Fresh Water

[jc350]

Have a VRV with a 26 gallon tank.  I drain the tank by running the water pump, including the water heater.  I also open the drain plug.  In addition to making sure it is level or even tilted slightly toward the drain plug.   I obviously am leaving some amount of water in the tank because it smells bad after a few months.   I solve it easy enough with a bleach mixture.  But I would like to figure out a way to completely remove the water.  I've heard of pumping pressure into the tank.  Any ideas?

[Kirk W]

Welcome to the Escapee forums! There are blow out plugs available for RV water systems but they won't get all water out of the tank but do pretty good for the water lines. In all RVs that I am familiar wiith the water line leaves the tank such that about an inch of water remains in the tank after all that can be drained out has been. 

                                     

[$ Spot]

1 hour ago, jc350 said:

Have a VRV with a 26 gallon tank.  I drain the tank by running the water pump, including the water heater.  I also open the drain plug.  In addition to making sure it is level or even tilted slightly toward the drain plug.   

By drain plug, are you referring to the water heater? Down low on the side of your trailer you should find a valve handle that when pulled will drain your fresh water tank from it's low point. It'll drain straight down so finding the protrusion from your trailer's underbelly could also indicate where to look for the valve handle, or search for the label "Fresh Water".

     Spot

 

[jc350]

Actually both.  I drain the bottom drain plug at both the water heater and the fresh water tank.   I will take another look at the bottom of the fresh water tank.   THANKS FOR THE RESPONSE!

 

[Kirk W]

12 hours ago, jc350 said:

 I will take another look at the bottom of the fresh water tank.

If yours is like most RVs, the tank drain is from a "T" off of the pump suction connection at the bottom of the tank but that leaves about 1/2" of water in the tank. Even if there is a drain that exits the bottom of your water tank, the fitting to it will cause a small amount of water to remain in the tank. You may be able to tilt the trailer toward the tank outlet to get that last bit of water out by raising one side of the RV.

What puzzels me  is the reason for your odor issues? I have owned RVs for more than 30 years and have never had the problem that you seem to have. Do you sanitize the RV water system in the spring when you put it back into service? 

[jc350]

I am forced to sanitize it each time.  I was assuming the smelly water was comin

[jc350]

Oops.  Hit send.   I assumed that the smelly water was coming from the small about of water that doesn't drain sitting for several months in the heat.   Once I sanitize it, the water doesn't smell.   Thanks

[Kirk W]

1 hour ago, jc350 said:

I assumed that the smelly water was coming from the small about of water that doesn't drain sitting for several months in the heat. 

While that is possible, it could also come from an algae that grows in the hot water of the water heater. If the odor is one of rotten eggs, the water heater is a much more common source. If the water left in the RV is heavily mineralized, as much of the water in AZ is, that too could be a part of the problem, particularly if that water is raw well water. It is a good practice to sanitize at least annually anyway. You could also make sure that the small amount left has a heavy dose of chlorine as a preventive. 

I can't recall of having heard of problems from the small amount of water left behind in the past, but it is possible. 

[fpmtngal]

I’ve had issues with the water heater also, got a wand water heater sprayer and rinse it out regularly, which seems to have taken care of the problem. I think a contributing factor for me was also the fact either my winterizing bypass valve or the upper backflow valve isn’t working right because the last 2 times I winterized this year, I noticed a little antifreeze in it.

[Dmitche4]

Our problem appears to be that the place where we store the trailer, they winterize and de-winterize the 5vr for us, appear to have sulfur in their well water.  I need to figure out had to get rid of that water after the de-winterizaton. Being city bound, we would be hard pressed to fill and empty the tanks without causing a scene...

David

[JimK]

Pseudomonas bacteria growths readily in stored water tanks.  It is likely to give off a grape like odor and will also appear as pink deposits.  Water can take on different odors from other bacteria.  I seems all but impossible to totally empty and dry the water tank, hot water heater and the rest of the fresh water plumbing.   Even so I would not trust the system without sanitizing it.  That is pretty simple.  It only takes 1/4 cup of bleach for each 15 gallons of water.   Most people wait longer but it takes a soak time of about an hour to completely disinfect the system.   

[sandsys]

7 hours ago, Dmitche4 said:

Being city bound, we would be hard pressed to fill and empty the tanks without causing a scene...

Depends on the city. Our suburbs have outdoor stores (focused mostly on hunting and fishing) that have free dumps and fill stations. You can fill with bleach water, let it sit while you go wander the store, come back out and dump then fill. Maybe go eat. Come back and dump and fill again. Not something we could do in our apartment's parking lot but not that far to go to get ready for another season.

Linda

[Barbaraok]

Not if you have a 100 gallon fresh water tank. 😉

dump ours at RV park in Mesa in April, 5 minutes later ground is dry.   Use for first part of travel, so when about 1/2 full dump rest of Mesa water  and fill with good Washington state water. 😎.   Repeat yearly.   

[Ray,IN]

Another source of smelly water is the anode(Aluminum or Magnesium) in the water heater drain plug,(Atwood does not use one) as it deteriorates the residue drops to the bottom of the tank. Your rinse wand should flush most of the residue out, but, since there is a distance from the drain threads to the tank bottom, some water and anode residue can remain trapped in the tank.

[Dmitche4]

We replace the anode rod annually.  I am hoping to just flush the system.  Last year it turned our white wash cloths yellow.

David

[Vladimir]

Check your water pump filter.

[Bill w/bus]

Use Purogene as alternative to bleach. Bleach takes at least two rinsed to clear the odor from the system. When, not if, you sanitize your water system make sure that you adhere to at least a thirty minute soak after the solution is flowing from all the water outlets.  A proper sanitizer solution is a mild acid solution with the antibacterial addition. I use Purogene with citric acid powder mixed together and added to the water system via the pump.  Maybe a once a year project.  For less frequent usage then sanitize once and drain the system when going into storage. Add the Purogene at rate of one ounce per thirty gallons. Should fix your problem.

Good luck with your system.

Bill

[scouserl41]

We stumbled across the cause of the bad taste in our water a while back. We carry 2 fresh water hoses for those odd occasions where the water spigot is on the wrong side of the site or the fill point is far away. Our spare hose sat in the storage locker for the winter while we stayed in a park for 5 months. Once on the road we were low on water and needed to fill from a tough to reach spigot and used both hoses. The water tasted funky but we got by using bottled water for cooking and drinking them dumped the tank the first opportunity we had and filled up again. The water was fine.

We discovered that the hose that sat for 5 months caused the bas taste! No I try and use both hoses in rotation to avoid a repeat of the problem.

BnB

[NDBirdman]

12 hours ago, Bill w/bus said:

 Purogene with citric acid powder mixed together and added to the water system via the pump.

Just ordered this.  How much citric acid powder do you add per 40 gallon treatment?

Thanks

[Sehc]

I would sanitise with clorox at the end of the season. Then again at the beginning. If you have some chlorine left in the tank it will kill the bad stuff over the winter.  Purogene is based on Chlorine compounds.

[JimK]

8 hours ago, scouserl41 said:

We stumbled across the cause of the bad taste in our water a while back. We carry 2 fresh water hoses for those odd occasions where the water spigot is on the wrong side of the site or the fill point is far away. Our spare hose sat in the storage locker for the winter while we stayed in a park for 5 months. Once on the road we were low on water and needed to fill from a tough to reach spigot and used both hoses. The water tasted funky but we got by using bottled water for cooking and drinking them dumped the tank the first opportunity we had and filled up again. The water was fine.

We discovered that the hose that sat for 5 months caused the bas taste! No I try and use both hoses in rotation to avoid a repeat of the problem.

BnB

There is no way to totally remove water from a hose.  So a stored hose is going to be contaminated with bacterial growth.  Running and dumping some fresh water will help but only partially.  Another solution is to try to bleach the hose.  It is all but impossible to evenly coat the interior of the hose with a bleach solution and allow it to soak for an hour but I attempt to do the best I can.  If you want your water tank to have clean water the last thing you want to do is to seed the water with bacteria from a contaminated hose.

[Lou Schneider]

35 minutes ago, JimK said:

There is no way to totally remove water from a hose.  So a stored hose is going to be contaminated with bacterial growth.  Running and dumping some fresh water will help but only partially.  Another solution is to try to bleach the hose.  It is all but impossible to evenly coat the interior of the hose with a bleach solution and allow it to soak for an hour but I attempt to do the best I can.  If you want your water tank to have clean water the last thing you want to do is to seed the water with bacteria from a contaminated hose.

Easy way is to add 1/4 cup bleach to enough water to fill the hose.  Raise one end and pour the mixture into the other until the hose is full.  Join the ends so the hose is sealed into a loop and let it sit for an hour.

Maybe shake the loop a couple of times to ensure the bleach mixture splashes into any air pockets.

How to tell how much water you need?  Fill the hose, then empty it into a bucket.

[Kirk W]

3 minutes ago, Lou Schneider said:

Easy way is to add 1/4 cup bleach to enough water to fill the hose.  Raise one end and pour the mixture into the other until the hose is full.  Join the ends so the hose is sealed into a loop and let it sit for an hour.

That is what I do when storing at the end of the season or with my second hose.

[Zulu]

6 hours ago, NDBirdman said:

Just ordered this.  How much citric acid powder do you add per 40 gallon treatment?

Here are the Purogene instructions. Also, you can just use off-the-shelf lemon juice.

[Zulu]

9 hours ago, scouserl41 said:

We discovered that the hose that sat for 5 months caused the bas taste! No I try and use both hoses in rotation to avoid a repeat of the problem.

If you suspect a "bad" water hose, check for algae. Fasten a cotton swab or small cloth to the end of a coat hanger and then scrape the inside of the hose. It it comes back green, ditch the hose.