How to Disinfect a Contaminated Fresh Water Tank in Your Minnesota Motor Home

The fresh water tank is one of the most important parts of your RV because you use that water to shower, clean dishes, do laundry, brush your teeth and even drink. So what happens when the water is not tasting so fresh? You may have somehow contaminated the fresh water tank and it might need a good round of disinfecting. Not to worry, though. This can happen to just about anyone.

Being on the road all the time sometimes means we’ll have to get water from a not-so-good source (though we don’t know it’s “not-so-good” at the time). If this should happen to you, there is a pretty simple process that can be done over night to disinfect the entire system. Trust me, you’ll be extremely happy with the results.

First, you’ll need to drain all of the bad water out of the tank. Then, mix one cup of household bleach with a gallon of water and pour it into your water tank. Once you’ve done that, go ahead and fill the fresh water tank from a trusted, clean source. When its full, turn the water pump on and go to every faucet, shower, toilet and anywhere you use fresh water. Run them all until you smell bleach. Don’t forget to run both cold and hot water. Once you can smell the bleach, turn off the pump and leave the system overnight.

On the following day, go ahead and drain the fresh water tank and refill it with clean water. Go back to all of the places you ran the water yesterday and run them until you no longer smell bleach (this may take an additional filling of the water tank). When you no longer smell bleach, your Minnesota RV fresh water tank is sanitized and ready to use again! See, that wasn’t so bad now was it?