Is my water safe?

[Herk7769]

Originally Posted by BigH

100% of everyone who drinks water from an RV will die...

In the big scheme of things, breathing air will kill ya. Breath enough of it, long enough, and you will die.

[Hclarkx]

Originally Posted by TitanMike

I add Clorox reg strength at every fill. An empty tank gets 3.5 tsp (40 gal) and less for partial fills based on metered amount.

My continuous chlorination pretty much eliminates the need for shock treatments.

40x768=30,270 teaspoons per gallon. 3.5/30,270 is 116 ppm. That seems like a lot. My pool gets sanitized with 3 ppm and my city water, supposedly safe, comes in with 2.5 to 3 ppm.

My DW complains if I put even one teaspoon in 40 gallons so 116 ppm would never do. Adding a bit at every fill seems like the right approach though I think more like 6 ppm would be enough. That's a bit under 1/4 teaspoon per 40 gallons. If the incoming water has 3 ppm the total would be 6 ppm. If it has none, the total would be 3 ppm. The DW might taste 6 ppm. I'll give it a try and see if I can get away with it.

My regular strength bottle of Clorox does not have a water sanitization ppm recommendation. It does say that effectiveness will degrade with heat or age or time.

Then there's the problem of organic matter turning free chlorine into combined chlorine. If one got State Park water that wasn't really potable (even though marked as potable), it could deplete the chlorine that you add before sanitization is complete. It does seem that the testing recommended is worthwhile. Test strips do measure free chlorine. Maybe test a few hours after adding chlorine to be sure organic matter has not converted all of it from free to combined.

If you can smell chlorine in water, it's likely you are smelling combined chlorine (Chloramines). That's not good because it means the free chlorine may have been depleted. And at best you are drinking sanitized organic matter. Free chlorine can be smelled but only at higher concentrations.

But, I think you have the right idea, put a bit of chlorine in on each fill just for insurance. It would be rare that it won't do the job.

After sitting four months I do think hitting it a bit harder is warranted but maybe not a full system flush, just a teaspoon in the tank, put in 10 gallons, sit for a day or two, then drain. The rest of the system is sealed, so if there's a problem, it's surely in the tank.

Yes, I'm anal about what I put into my body ... though not as anal as DW is!

[BriaBeck]

Just had to shock my FW tank... crawled under there looking to fix the "belly" and noticed some algae growth in there...


3 days ago I added a quart of bleach, and filled the tank, and let it sit while I flew my last trip. Arrived back home this morning, and the algae spots were no longer visible. I'm flushing the tank right now, before we head out this afternoon for a long weekend.


First time I've had to shock the tank, we did have to fill it with some campground water over the 4th of July holiday.

[jwfrede]

Originally Posted by Hclarkx

40x768=30,270 teaspoons per gallon. 3.5/30,270 is 116 ppm. That seems like a lot. My pool gets sanitized with 3 ppm and my city water, supposedly safe, comes in with 2.5 to 3 ppm.

3.5 teaspoons of 5% chlorox into 30270 teaspoons of water is 5.8 ppm. A 5% chlorox solution is 50000 ppm and its diluted by almost 10000 to 1.

[Hclarkx]

Originally Posted by jwfrede

3.5 teaspoons of 5% chlorox into 30270 teaspoons of water is 5.8 ppm. A 5% chlorox solution is 50000 ppm and its diluted by almost 10000 to 1.

Dang, thanks for the correction. DW's clorox "regular" is 8.25%. I usually use pool chlorine, I think it's 12%.

Back to the calculator. Again, thanks.