Cleaning/Filling Fresh Water Tank

[Cocky_Camper]

If you have been watching the news, hurricane Matthew is along the east coast. We live in SC. We are about 150 miles from the coast, BUT, with the way the track keeps moving back and forth, we want to be prepared.... just incase.

We bought our TT used, and have never used our fresh water tank. My questions:

How to I clean/sanitize the tank?
Is it okay to fill the tank with a non white (regular garden hose) garden hose? I really don't want to have to hook up and move the TT just to fill the tank with a white hose. I have noticed that non-white hose creates a fizzy bubble looking substance when filling thing with them.

Thanks in advance!

[DutchmenSport]

I've been using non-white garden hoses ... well ... always.

I have 200 feet of hose I carry with me all the time (non-white) that is dedicated just for the camper.

My hoses are on a real, so this is really easy to do. I simply pour about a quart of household bleach into the hose and then begin turning the real. The bleach will flow down-hill as the real turns, pushing it's way all the way through the hose. I let it sit for about 5 minutes, then hook up to a water spigot and flush it out. I always keep both ends connected to each other to keep the inside clean.

Now, I'm using a pretty good hose, not an el-cheap-o like I use to do, and using the bleach clean the hose out and we've never had hose taste in the fresh water tank.

By now, germ-a-phobic folks reading are probably stroking out or holding their heart yelling, "This is the big one!"

I personally think the white hose syndrome is over-rated.

So, if you really want the water, fill the hose with bleach and make sure it passes through the entire hose. Flush it out, and you'll be OK. (really).

I'm 61 years old and STILL drink from the hose laying on the ground at my house.

To clean the RV tank, add a few gallons of water (like 10) and bleach. Drive the RV around so the water will slosh all over the tank. Run the bleach water through all your lines and let it sit for an hour or so. Then drain out your fresh tank, either with the on-board pump or the drain at the bottom of the tank and fill with fresh water and rinse it out. Finally flush fresh water though all the fresh water plumbing (via the fresh water tank) until the chlorine smell is gone.

[hohenwald48]

No problem filling with a garden hose. I drank out of one until I was 15. Might taste or smell funny but won't hurt you at all. I usually don't worry to much about what goes into the tank. If folks really knew what their public water system looked like they would know the garden hose is the least of their worries.

At any rate, we just use the tank water for bathing and doing dishes. I have a separate filtered faucet for drinking water. Also, you can simply buy (if it's not all gone) gallons of drinking water from WalMart and use that for consumption.

The only thing a white hose does is not impart any smell or taste into the water. Nothing really special about it.

[Trackrig]

As to using a garden hose - it depends. Is it clean or has it been sitting around in the heat and sun growing moss and mildew inside of it? If you use a garden hose that's been sitting around, I'd put some Clorox inside of it, turn the water on low and run it until you can smell the Clorox coming out of it, turn the water off and let the Clorox set in it for a while.

Bill