Sanitize ONLY the Fresh Water Tank (not the RV water lines)

[wineshopper]

This may only be a topic of interest to me, but I did not see this posted anywhere else in my searches. I wanted to sanitize my fresh water tank since we rarely boondock. No need to sanitize the water lines. I also wanted to use city water during the sanitize process while waiting for the tank to sanitize. Turns out this is easily doable with the Nautilus system, but I wanted to still prove it can be done. Here are the steps:
1. Turn off city water supply and release pressure in system by turning on a faucet hot and cold.
2. Turn off water heater as a protective measure. Probably don't really need to do it.
3. I drained the fresh water tank - about half a gallon came out.
4. Connected water flow meter to incoming hose (not 100% necessary, but helpful if you have one)
5. Switch Nautilus system to Powerfill
6. Add about 30 gallons of water to fresh water tank. During this fill, I tested whether any water would come out of faucets. None at all. I did this to make sure when I add bleach next, that none would bleed into water lines since I wanted to switch back to City Water after the tank was full as use the RV as normal.
7. Turn off water fill. Allow system a minute to release the pressure. Disconnect the hose, drain some water from it.
8. Add two cups household bleach to hose with funnel. Reconnect the hose to the spigot. Turn it back on.
9. Add water until the tank overflows, then shut off the water.
10. Switch Nautilus back to City Water. Turn on the water. Use the RV with City Water as you normally would.
11. Wait overnight for tank to sanitize. Drain and rinse fresh water tank as normal.

This process worked perfectly. Many of you will say - Duh!. But I had never seen this posted in any forum, Jayco or otherwise. Everything out there talks about sanitizing the tank AND the water lines in the RV. Not just the fresh water tank. The most painful part is the time to drain the tank using the small external spigot. There's 75 gallons of fresh water that has to gravity drain out of that small outlet. I rigged up the septic hose underneath that spigot to drain to the campground septic since I didn't want 75 gallons of water flowing across our site. My process to rinse is simply:

1. Turn off city water supply.
2. Release pressure with a faucet
3. Leave fresh water tank valve/spigot open
4. Switch to Powerfill on Nautilus
5. Fill fresh water tank until it overflows.
6. Turn off Powerfill. Switch to City Water and use RV water as normal.
7. Allow rinse water to drain out.

Hope that helps someone with the unique need I had. Happy travels!

 

[Jagiven]

Glad you sanitize the system.

I am not familiar with the Nautilus system. I would assume you could as you can switch from one source to another, with a simple flip of a switch. Many people put a small amount of water in their tank(s), so when they are on the road or loose water connection, they have some water. If that water is just sitting unused it gets icky.

One thing to note, 2 cups of bleach is a a strong concentration for 75 gallon tank. The recommended amount is 1/4 cup bleach for every 15 gallons of water with a 4 hour dwell before rinsing. If your short on time you can double the bleach, and I think the dwell time is greatly reduced to something like 30 minutes.

I sanitize every spring, with an overnight dwell as we use our FW tank on every trip. For a couple years I had a bad bleach taste residue taste for the whole summer. Could not figure out why. I would rinse and rinse and rinse, and still had the bleach taste. Realized our new bleach bottle was a concentrate version, so I was adding I believe double but maybe triple the the concentration. For two years we used bottled water.

Longer it sits the less bleach is required.

Happy Travels

 

[Kevin Cooper]

Suggestion. To add bleach, put some water in the tank, turn city water off. Drain pressure with outside sprayer. Remove the water filter canister, pull out the filter. Pour in the bleach, reinstall with no filter, turn on water, run for two minutes. Replace the filter in the canister, finish filling the tank.

 

[CAG-JAY]

I am not familiar with that system either but not sure what is different from most other fresh water RV systems. Thanks for the rundown but also as mentioned bleach is really a must if you are going to sanitize and not running that through the water lines leaves a question about how clean the entire system is when you are done. I found that the water lines carry 2-3 gallons of extra water. That is 2-3 gallons of "bugs" that did not get killed in the process and go back into the supply.


https://blog.campingworld.com/learn-to-rv/sanitize-your-rvs-freshwater-system-in-5-simple-steps/

 

[pconroy]

9. Add water until the tank overflows, then shut off the water.

As noted, I'd add 9 1/2 - w/ water heater off or bypassed, run all spigots, until the smell of bleach is sensed. Let sit. When I sanitize, I sanitize the lines as well.

I go heavy on the bleach too and it doesn't take much to flush the lines clean.

 

[Kevin Cooper]

I think I will just throw the hose in the pool and let the pump suck in the water! No measuring, no muss, no fuss!

 

[wineshopper]

We full-time and are 99% of the time at full hookups, many times with chlorinated public water sources. Understand the potential risk. However, as mentioned, I needed to use the RV city water while sanitizing the tank. Cheers!

I am not familiar with that system either but not sure what is different from most other fresh water RV systems. Thanks for the rundown but also as mentioned bleach is really a must if you are going to sanitize and not running that through the water lines leaves a question about how clean the entire system is when you are done. I found that the water lines carry 2-3 gallons of extra water. That is 2-3 gallons of "bugs" that did not get killed in the process and go back into the supply.


https://blog.campingworld.com/learn-to-rv/sanitize-your-rvs-freshwater-system-in-5-simple-steps/

 

[jetlag]

Suggestion. To add bleach, put some water in the tank, turn city water off. Drain pressure with outside sprayer. Remove the water filter canister, pull out the filter. Pour in the bleach, reinstall with no filter, turn on water, run for two minutes. Replace the filter in the canister, finish filling the tank.

X2

 

[VKC]

On my Jayco I can switch to country fill and pull bleach straight from container. Why do you not sanitize your lines? It’s easy while cleaning the tank.