Plumbing maintenance remains a popular question among our Dallas Fort Worth customers, and we love to oblige any question a DFW RV driver has! Plumbing upkeep is of the utmost importance in order to not only have a great vacation, but to also keep everyone healthy and safe. Let’s not forget, not maintaining your plumbing can affect things like drinking water! With that said, we are happy to dedicate another blog toward a very important facet of plumbing maintenance: sanitizing your RV water.
Sanitizing your RV Water 
Keeping your RV water sanitary is one of the most important tasks an RV driver can perform. Proper maintenance ensures that you the water used by the RV users for drinking, showering, etc., will be clean and safe.
You may be asking yourself, “when should I sanitize my RV water?” You should sanitize your water anytime after your RV has been in storage or inactive for some time. While your RV is inactive, bacteria can grow in your fresh water storage tank, hot water tank, and water lines. Never take a chance with the cleanliness of your water. Anytime you are unsure of whether to sanitize your water or not, be cautious enough to take the extra effort to sanitize the water anyway.
Signs to Sanitize your Water
We already mentioned that if your RV has been standing idle for some time, you should sanitize the water to destroy the bacteria that can grow in your tanks and water lines. There are more signs of when to sanitize your water outside of this.
- If you notice a stale odor in your water, it signifies that it is time to sanitize your water. A stale order is a prime signal that the water has been left in the tank too long and needs to be sanitized.
- This may be obvious, but anytime you notice algae or slime in your tank, you must sanitize your water.
- A tip that many RV drivers may be unaware of: if you recently filled your water tank, but receive a boil water advisory, it means it is time to sanitize your entire water system. You are receiving the warning because there is a build of bacteria that is essentially tainting the entire supply of water in your RV.
Remember: just because you have a filter does not mean that you never have to sanitize your water. Filters do not stop bacteria from growing in your tanks and pipes.
How to Sanitize your Water
The follow procedure is one that you will find in most RV handbooks. While it is the most difficult repair, it is time consuming. This will take 5 to 10 hours to complete. In short, you are sanitizing your RV’s fresh water by filling the fresh water system with bleach, and running the solution through your entire RV water system, which will also involve letting the solution stand for 4 hours. So, the first step to take is to make sure you have the proper amount of time set aside to properly complete this task.
- Drain all of the water out of the water system, including hot water tank, fresh water tank, and the water lines and then close all of the drains valves. If you are sanitizing your water system, the last thing you want is to have questionable water quality in your RV water system.
- Determine the size of your RV water system, the fresh water tank plus the hot water tank and 2 to 3 gallons for water lines depending on the size of your recreation vehicle.
- Use chlorine bleach (non scented and non gel) and water to create a 5% sodium-hypochloric solution. Chlorine in water is more than three times as effective as a disinfectant against Escherichia coli than an equivalent concentration of bromine, and is more than six times more effective than an equivalent concentration of iodine.
If you are unsure of any step to take or want any general advice on sanitizing your water tanks, please do not hesitate to make an appointment with Coach Specialists of Texas. With our experienced plumbing technicians with over a decade of experience located in our new store in Plano, we offer an unmatched quality of plumbing expertise.