Freah water tank

Post by **drippytap** » 28 May 2007, 16:18

A mate did the service on our diesel camper, hopefully will be cheaper than a garage!, and asked if we wanted the water tank disinfected. Said no, but this got me thinking, boring at work and no internet - cheapskate directors, should one disinfect the fresh water tanks and if so what with. Has always tasted ok with me , but after too many currys my taste buds are shot.

owlets · Post by **owlets** » 28 May 2007, 16:35

Yes,yes & yes............regularly! You can catch allsorts of nasty bugs from stale and stagnent water.

I use Puriclean, once a year, there are other things out there that can clean it out, some people use Milton (baby sterilising stuff).

Post by **drippytap** » 28 May 2007, 16:59

Cheers, I will go and get some asap, from Boots presumeably

owlets · Post by **owlets** » 28 May 2007, 17:16

drippytap wrote:Cheers, I will go and get some asap, from Boots presumeably

Puriclean is designed for the purpose so I would suggest you use that, you can get it from Halfords, Millets or online at Just Kampers. Its around £5 for a tub and I get two lots of cleaning out of it for the 50 litre tank in my Westy. Make sure you run the tap so it gets up into the tap and pipe to clean that part too.

Post by **peasant** » 28 May 2007, 22:56

If you're a cheapskate like me you could also use "Sterichlor" from your local farmers co-op. It's what they use to sterilise their milking equipment.

A swig of that in the tank, pump it into all pipes, leave to sit over night and then flush the system several times until the chlorine taste is gone again.

Empty your tank if you aren't going to use it for a while, ditto the pipes.

And always at least flush the tank and pipes with fresh water before you re-fill.

Post by **hammy44** » 29 May 2007, 08:42

thanks peasant i am a cheap skate too thought milton was cheapest way but thanks for the info if its ok for milking parlors its ok for me maybe see you arround sometime.

owlets · Post by **owlets** » 29 May 2007, 08:48

hammy44 wrote:if its ok for milking parlors its ok for me maybe see you arround sometime.

Maybe maybe not, don't forget that the milk is pasturised before its consumed

Post by **Ian Hulley** » 30 May 2007, 13:24

Morrison's baby bottle sterilising tablets ... cheap as chips used to be.

Check the doseage (IIRC ours was 20 tablets for a 60 litre tank)

Method :- drop in the tablets,half-fill with water, pump some water through tap, drive to work, leave all day, open tap drive home from work, close tap. Voila.

Ian.

Post by **Devs** » 30 May 2007, 13:44

i'd strongly recommend cleaning and disinfecting your tank regulary, dependant on usage.
I work for a Water Treatment firm, one of our bread and butter jobs is cleaning and disinfecting cold water tanks in office blocks and so on!

The amount of water borne bugs that thrive in dirty tanks is phenominal, some are un-noticeable and relatively harmless, but other such as Coliform, E.Coli and Legionella are all common in untreated water mains!

There are many products available from your local camping shop that suffice with the disinfecting,

something just the bear in mind is that some waterborne bacterias create a biofilm which harbours other bugs from the disinfectant so its worth checking that the products you purchase attack biofilm aswell as bacteria.

also remeber that alot of the more remote campsites in areas such as wales and cornwall are fed from boreholes/springs, which means its down to the tennants not the water authority to treat their water prior to putting it out to public consumption, in such circumstances this is rarely the case, so always be aware that the water you are filling your tanks with at such sites may not be as clean as inner city mains especially after heavy rainfall where there has been alot of run off into the local supplies!

if anyone needs any onfo please feel free to get intouch!

Post by **NewarkNutter** » 01 Jun 2007, 05:00

I'm currently re-building/redesigning my interior at the moment and come up with the idea of making my tank easily removable for cleaning.
The idea came to me when I was looking around for space saving options.
The old tank needed replacing, yuck gross!!

I looked at CAK and others, but too much ££££
The solutions was at my local motor factors, 5 Gallon water carriers, only about 4l smaller than out old tank which was quite adequate for our needs. You see we don't use much water, I prefer beer to tea and we don't wash our plates, just lick um and put um away!

The bonus is that it fits up in the stupid wasted space at the front where the radiator isn't, if you see what I mean. As I don't have a VW badge the hole in the grill is ideal for mounting the filler.

The tank fits quite snugly and can't move about, I could just allow it to sit on the spare wheel, but I don't fancy it dropping on me if I get a flat. So I'm going to support it on a webbing strap. Provided I can make my pipe connections relatively easy to undo (jubilee clips I think). Then when I want to clean the tank I shall be able to withdraw it after removing the spare wheel. I can check that over and pump it up at the same time.

I couldn't have taken my old tank out without dismantling half the interior.

I am thinking of using 10mm copper to plumb the water up to the sink though, anyone got any views on this? It is for domestic plumbing and so I presume it is OK for this purpose.

Andy

Post by **Devs** » 01 Jun 2007, 07:31

i would say 10mm copper will be adequate and is safe to use! what sort of pump do you use???

good idea with the tank location, will keep things nice and cool with the through flow of air! only tip is to just make sure you regularly turn over the water in the tank

Post by **NewarkNutter** » 01 Jun 2007, 13:07

I have one of those push pull hand pumps.
Very low tech we are you know.
Andy

Post by **Devs** » 01 Jun 2007, 14:10

low tech = easy life

Post by **mal0r** » 11 Jun 2007, 11:37

we use something like this:

http://www.towsure.com/product/2609-Wha ... rsible_881

We find it easy to carry and clean a portable water carrier, shove it in the cupboard under the sink then plonk the pump in the water carrier. The water carrier needs a plastic push-in top with a hole in it (or use a large cork with a hole in it) The hole allows the wire to the pump from the 12v and the water from the pump to tap.

It's powered off the battery and plumbed directly to our tap. Fine for drinking water, and we boil the kettle for hot water.

A bit "temporary" for some folks I guess, but is handy to clean and fill.

Post by **Mocki** » 11 Jun 2007, 15:46

you don't need to clean the water system if you leave it full..... I only periclean once a year . Normally jan because I only leave it empty if the temps at really low

enough puriclean for two years for two pounds fifty from the local caravan shop (the same size as JK sell for a fiver)

milton is not up to the job.and milking stuff isn't good for our pumps.......

posted mobile...........