we boil water from the main tank. This is an old habit of ours from drinking lake water in Canada.

However, I do make sure I sanitize the tank and lines at least twice a year with bleach. Once when I clean the lines of antifreeze in the spring and again in the summer.

Personally I don't trust the water tank for drinking water unless it's been boiled. I've not gotten the chance to open my Bigfoot water tank compartment from the bottom but I have worked on the top where the water inlet goes into the tank and I can see plenty of mold growing inside the tubing. Trying to clean it out seems near impossible as mold tends to just stick to surfaces extremely well no matter what is flushed down it.

As much as I hate the added waste (little kids are the worse for finishing!), we bring a case of bottled water with us and keep the fridge stocked as necessary. I suppose if I was full timing I'd go through the effort to really clean the tanks or install a filter on the tap as buying bottled water isn't cost effective long term.

On anecdotal evidence, I don't know if what grows inside of a tank is necessarily bad for consumption by humans to begin with. I certainly wouldn't make a habit of it but before we were city dewlling, kale eating, herbivours we once ate red meat and drank the water from the local creeks without worrying about what the deer upstream just did in it. Again, wouldn't make a habit of it but I think only on the very rare instance will it actually kill you.

I don't winterize the camper, but on the boat I blow all the lines out with compressed air and drain the water heater. There remain a couple of places where the water cannot be blown out, in those places I pour in some Vodka. In the spring, doesn't taste bad at all!

GeoBoy wrote:

Dick_B wrote:
We've never had a problem unless my smeller isn't so good anymore. After flushing out the antifreeze in the Spring and sanitizing with bleach and flushing it out there is no aftertaste or smell. But we also use bottled water for coffee and drinking.

X2

X3 our water sucks anyway