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Old 09-16-2020, 07:29 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cavie View Post
Google says.........................1/4 cup of bleach per 15 Gal. Sound like a cup 60 wins the bet.
That is the procedure I’ve always followed. Diluted bleach solution goes into the tank then the tank is filled with fresh water. With the water pump on, open each tap in turn,starting with the farthest from the tank, and let water flow until bleach smell is detected, then close the tap and move to the next tap. After that, let it sit for at least 4 hours preferably overnight, then drain and refill with fresh water. Be sure the water heater is bypassed. I’ve never felt the need to drain and refill a second time but it certainly can’t hurt.

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Old 09-16-2020, 08:36 PM   #22
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Originally Posted by MaceMan View Post
we don't "store our RV either as we continue to use it all year. Our water here is really good and tastes great. We almost never by bottles of water. I put in some water when we are going to use it after I drain it out in December after out December trip, I don't drain the rest, I keep a space heater in there in the winter. Doesn't freeze here much and the water never gets bad or smelly over the year.
I was reading many articles about water and many said that open water will start absorbing carbon dioxide and after 12 hours or more the water starts to become bitter. I figure our tanks are sealed for the most part so that shouldn't happen but I don't think I would let water sit over a long period of time. All It would take is a little bacteria in the water to multiply over time and make a person sick. My Keurigs if they sit more than a few days I drain them and refill. Then I make two 12oz cups to make sure no old water is left in there even though the water boils in the machine
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Old 09-16-2020, 08:37 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by Norrirn View Post
That is the procedure I’ve always followed. Diluted bleach solution goes into the tank then the tank is filled with fresh water. With the water pump on, open each tap in turn,starting with the farthest from the tank, and let water flow until bleach smell is detected, then close the tap and move to the next tap. After that, let it sit for at least 4 hours preferably overnight, then drain and refill with fresh water. Be sure the water heater is bypassed. I’ve never felt the need to drain and refill a second time but it certainly can’t hurt.


Why do you bypass the water heater? It’s water can get just as foul as the rest of it.
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Old 09-16-2020, 09:44 PM   #24
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Originally Posted by Pete'sMH View Post
Why do you bypass the water heater? It’s water can get just as foul as the rest of it.


The water heater should be drained separately. Placed back online and turned on, heating the water will take care of any bugs.

I referred to the Thor Owner’s Manual for guidance. I simply defer to their expertise.
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Old 09-16-2020, 09:48 PM   #25
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Originally Posted by Norrirn View Post
The water heater should be drained separately. Placed back online and turned on, heating the water will take care of any bugs.

I referred to the Thor Owner’s Manual for guidance. I simply defer to their expertise.


Didn’t know about that. I’ll give it a try.
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Old 09-16-2020, 10:03 PM   #26
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Originally Posted by Norrirn View Post
The water heater should be drained separately. Placed back online and turned on, heating the water will take care of any bugs.

I referred to the Thor Owner’s Manual for guidance. I simply defer to their expertise.

Here’s the applicable text from the Thor manual:

****
You should sanitize and disinfect the fresh water system upon delivery of the unit and at least once per year or whenever the motorhome is unused for prolonged periods of time. This will help keep your water system fresh and discourage the growth of viral and bacterial contamination, which may be contained in your water supply. Use a chlorine and fresh water rinse as follows:
1. Drain the fresh water tank by opening the drain valve. All of the faucets should be in the closed or off position.
2. Prepare a solution of 1/4 cup household liquid chlorine bleach (5% sodium hypochlorite) to one gallon of water for every 15 gallons of tank capacity. Do not pour bleach straight into tank. Bleach must be diluted in water prior to filling.
Example: Add four 2/3 gallons solution to a 70 gallon tank. Add five 1/3 gallons solution to a 80 gallon tank. Add six 1 gallon solution to a 90 gallon tank. Add six 2/3 gallons solution to a 100 gallon tank.
This mixture puts a 50 PPM (parts per million) residual chlorine concentration in the motorhome’s water tank. This will act as quick-kill dosage for some harmful bacteria, viruses, and slime-forming organisms. Concentrations higher than 50 PPM may damage water lines and/or tank.
3. Close all faucets and drains, and fill the fresh water tank with the rinse solution through the potable water fill.
4. Turn on the pump switch and circulate the rinse solution throughout the entire system.
5. Once the rinse solution has been circulated through the entire system, fill the fresh water tank until it is full.
6. Close all faucets and drains and let the system sit for approximately three (3) hours.
7. Drain the entire system.
8. Flush the complete system with fresh water until chlorine odor disappears.
9. Finally, close all drains and fill the fresh water tank as you normally would. Make sure the water heater has water in it prior to igniting.
Chlorine is poisonous. Recap bottle and clean any appliances used with soap and water.
*******
I’m probably wrong about the water heater. Not sure where I got that so leaving it in-line is probably fine.
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Old 09-17-2020, 02:43 AM   #27
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We use our class C just about every fifth week on the average. We drain the fresh water tank and water heater each time we store it. So far, no problems.
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Old 09-17-2020, 11:33 AM   #28
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Legal vs. safe vs. healthy - not all the same

In spite of what most folks think, there are no safe water sources. Roughly 98% of all human life on the planet now carries the bio-accumulator C-8 (it's what makes Teflon & Gore-Tex work) and it never goes away - hence the "bio-accumulator" tag. We've had atrazine in every USGS test well in the US for years, and now Dicamba, Round-Up and more are there and in our food as well, so don't kid yourself that well water is somehow safe because it's coming from deep in the ground. Wells and casings leak, and where they don't, they still provide a capillary path for surface water contaminants (like pesticides, sewage effluent & industrial wastes) to access those supposedly pristine aquifers, to say nothing of the effect of tens of thousands of oil and gas wells (think fracking).



Thanks to the persistence of countless failed private and public sewage treatment facilities, and the good folks at DuPont, 3M, Beyer, BASF, et al, all of our water sources have been impacted. Ironic that companies like DuPont are now making money selling us filters and membranes to remove their industrial pollutants from the contaminated water that they've left behind, but I digress.


As a former USAF SERE Instructor I've drunk water from all sorts of sketchy and disgusting sources, and I've known more than a few people who decided "it looks clean" was clean enough, and they later paid for it dearly. Looks and taste are simply not a measure of safety, and some of the most dangerous Industrial pollutants are completely undetectable by taste, smell or sight, with carcinogenic PFOA's being a prime example.



Just because a public water system claims that they've met the Federal guidelines doesn't mean their water is healthy either. The companies that create the industrial wastes and pesticides that are making us sick spend gobs of money to keep the gutless EPA and FDA off of their back. Matter of fact, they often have their own people appointed to run said agencies (as has been especially true of late), so it's basically the foxes runnin' the hen house on that front.



The vast majority of metropolitan water treatment facilities don't even have the capacity to test for many of the latest exposed serious health threats, like the aforementioned C-8, and the incalculable number of pharmaceutical compounds that pass straight through their systems undetected. They all have issues. If it's not incomplete treatment and filtration, it's their excess sanitizing chemicals that reach your glass , so just as staying Covid free requires you to treat everyone as if they are a carrier, the best way to avoid GI distress (and potentially much worse) is to assume that any and all water that you source has something wrong with it, and treat it accordingly.


It's no better when you're boondocking on the outermost fringe. You can't see E. coli 0157:H7, nor giardia lamblia, cryptosporidium, liver flukes, or guinea worm larva, and yet they are all out there, often in some of the most pristine looking, crystal clear waters that you've ever seen. Yes, that stream may well be glacial melt fed, but that doesn't mean there isn't a dead moose rotting in it somewhere upstream as well. Does a bear crap in the woods? Yup, and in the water too, so 'nuf said?

And what do ya suppose waterborne microorganisms love, other than obviously water? More often than not, the very conditions that a typical RV water tank & distribution system provide, especially one that only gets used every few months. So, what to do? Well, the Thor folks' guidance is certainly a simple, but effective, low budget approach, but it doesn't really address all of the possible contaminants that you can potentially encounter, plus it introduces a dangerous chemical compound into my water that I'd sooner do without, even in minute doses.



We resort to an injected oxidizer (ozone) w/ post treatment GAC to absorb any excess O3, graduated 150µ to sub-micron filtration (eg. Doulton RIO-200), reverse osmosis & de-ionization (RODI). With a composting toilet our water needs are much reduced, so 40-60 gallons will go a pretty long way. Even w/ a pressure pump, RO wastes a fair bit of water, so we treat everything as it goes into our tanks, and again as we use it, just w/o the RODI. With stepped sediment filtration ahead of the finer gradation filters you can potentially turn contaminated floodwaters into lab grade dielectric H20 (which then needs a little calcium to help buffer it up to a neutral pH), but that is pretty much where my paranoid OCD butt needs to be in order to relax. I also refuse to pay good money for water that's bottled in plastic future garbage, so becoming my own traveling water treatment plant was unavoidable.



Of course, another solution would be to just do as many of our ancestors did and simply drink beer instead of water.




While the state of our water is unsettling, it's still better to know...


http://psep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/pes-heef-grw85.aspx


https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/hygiene/plumbing3.pdf


https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/




Just my roll of nickels worth.
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Old 09-17-2020, 01:41 PM   #29
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Originally Posted by Roark View Post
In spite of what most folks think, there are no safe water sources. Roughly 98% of all human life on the planet now carries the bio-accumulator C-8 (it's what makes Teflon & Gore-Tex work) and it never goes away - hence the "bio-accumulator" tag. We've had atrazine in every USGS test well in the US for years, and now Dicamba, Round-Up and more are there and in our food as well, so don't kid yourself that well water is somehow safe because it's coming from deep in the ground. Wells and casings leak, and where they don't, they still provide a capillary path for surface water contaminants (like pesticides, sewage effluent & industrial wastes) to access those supposedly pristine aquifers, to say nothing of the effect of tens of thousands of oil and gas wells (think fracking).



Thanks to the persistence of countless failed private and public sewage treatment facilities, and the good folks at DuPont, 3M, Beyer, BASF, et al, all of our water sources have been impacted. Ironic that companies like DuPont are now making money selling us filters and membranes to remove their industrial pollutants from the contaminated water that they've left behind, but I digress.


As a former USAF SERE Instructor I've drunk water from all sorts of sketchy and disgusting sources, and I've known more than a few people who decided "it looks clean" was clean enough, and they later paid for it dearly. Looks and taste are simply not a measure of safety, and some of the most dangerous Industrial pollutants are completely undetectable by taste, smell or sight, with carcinogenic PFOA's being a prime example.



Just because a public water system claims that they've met the Federal guidelines doesn't mean their water is healthy either. The companies that create the industrial wastes and pesticides that are making us sick spend gobs of money to keep the gutless EPA and FDA off of their back. Matter of fact, they often have their own people appointed to run said agencies (as has been especially true of late), so it's basically the foxes runnin' the hen house on that front.



The vast majority of metropolitan water treatment facilities don't even have the capacity to test for many of the latest exposed serious health threats, like the aforementioned C-8, and the incalculable number of pharmaceutical compounds that pass straight through their systems undetected. They all have issues. If it's not incomplete treatment and filtration, it's their excess sanitizing chemicals that reach your glass , so just as staying Covid free requires you to treat everyone as if they are a carrier, the best way to avoid GI distress (and potentially much worse) is to assume that any and all water that you source has something wrong with it, and treat it accordingly.


It's no better when you're boondocking on the outermost fringe. You can't see E. coli 0157:H7, nor giardia lamblia, cryptosporidium, liver flukes, or guinea worm larva, and yet they are all out there, often in some of the most pristine looking, crystal clear waters that you've ever seen. Yes, that stream may well be glacial melt fed, but that doesn't mean there isn't a dead moose rotting in it somewhere upstream as well. Does a bear crap in the woods? Yup, and in the water too, so 'nuf said?

And what do ya suppose waterborne microorganisms love, other than obviously water? More often than not, the very conditions that a typical RV water tank & distribution system provide, especially one that only gets used every few months. So, what to do? Well, the Thor folks' guidance is certainly a simple, but effective, low budget approach, but it doesn't really address all of the possible contaminants that you can potentially encounter, plus it introduces a dangerous chemical compound into my water that I'd sooner do without, even in minute doses.



We resort to an injected oxidizer (ozone) w/ post treatment GAC to absorb any excess O3, graduated 150µ to sub-micron filtration (eg. Doulton RIO-200), reverse osmosis & de-ionization (RODI). With a composting toilet our water needs are much reduced, so 40-60 gallons will go a pretty long way. Even w/ a pressure pump, RO wastes a fair bit of water, so we treat everything as it goes into our tanks, and again as we use it, just w/o the RODI. With stepped sediment filtration ahead of the finer gradation filters you can potentially turn contaminated floodwaters into lab grade dielectric H20 (which then needs a little calcium to help buffer it up to a neutral pH), but that is pretty much where my paranoid OCD butt needs to be in order to relax. I also refuse to pay good money for water that's bottled in plastic future garbage, so becoming my own traveling water treatment plant was unavoidable.



Of course, another solution would be to just do as many of our ancestors did and simply drink beer instead of water.




While the state of our water is unsettling, it's still better to know...


http://psep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/pes-heef-grw85.aspx


https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/hygiene/plumbing3.pdf


https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/




Just my roll of nickels worth.


Agree with all of this but you have to drink something lest you die. For most of us treated municipal water is the best option. I drain after each trip and only sanitize when the water smells bad. Which usually only happens with well water. Often we bring our home RO water in bottles for drinking,
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Old 09-17-2020, 04:07 PM   #30
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Guess we should be very sick or dead!
Never sanitized a rv fw tank in 40+ years of rving! After 10 years of fulltiming had our hose connected to spigots all across the country & drank from the faucet at every stop with never an issue. I did however have the hose connected to a sediment filter then a water softener then through a charcoal filter then to the rv, also filled my tank through this system, water always smelled & taste good.
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Old 09-17-2020, 06:34 PM   #31
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Interesting now how many drink bottled water only and just use on board for bathing and cooking

Water quality has deteriorated over time due to almost all aquifers being drawn down

Luckily there is little risk in the majority of municipal water

I am more concerned about the folks that either use the same hose for black water rinse and store and handle them carelessly

Unless you're immune system is knowingly compromised just use common sense and enjoy the trip

If you're in the group that has had or are experiencing health issues then go the extra steps to be sure your water is as safe as possible
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Old 09-17-2020, 06:39 PM   #32
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Originally Posted by Travelin' Texans View Post
Guess we should be very sick or dead!
Never sanitized a rv fw tank in 40+ years of rving! After 10 years of fulltiming had our hose connected to spigots all across the country & drank from the faucet at every stop with never an issue. I did however have the hose connected to a sediment filter then a water softener then through a charcoal filter then to the rv, also filled my tank through this system, water always smelled & taste good.
If you're constantly adding water that has free available chlorine that is essentially keeping a tank sterile

The folks that have issues are the ones with stagnat water in the tanks which are exposed to the atmosphere via the vent

And of course non treated well water

Almost every water source has organic material which is measured by performing a test with results reported as TOC or total organic carbon

That is what becomes food for the microbes
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Old 09-18-2020, 06:59 AM   #33
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In spite of what most folks think...
...Just my roll of nickels worth.
Holy Moses! [emoji46]
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Old 09-18-2020, 12:07 PM   #34
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Can you brush your teeth with wine?
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Old 09-18-2020, 12:23 PM   #35
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White should be fine!
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Old 09-18-2020, 12:28 PM   #36
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Thanks! That'll make my Missus happy!
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Old 09-19-2020, 02:39 AM   #37
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Can you brush your teeth with wine?





You brush with beer, silly.



Wine is for rinsing.





Unfortunately, I can never remember what I did with the tequila...
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Old 09-19-2020, 03:21 AM   #38
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Originally Posted by Travelin' Texans View Post
Guess we should be very sick or dead!
Never sanitized a rv fw tank in 40+ years of rving! After 10 years of fulltiming had our hose connected to spigots all across the country & drank from the faucet at every stop with never an issue. I did however have the hose connected to a sediment filter then a water softener then through a charcoal filter then to the rv, also filled my tank through this system, water always smelled & taste good.
That's good to hear. You've been very fortunate.



I know I've taken my chances on more than one occasion, but one of the buggers with a lot of the food and water borne illness that we experience is that we often mistake it for something else, thanks to the time it can take for some of the nasties to populate.



Then there are those that accumulate even more slowly and are absorbed into your bones or fatty tissue before manifesting as some weird blood disease or cancer. All working in synergy with the ever increasing level of environmental toxins that are increasing all around us every day - at a rate of about 2,000 new chemicals a year in the U.S. There are over 60,000 out there already that have never even been tested by themselves, much less in interaction with all of the others - for any kind of safety. So ya rolls the dice and takes yer chances...


I unfortunately, was an inadvertent victim of a very serious environmental poisoning that left me with no tolerance to all sorts of chemicals, so I'm more than a bit phobic. The biological stuff and pharmacology screw with your gut biome, which IS your immune system, so things like big hammer/little bug antibiotics can mess that up and allow other lesser threats make an even bigger impact.



It's all kinda sad, but our progress always seems to be a race between our technology and trying to clean up after it.


That charcoal that you mentioned always works really great. It's just a pain trying to guess when it's absorbed all that it can. I hate having to throw anything away, so I've been trying to work with things that I can clean and re-use as much as possible. Just a different kinda pain.
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Old 09-19-2020, 10:57 AM   #39
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Charcoal or activated carbon filters do exhaust or are consumed based upon loading

A simple crude test is to measure (test) chlorine in and out

Carbon exchanges or removes significant chlorine until exhausted

This includes whatever the chlorine might be attached to or tied up with

Since RV water usage is typically low as compared to home we change the primary combination filter twice per year

Depending on water quality and usage your intervals may vary
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Old 09-19-2020, 02:12 PM   #40
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You brush with beer, silly
Wine is for rinsing.

Unfortunately, I can never remember what I did with the tequila...
Aftershave...


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