We have a confession to make. We’ve been drinking heavily for over a decade. There. We finally said it out loud. It feels good to come clean about our habit of drinking from our RV’s fresh water tank. Please don’t judge.
Bottled water is expensive, tough on the environment (plastic bad), uses up valuable storage space and weight carrying capacity and is a general pain in the butt to lug around and keep on board. We just can’t be bothered with it, so we keep our water in potable (safe to drink) condition at all times by sanitizing the fresh water system about twice a year. And we have never once had any issue drinking from the tank. Part-timers who store their rigs for the winter should be fine sanitizing once a year, in the spring.
Sanitizing is a breeze when you know how to do it. But both of our previous videos about the process — 1) cold side only and 2) entire system — show us using our RV’s winterizing kit to draw bleach into the fresh water tank.
But what if your rig doesn’t have a winterizing kit? This short video will show you an easy way to get bleach into any RV’s fresh water tank. After watching it, you’ll also need to watch one of the original videos to see how to complete the process.
Since we don’t drink from the hot water side, we usually sanitize just the cold side of the system. But it’s easy to do the whole system if you want to. Just pick the corresponding video and follow along. Of course when you get to the part about adding bleach using a winterizing kit, you’ll now know how to get around that completely if you don’t have one. Or even if you do. ;-)
Recent & Related Videos:
- How To Sanitize an RV Water System (both cold & hot water lines)
- Sanitizing an RV Fresh Water Tank (cold water lines only)
Featured & Related Products:
Marv Hein
Thursday 29th of March 2018
If you don't need or want a cartridge in-the-hose water filter and have to use the "bleach in the hose" method, an alternative is something like a 1 pint "Add-it" garden fertilizer injector. The tank is the perfect size for this application and bleach spills are prevented.
Thanks for all of your great videos. We just purchased our first coach and have already put many of your tips and gear suggestions into practice, everything from learning to drive to our choice of step covers.
TheRVgeeks
Thursday 29th of March 2018
Great tip, Marv! Thanks for sharing! That's an excellent alternative method (or is this now an alternative alternative method, LOL!) for getting the bleach into the system. Hope you're having fun with your new coach... so happy to hear our tips & gear suggestions have come in handy! Safe travels!
Ron
Thursday 9th of November 2017
I just want to say I LOVE you guys! My wife and I just purchased our RV in preparation for retirement; we plan to travel across country. We've never owned an RV before and started doing our homework months before making our purchase. You have become our go-to place for most of our questions and learning. We purchased an older Jayco Designer (2001), but it's in good shape and has low mileage. Your many videos gave us a good idea of what to look for while shopping and what to expect once we made our buying decission. Naturally, being late October when we drove it home, we got it just in time to winterize it! You have given us many tips for this and other maintenance items. THANK YOU!
TheRVgeeks
Thursday 9th of November 2017
Hi Ron! Congratulations on your new Jayco... and your travel plans post-retirement! And thank you for all of your kind words! We truly appreciate hearing from others that our videos have been helpful... it's the reason we keep making them! We want to help others feel comfortable handling their own maintenance, repairs & upgrades so they can save money AND have the satisfaction of a job well done!
We hope your retirement & transition to cross-country travel go smoothly and that you enjoy RVing as much as we do!
Ken O
Thursday 12th of October 2017
I have an Allegro bus 2011. Living in south Texas I have not had the need to winterize but want to sanitize the fresh water tank and pipes. The video pouring bleach in the primary filter housing looked like a great idea. After watching this several times I gave it a go. after filling my tank 35%, I stopped the water to check if the filter housing had been filled and the bleach sucked out. No just as I left it with 3/4 of a cup of bleach in it. Although I have never sanitized the fresh water tank it is now an obsession. I purchased a winterizing kit and have yet to find the right set up to get the bleach in the fresh water tank. Puzzling to say the least. Any experience with a 2011 Allegro Bus?
TheRVgeeks
Thursday 12th of October 2017
Hi Ken,
Sorry to hear that using the whole house filter housing didn't work for you... one of the problems of there being no (significant) standardization to the way RV manufacturers engineer their systems. Sounds like Tiffin plumbs things differently than Newmar does!
We don't have any experience with ANY Tiffin... let alone a 2011 Allegro Bus. But... Google is a wonderful thing! We found the owner's manual for the 2011 Allegro Bus on Tiffin's website here: http://tiffinmotorhomes.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/2011_AllegroBus_Owners_Manual.pdf
Page 11-4 is where they list their Sanitizing procedure. They reference a "hose attachment" for the pump that you use to suck the chlorine solution into the tank. Not sure if you have that... but we would guess that a call to Tiffin would identify it and possibly get you a replacement.
Hope this helps you get this figured out!
Mike Woolsey
Tuesday 8th of August 2017
I noticed you have 2 parts to your ladder on the back of your RV. I have the same set up with my ladder. It looks like you attached one half to the other half to store. My question is how is that set up. Thank you!
TheRVgeeks
Wednesday 9th of August 2017
Hi Mike. I sent more details and a series of photos to your e-mail address. Since it had attachments, and was from an email address you likely didn't have in your address book, it may have gotten caught in spam. Please let me know if it came through okay. Hope it helps.
TheRVgeeks
Tuesday 8th of August 2017
Hi Mike! We bought some hardware/fittings to allow us hang the loose ladder section from the attached section. It's kind of unorthodox... and getting pretty rusty after all these years, so we should probably replace it. LOL If you give me a day or two, I'll e-mail you a photo or two privately (I can see your Comcast e-mail address, which isn't public, but is visible on our Wordpress control panel).
Francis Jackson Howard
Monday 29th of May 2017
I very much appreciate the insight. Great content, very useful information. Thank you for sharing.
TheRVgeeks
Monday 29th of May 2017
Thanks, Francis!