Water Tank Sanitizing ?

[tdelorme]

Oh, Ray, I'll bet your ice maker has a filter like mine does and makes nice clear tasteless ice. Now there is one that's hard to remember to do. Good project for this weekend if I can find a replacement filter.

[Ray Davis]

I'll agree that I haven't spent a lot of time worrying about sanitizing my tank, and have owned motorhomes since 1991 without problem. One thing different with the Prevost (vs previous motorhomes) is the water going into the fridge directly, but as you've indicated, it's protected by it's own filter. Also, the water coming in is filtered as well.

On the new bus, I have never used the gravity feed water filler, which is where I would assume you'd put in the "stuff". I have one of those auto-fill, auto-shutoff inlets that I use. This also forces the incoming water to come in through the filter, where I think the gravity feed does not.

ray

[Joe Cannarozzi]

I was wondering about the ice maker and what to do about the chlorine there that you are sanitizing with. The really only way to do this chlorine sanitation would be to disconnect the Ice makers prior to the flush. Either that or then run them through a few cycles to remove the chlorine???????? I do not like the second choice.

We completly drain ours at least a couple times a year. Never add RV antifreeze just blow the system out with air. I think I sanitized when we got it but not since. We make coffee and ice with it. Always leave town with full home water and never take on any unless nessessary. Never got sick in any way. We too are using it frequently enough and draining often.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Just a few comments.

The water you add to your fresh water holding tank should be known to be treated municipal water or well water that has been tested. If in doubt, do not add it.

Stagnant water, such as from the bus sitting for a while has the potential to grow bacteria that may be harmful if ingested. Unless you drain the tank and all the lines and the HW tank you could have growth of bacteria so it is just easy to use fresh RO water from home for cooking, coffee, etc.

Do not fear a concentration of chlorine unless it is excessive. Almost all municipal water is chlorinated. When I do add chlorine to sanitize I also flush it out after letting it sit for a while, but there is always some residual chlorine in the system and the concentrations are so small it doesn't apprear to hurt anything. We did this for 15 years with the other bus and saw no ill effects.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Jon what about the ice makers?

[phorner]

Having been in charge of a municipal water system for 20 years, it is my recommendation that you simply disinfect the water tank, fill hose, and faucets once a year by using a concentration of 1/4 cup liquid chlorine bleach for every 15 gallons of water.

If you are usually connecting to a public water supply, or a well supply of sanitary quality, there will not be a problem.

In more than 90 percent of the time, this is done to address taste and/or odor concerns and not really to address water safety.

I would be very reluctant to use concentrated disinfectants. In theory, you are trying to achieve a specific chlorine residual, somewhere between 25 and 50 parts per million, or mg/L.

It is probably much more important to spray the hose bib with a bleach/water mixture prior to connecting your fresh water hose every time you connect to one than it is to worry about the bacteriological quality of the tank.

Besides all that, it's a medical fact that alcohol kills germs.... add enough bourbon to the ice cubes and don't worry about it....

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Thanks Paul now I can tell Deb that I had to add a little rum to the cold drink to disinfect the ice

Hmmmmmmmm, how can I disinfect the coffee???????????

[lewpopp]

As I recall in the first post that Jon made on this subject, he mentioned he used other water for his coffee and ice cubes, if I recall correctly. I can understand how you can use gallons of spring water for coffee, but how do you make ice cubes(do you have a separate supply of water for that) unless you have ice cube trays and I doubt that.

I think that Joe has the right idea when he uses "barley" in all that he does. Explain that.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Lew your a funny guy. Now you are correcting my spelling but doing it in a different thread making it a bit of a mystery and search

Once again I'm in the dictionary have found the error and corrected it and thank you for your persistence in this matter. Hopefully with your help I will continue to improve

[flyu2there]

"Bill uses Chlorinating Concentrate (Sodium Dichloro-s-Triazinetricone or Sodium Dichlor for short). Sodium Dichlor contains 62% available chlorine. Compare that to household bleach which has something close to 3%. One pound of Sodium Dichlor is equal to 8 gallons of bleach! Also, household bleach contains other stuff, including a lot of salt, and that salt and other stuff is what causes the bad taste and why you have to flush the fresh water tank so well. "


Who ever Bill is, he's nuts! Di chlor and Tri Chlor are poisons, for that matter so is Clorox, I remember when it used to have a skull and crossbones on the label.
First, one pound of swimming pool dry chlorine is more like 80 gallons of Clorox.....and chlorine has even more salt (sodium) than Clorox.
Were talking 8-12 parts per million here, that's all that is needed and it is generally found in that concentration in most municipal water systems and, even at that concentration, there are those who claim it is hazerdous.
A cup here, a tablespoon or two there is going to send concentrations way high.
Personally I just flush the tank every now and then with muni water, then I replace all of the filters. A $500.00 RO System is the answer. You could fill your tank with pond water and still enjoy your coffee, oh, don't forget your icemaker.

"Consider some well-known attributes of chlorine. Let's say, "the dark side" of the saviour. A PhD chemist friend put it this way: "If I were assigned to go into a lab and produce a menu of known carcinogens (cancer-causing agents), the first thing I would do would be to grab-up a cylinder of chlorine and start bubbling it through some water that contains naturally occuring organic acids (humic and fumic acids -- as are found in all natural bodies of water like rivers, lakes, reservoirs, etc.)."




John