Freshwater Tank Sterilising?

We do ours twice a year - around March and October and use Puriclean.

I don't bother but we never drink the water straight from the onboard tanks but keep a separate container in the fridge for drinking water.

peedee

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Couple of times a year. We do drink occasionally from tap, and clean teeth. Water never sits in ours more than a couple of days. Most of course is boiled prior to drinking, for tea, coffee. But good idea to rinse tanks every so often we find.

I use Puriclean before 1st outing of the year and also prior to laying up for winter. It may seem a hassle but will mean you minimise the risk of catching any nasty bugs/legionella etc. throughout the year. 

Fill water tank with the measured dose, open taps to allow the water to fill all system pipes etc. Soak overnight then drain off next day. Refill tank with fresh water and run through taps etc to flush through. Drain off and repeat. Tank and all pipework including hotwater /boiler side of system are clear of biofilm. You will find that the water will taste sweet with no nasty tastes ( if its good quality water to start with that is !) 

Throughout the season, I tend to use Elsil, (a silver solution) which keeps water sweet. The Romans new about this, hence silver coins in their fountains !

A word of caution regarding sterilising fluids ! Any hypochlorite based fluid (like Miltons etc) can be quite aggressive to stainless steel parts of water system, e.g boiler, depending on the chromium content of the stainless steel, resulting in expensive repair/replacement if pitting then perforation occurs.

Hope this helps.

Tesco sterilising tablets for babies bottles dissolved in warm water in our onboard tank at start of every season.

 

Colin

We always use Katadyn Micropur products which are safe for you and your water and heating system.  This is a good starter pack:

Katadyn Micropur  

The ongoing use of Micropur Forte, which is Silver Ions, keeps your water fresh for up to six months and is ideal for use in countries where the supply of safe fresh water is questionable.  

Do beware of using products that contain Chlorine as they can damage some parts of your vans system.   

I'm with JillwJ on this one !!  Puriclean in a full tank for a few days before the first trip out in the Dukky,  then pump all through taps, shower head, toilet etc. then drain & FLUSH CLEAR before re-filling with fresh water.  There are other, similar, tank cleaning systems like AQUA SOL / PURISOL and pretty much all of them are available from your local caravan / motorhome supply store  {  }

[ I used it in the water containers when I was still camping and followed on in my campers, just to prove it did work 'cos I knew you would ask   ]

A useful tip re the Elsil, thanks. It looks to be much the same as the Micropur silver ion product.

I only drink water from a Brita type filter and never the caravan system.  To clean freshwater tanks I always use PURISOL.  It's made by Puriclean but in a more convenient liquid form.