💧 RV Fresh Water System Sanitization! (RV Maintenance Series) | RV Living!

27 thoughts on “💧 RV Fresh Water System Sanitization! (RV Maintenance Series) | RV Living!”

• ⚠️ We have some UPDATES on this process!!! Be sure to check out the blog post for detailed step-by-step directions!
  🅱 Full Blog Post: https://changinglanesrv.com/rv-water-system-sanitization

• Thank you so much for these videos! They help out so much with understand all the systems.

• I would like to throw out a recommendation, it’s always best to wear safety glasses when pouring bleach into a bucket. I have had a drop splash back out into my eye. It wasn’t the best feeling lol. It was also 10% (high concentration) but I bet the store bought 6% is still going to bother your eye quite a bit.

• I fill my fresh water tank to the full level with my bleach water mix and use the on board water pump to fill the lines, I turn on the pump allow the system to pressurize and turn each tap in one at a time till I get the smell of bleach out of the that tap, leave it about 24 hours and flush three or four times till the smell of bleach is gone. As for draining the system, does your fresh water tank not have a drain valve under your rig? I drain through the drain valve, close valve, fill tank and repeat till I have no more bleach smell, fill tank and run pump to flush the lines till I get no more bleach smell. saves running the pump for hours to pump 150 gallons multiple times.

• Love Todd he is so direct and well spoken. You all add his clip perfectly. Love the channel!

• If your water smells like bleach after flushing, a cup of vinegar flushed through cleans up the smell good

• if you were going to bypass water going into your hot water heater , and hot water coming out of your water heater for 12 hours. Seems you might want to turn off the breaker that is powering your hot water heater ?

• Thank you for the great info!

• There is a simpler and faster way to do this, heed the warnings about the water filter and hot water tank, then:
  'Note: It helps if you are using treated city water to do this process to avoid introducing any un-necceassary outside contaminants'
  1. First make sure your fresh water tank is empty.
  2. Now siphone or fill your fresh water tank (depending on your RV) with the 5 gallon bucket of water and bleech solution appropriate for your tank. You can do this multiple times to dilute the solution for larger tanks, just make sure you get the correct amount of bleech into your tank for your tank size.
  3. Now fill your fresh tank up full so the solution you have just put in mixes in with all the water.
  4. After this just run all your faucets, toilets, etc until the bleech solution comes through, using the solution from your fresh water tank and pump (dry camping mode)-Make sure your hot water tank stays bypassed during this time. Now wait the required time while the solution cleans (i believe 10 minutes is actually the minimum).
  5. Now use your fresh water tank drain and drain the tank all out into sewer or approriate location. This avoids having to tax your water pump so hard to pump so many gallons through.
  6. Fill your fresh water tank up again
  7. Drain it wth the tank drain again
  8. Fill your fresh tank up yet again
  9. Use the fresh water tank and pump to pump some now-clean water from the fresh water tank through all your faucets, etc until the bleech solution is gone.
  10. Drain ALL your tanks now using the tank drains, agian into the appropraite sewer/etc.
  Now your all flushed and good to go!

  Note: IF you have some kind of long inlet pipe inside your RV from your city water inlet connection point up-to your pump t-connction or valve, you may have to sanitize that specific section of the pipe with back flushing. Also, Alot of RV's have a one way valve just after where the hose connects to the RV, you may have to get creative to try and get solution into that specific pipe of the system, typically this pipe is very short up to the t-in point and it doesnt matter, unless you have rotten lines, then you may need to address it.

• You could also put some cleaning solution in there just before leaving on a trip and let the water solution slosh around as your driving then dump it when you get to your destination.

• Why didnt ypu just open your dumps to drain the tanks

• well water tastes so much better

• Here is a more simple method https://youtu.be/HnSLCgIuJQY

• I have been using the RV Inline Sanitizer for the past year, it works great and simple and trouble free, you can check it out their YouTube video. It’s a very simple concept and works fine.

• Great video! So our Entegra has the Sanitize lines and tank modes as well. I have a question though.. Couldn't you fill up your fresh water tanks with the bleach/water solution, then switch to 'normal' like you're boondocking and run the solution through your lines from your water tank? When done, just top off your water tank with fresh water? Just wondering..

• Will the bleach effect the metal faucets and rubber bushing in the faucet in your RV?

• 12:54 "yeah yeah" I give my wife that same answer all the time!

• I'm sure I'm not the only one to mention if you did the rear bathroom at the same time?
  I'm pretty sure y'all did because Chad rarely misses stuff and if he does Tara reminds him…LOL
  Another great how to video, thanks guys.
  Safe travels and God Bless y'all…

• People, please do not use bleach any place in your RV. I ruins the seals in your pump.
  There is a youtube video on this:
  @

• Very much enjoyed this video for some reason… Thank you guys for your knowledge/wisdom

• If your concerned with bleach water in the water heater, why would you place it in the washer?

• How often are you doing this?

• I spent many years sanitizing potable water systems on Boeing airplanes prior to their delivery and this video is very similar to the way I did it there. One of the best ways we knew that we flushed the chlorine out of the system was by using chlorine test strips to test the water flowing from each faucet just make sure the levels are correct. They are cheap to purchase and more accurate than just smelling for the lack of chlorine. Just a thought.

• Without reading all 318 of the comments, I'll assume a few already mentioned a Berkey for drinking water and I will just echo that sentiment and also say how a Berkey is really the best filtered water that can eliminate the need for heavy cases of bottled water and it filters out FAR more than the Britta. While the Berkey is basically a really high priced water cooler that does require space on a counter or in a stand, it filters out EVERYTHING (did I mention way more than the Brittas?) AND, when equipped with the right filters, a Berkey can also strip out both fluoride and arsenic! But the Berkey is not an excuse to not sanitize the coach's water system. We just got our Berkey (the travel Berkey) for the house and camper and we love it! Another thought on sanitizing the camper's water system is to use Star-San which is a no-rinse (but you can rinse if you want too) sanitizer that a lot of breweries and home brewers use to sanitize their brewing systems (so it's not cheap stuff). Star-San is an orderless, tasteless, and food-safe sanitizer with a minimum contact time of 4 minutes per 1 oz to 5 gallons. That may make it sound really acidic, it's not as acidic as it sounds and it's safe on PEX/Plastic as well as Stainless steel and metal. This is something that some might like over using chlorine. The last piece of our camping potable water solution that we just moved to for pre-water filtering is a combination of Clear 2O pre-filter (20Micron pre-filter which is the same as the blue Camcos), a Aqua Clear in-line 5 micron filter (connected to the Clear 2O pre-filter) and then the Clear 2O 1 micron in-line filter. These three filters allow us to stop using (i.e. spend money) on the Camco blue in-lines since the Clear 2O is a removable and washable 20 micron (same as the Camco) filter. The Aqua Clear in-line 5 micron filter, filters at the same level as our whole house filter which we now removed since it was an awkward set-up on our travel trailer, and the Clear 2O (filtering at the 1 micron) is filtering at a new level that we were not previously filtering at within the Clear 2O 1 micron. I suppose people could replicate the same setup with a camco (20 micron) and two whole house filters that filter at the 5 and 1 micron levels but the whole house take up a lot of room and the housings can get expensive and they are really hard to find with needed Garden Hose Threaded (GHT) male/female fittings rather than the home National Pipe Threaded (NPT) male/female fittings which when connected with a hose, all too often leak. I found using the inline filters that are already GHT reduces leaks and cleans up the setup (no need for a whole house filter stand/solution) and storage for those of us that space constrained in a travel trailer. One point to note, the Berkey's filters do not like softened water so we are still working out the best way to still keep our travel water softener system hooked up for bathing while not using it for drinking. right now we just are not running the water softener due to the Berkey. Thanks for a great video on an important topic that a lot of people probably don't think about! I'm not sponsored by Star-San, Berkey or Clear 20/Aqua Clear – I just think these are some techniques to pass along that other might want to know about and how we use them! Cheers!

• The Potable Aqua makes water taste great.

• There is also (Potable Aqua) Chlorine Dioxide water purification Tablets effective against Bacteria, Viruses & cysts such as Cryptosporidium also if you’re sick you can treat a glass of water and it over Raw Honey also works for colds and flu gone in minutes. Big Pharma won’t tell you that.

• What about the Line to the Refrigerator Icemaker? Is that done too? Or is this a Stupid Question? It just crossed my mind when u said ALL Water Lines ….

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