Sanitizing water system

[steveandjil]

Hi all,

I don’t drink or cook from my rv water system (bring bottled water.) it’s used for bathing and washing dishes. As such I only fully sanitize every year or even 2. My question is what most of you do about your hot water heater when sanitizing. Put the chemicals in it? Bypass? Don’t run sanitizing fluid through hot water lines?

Thanks,

Steve

[Boon_Docker]

Golden_HVAC wrote:
So if you mix a tablespoon of bleach into a quart of water, then pour this into your fresh water tank fill (or the hose if you can not pour it in directly), then fill the water tank, you will have plenty of bleach in the tank.

That might do for chlorinating water for drinking, but not even close for sanitizing the fresh water tank and water lines.
You need 1/4 cup (regular household bleach) for every 16 gallons of water.

[cavie]

1/4 cup bleach per every 15 gals water in the tank.

[markchengr]

We fill with highly chlorinated Seattle city water. We drink water from the tank, been doing it for years-no problemo. Warning, the following is just my opinion: "If you don't exercise your immune system, it will atrophy like any unused muscle or organ".

[agesilaus]

You mean 1 gallon of Clorox? I believe that is 6.25% or 62500 ppm of chlorate not 100%. Normal target for drinking water systems is about 1 ppm but I guess 4 pp is fine if you are slightly superchlorinating.

Clorox itself recommends 8 drops per gallon or 1/8 teaspoon per 1.5 gallons of water: Disinfect water. If my math is right that's about a teaspoon per 10 gal of water

[Golden_HVAC]

Many people ask how much chlorine should be used to sanitize the water tank. You need to get to about 4 parts per million, so 1 gallon will treat about 1 million quarts of water, or about 250,000 gallons. So if you mix a tablespoon of bleach into a quart of water, then pour this into your fresh water tank fill (or the hose if you can not pour it in directly), then fill the water tank, you will have plenty of bleach in the tank. Filling the tank all they way, and it will not slosh around. However fill it about 3/4, and then drive around the block, so it will coat the inside of the tank.

Run the water pump, and let it fill all the pipes. Let it sit about 1 hour, and then pump out water from each line until you can smell the chlorine again, then let it sit 1 hour, and run the lines again. Drain the tank the next morning, and fill with fresh water. Drain the water heater, and it will then be full of only clean water. Run fresh water out of all the lines for about 20 seconds after you stop smelling the chlorine. Then your system should be full of fresh water only.

I would do this every spring, or anytime the water was allowed to sit more then a couple of months. I always drained my water tank at the end of every trip.

Fred.

[Boon_Docker]

Sanitize once a year (beginning of camping season) and I run the solution in the water heater and all water lines (hot and cold).