Keeping my fresh water system clean

Hello and welcome.   

First off you are going to get a lot of we never drink the water from the caravan tap type posts and we always sterilise.   Well I do drink from the taps and I "don't " sterilise and I have never had a problem.  If you must disinfect the water system the only two pieces of advice I would offer are.   Remove the filter, because it will be activated carbon and that will absorb the cleaning agent.  They also tend to be a good place for bugs to live and to rinse well as some chlorine containg products such as Bleach or Miltons will attack stainless steel. 

Good point about the stuff possibly attacking stainless steel.  Don't think I want to rinse that stuff around the kitchen sink and risk that getting damaged.     The bathroom sinks and shower are plastic, so. could possibly flush those through.  Going to give this some thought.

As for the people who will say, never drink the water and sterillise.  Please don't clog this thread up.  That's a completely different subject and a topic in it's own right.  I don't want that debate here.   This is about cleaning out the caravan pipes tanks.

You're in for a rough ride trying to tell people what they can and can't post, Astro. Good luck with that one.

PS. I don't drink water from the taps. 

We never drink from the taps either...

When we had a caravan I would just use bleach in the aqua roll, let it sit for a while then run it though the pipes inside and again leave it for 30 minutes then flush through 2 or 3 times till the bleach smell had gone.

Have not done the MH yet but would use the same process except filling the onboard tank instead of aqua roll.

I flush through wit Citric acid.............

But I still don't drink from the tap

This isn't about telling people what they can and can't post.    I just don't want to get into the whole debate about drinking from the taps or not.   Like I said, it's a whole other topic.  If you want to discuss that, please post or refer to a topic on that subject.

This is about "cleaning my system out" not "drinking from my system"

All I'm asking is that people don't hijack the discussion with their agenda.   I never said that I drink from the taps.  All I'm saying is I don't want that discussion.  Don't confuse the issue.

Bacteria in water will build up if it's not cleaned out once in a while.  I don't want legionnaires or other nasties from washing thank you very much.

Now, please keep this about cleaning the system.

For my water system I usually use Puriclean, Halfords sell it. I fill the tank and add product already dissolved in water. I then pump it through the system. Having done all that I then refill with clean water and flush through the system. As we don't drink the water from the taps I have no idea whether it leaves a taste?

David

Topical for me because I've just done ours.  I used Puriclean because if you have an Alde heating system, they advise against anything which contains sodium hypochlorite (which includes bleach and Milton) because it can damage the stainless steel boiler.  According to the blurb on the packaging, Puriclean is OK for stainless steel.

Filled the Aquaroll with the Puriclean solution - drew it through all the pipework - including to the bathroom and shower head.  Filled the onboard tank and then left it there for 24 hours.  Flushed it through a couple of times (not the whole 49 litres, though!) and as far as I can tell, seems to have done the job.  Not that we had a problem before - and have always drunk out of the Aquaroll - and onboard tank - with no ill-effect.

I've used Puriclean

I've also used a handful of Milton tablets or similar as for babies bottles..

Both have been ok for me, both in caravans and MH.. Rinsed well afterwards.

As we don't drink the water from the taps I have no idea whether it leaves a taste?

Don't mention drinking the water from the taps, I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it