The potable water system in your house is pretty much maintenance-free. The potable water system in your RV, on the other hand, requires some maintenance to keep it trouble-free. Something I've run into quite often is the complaint that there is a stale odor coming from the RV water system.
When you return from a trip and you are not going to use the RV for a while, you need to drain the entire water system to prevent it from getting stale and musty. You can start by draining the water heater.
Go to the outside compartment where the water heater is located. The drain plug, or petcock, is located in the bottom left hand corner. Remove the plug and open the pressure relief valve on top of the water heater to assist in draining. Caution: Never drain the water heater when it is hot or under pressure. Next you need to locate the low point water line drains. It may take a while to find them, but I assure you they are there. There will be one for the hot and one for the cold water lines. This is the lowest point in the water system. Open these and let the water drain out.
There is one more thing left to do, find the drain for the fresh water holding tank and drain all of the water from it. At this point you can turn the water pump on for a moment to force any remaining water out. Do not let the pump continue to run once the water stops draining. Close all the drains.
If by accident you forget to drain the water system and you get that notorious stale odor all is not lost, you just need to sanitize the water system. Start by draining all of the old water out, and close all of the drains. Take a quarter-cup of house-hold bleach for every fifteen gallons of water that your fresh water tank holds. Mix the bleach into a one-gallon container and pour it into the fresh water holding tank. Fill the fresh water tank completely full of water. Turn the water pump on, open all hot and cold faucets and run the water until you smell the bleach at each faucet. Close the faucets and let it sit for 12 hours. Drain the entire system and re-fill the fresh water tank with water. Open all of the faucets and run the water until you no longer smell any bleach. It may be necessary to repeat this process again to eliminate all signs of bleach from the water system. Once this is done it is safe to use your water system. It's also a good idea to use a water filter at campgrounds and to keep bottled water on hand for drinking.
Happy RV Learning!
Mark Polk
RV Education 101
Learn about Mark's books, eBooks and DVDs at RVbookstore.com
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Copyright by Mark Polk owner of RV Education 101 – all rights reserved
Mark Polk
RV Education 101
Learn about Mark's books, eBooks and DVDs at RVbookstore.com
Read more »
Copyright by Mark Polk owner of RV Education 101 – all rights reserved
We are full time and travel a lot, to many places with lousy water. After years of flushing, sterilizing, filtering and so on, we gave up on using campground water direct from the hook-up. Some water is too hard, some stains everything brown, some just plain stinks and the filter will not take it out and some causes a clean tank to go skunky. Our solution was to install a whole RV reverse osmosis water filter with three conventional filters (5 and 2 micron and a carbon block) plus two RO membranes and a pressure boost pump and a timer. Sounds like a lot, but it was easy. We cleaned our tank (for the last time) and run the RO water into the tank. We use only the tank water and NEVER put any other water directly into the tank. We've had sweet water ever since and never have had to drain, filter or sterilize the tank. Once you go to this system you'll never go back.
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