i use a charcoal and silver dual cartridge filter to treat any water that goes into my vans water tanks or if i am directly using water such as good bore water for immediate use, question..... if i was to filter tank water(Bat/bird poop ect) what would you add to vans tanks to keep it safe.there seems to be a lot of high priced commercial additives which appear to be mostly chlorine .is the pool stuff safe or do you need to pay the big $ for the stuff from the RV shop
Interior water storage in van tank)
- Thread starter poor but proud
- Start date
If you suspect the tank water has bird/bat/rat poo in it don't use it ... the water would need to be sterilized, tank cleaning agents are for cleaning tanks/lines not for drinking... I have used sterlizing tabs in a past life to make safe some suspect drinking water we had and its not nice at all....
I sometimes just use a normal filter but mostly just straight from tap, as for tank water it really depends the environment its collected from, city can have just as a toxic roof as rural, possibly more so, we lived off tank water for near 30 years and our tanks just had a charcoal filter to filter out any wrigglers, topping tanks with our bore meant the CO2 released killed off the wrigglers and frogs which got flushed out, certainly needed as skeeta larvae could be prolific in times of no rain .
Used to fill the van from my tank at this place but the ash from the bush fires years back and so much pollen here I just use town water and keep the tank for car washing and garden ................... dogs water bucket goes green quicker with tank water than town water ............
I leave my tanks full when parked up, drain every few months and give them a vinegar flush when we get back and a week before a trip .... about 2 litre of vinegar per tank, refill tanks, run the taps furthest away from tanks and leave it for about 2 hours then flush tanks twice and run taps to clear lines, seems to work ..........
Do not leave it in overnight, trust me .... you'll do some flushing then..
Household liquid bleach is good I think its has more hit than vinegar and about 10 or 15ml per tank I seem to recall but I always worry about seals getting a bit iffy if I use it, flush tanks after about an hour ? ............ Either one make sure they don't have any smelly stuff added...
I think the RV shop cleaners are mostly some version of chlorine ....
I also pour vinegar down the drains regularly, keeps them clean as well as the GW tank...
I have found that if tanks are left empty they dry out and the water scale which builds up over time in tanks and lines flakes off and then when filled up again can block things, just like the plumbing in the house lines, though the degree of scale depends on the type of water ........
I sometimes just use a normal filter but mostly just straight from tap, as for tank water it really depends the environment its collected from, city can have just as a toxic roof as rural, possibly more so, we lived off tank water for near 30 years and our tanks just had a charcoal filter to filter out any wrigglers, topping tanks with our bore meant the CO2 released killed off the wrigglers and frogs which got flushed out, certainly needed as skeeta larvae could be prolific in times of no rain .
Used to fill the van from my tank at this place but the ash from the bush fires years back and so much pollen here I just use town water and keep the tank for car washing and garden ................... dogs water bucket goes green quicker with tank water than town water ............
I leave my tanks full when parked up, drain every few months and give them a vinegar flush when we get back and a week before a trip .... about 2 litre of vinegar per tank, refill tanks, run the taps furthest away from tanks and leave it for about 2 hours then flush tanks twice and run taps to clear lines, seems to work ..........
Do not leave it in overnight, trust me .... you'll do some flushing then..
Household liquid bleach is good I think its has more hit than vinegar and about 10 or 15ml per tank I seem to recall but I always worry about seals getting a bit iffy if I use it, flush tanks after about an hour ? ............ Either one make sure they don't have any smelly stuff added...
I think the RV shop cleaners are mostly some version of chlorine ....
I also pour vinegar down the drains regularly, keeps them clean as well as the GW tank...
I have found that if tanks are left empty they dry out and the water scale which builds up over time in tanks and lines flakes off and then when filled up again can block things, just like the plumbing in the house lines, though the degree of scale depends on the type of water ........
mostly along the lines of what i already do.any rainwater tank on costal queensland has bat and bird poo in them and you are correct metro tanks also have industrial pollution,acid rain, a lot a people think tank water is pure but if you have ever got into one to clean it out you would gagg, on what is in there
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Not wrong @poor but proud , cleaned a few out, not nice ..... in fact the mains water lines can look just as bad with all sorts of barnacles growing in them .... Would use pool pump to suck up the bottom of my tanks, didn't use filter just dumped it and ran it down the paddock, just used the bore to fill tank up when finished otherwise filters would be getting back washed every 10 mins, its how I found I needed a new tank as got a few leaks one time .. I don't miss the regular cleaning of gutters, strainers and filters one bit ... As for sorting out contaminated water, lots of work just have extra beer onboard..
I use unscented bleach in my tanks. About a 1/2 cup in each 80l tank when less than full so I can add water to stir it in. Wait a while, run the taps until I smell it, then drain the tanks the next day and refill....
The way the water board does it is dose with pure chlorine so any chlorine product should work
The way the water board does it is dose with pure chlorine so any chlorine product should work
I leave the tanks full when parked up...drain them and refill when heading away if it's been a few months. A drain and quick flush when arrive back home and refill before parking up. I use a normal inline charcoal filter when filling from the tap with food grade hoses. Van is 8 years old now, I haven't had any issues at all with smell or taste...we carry bottled water for drinking and only use the onboard supply for washing and filling the kettle so it does get boiled anyway...
we very rarely drink water from any scource we are not 100% sure of ,we tend to trust bore water(filtered). more that small town tap water.we also carry supermarket water and find the 10 litre containers cost effective and convenient, bore water south of Tambo is usually good water especially if you let it stand overnight, cant handle the bore water north of Blackall as the smell is intense, even having a shower is unpleasent to say the least, the very best bore water we have found comes from around Eulo and Yowah , as good as any bought spring water
The Blackall and Winton water is actually very good just pongs, did find that the old inline filter tended to clear the pong somehow .. Recently Blackall and Winton have changed their water treatment, where before it was hot bore water in the mains and you had a tank at your house where the water cooled down for cold tap water and hot water was direct from mains, now they have it cooled at a plant and cold water is supplied by mains and you need a hot water heater at the house so I imagine the pong has left the building all together, nice tasting water I found, used to do a lay over there weekly so ended up not noticing it .... Toowoomba , Canberra water pretty ordinary and there's one place which is foul, tastes like its from a rusty tank on an old trailer, just can't recall where but probably in SA as its just fit for washing .....
Cart around a slab of bottled water and van only for tubs and coffee ...............
BIg Mals tanks are nearly 15 yrs old, been dropped once and given a good flush, actually had a bit of drill swirl that kept blocking outlet (at about year 9) once an idiot forgot to flush one tank after a vinegar hit, the next week when we headed off it was a big job at camp to clean the damn thing out so we could drink the water..... did a double flush, actually a load of washing, then left it empty overnight refilled and it all came good, lucky town water was close by..
Cart around a slab of bottled water and van only for tubs and coffee ...............
BIg Mals tanks are nearly 15 yrs old, been dropped once and given a good flush, actually had a bit of drill swirl that kept blocking outlet (at about year 9) once an idiot forgot to flush one tank after a vinegar hit, the next week when we headed off it was a big job at camp to clean the damn thing out so we could drink the water..... did a double flush, actually a load of washing, then left it empty overnight refilled and it all came good, lucky town water was close by..
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