How to clean your motorhome's water system – expert advice from Practical Motorhome's Diamond Dave

Not sure how to clean your motorhome's water system? Let Dave show you how!

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[paulgerrard]

Home brew stores sell the best water tank cleaning soutions. Both psr and 10% phosphoric acid can sterilise and then sanitise without any flavour or taste. Safe for food so perfect for water tanks.

[lloydoakley]

Hi there. Thanks for this. Really helpful. May I ask, what sort of concentration of lemon juice or vinegar would you use please? How many MLs per litre? Thanks.

[xxdebixx]

Very helpful, thank you for making this video :) We've just bought a VW Transporter T6i campervan. I think the water tank hasn't been used in a while, when I 1st used it, brown flakes were coming out the tap with the water. So going to try this :)

[thomastom]

Brilliant every time on any camper subject

[toptechsys]

Dave mate! You say nowt about QUANTITIES!!! Please provide full details ASAP Cheers ;)

[ianlivermore]

I'm all new to this how often do you have to clean the fresh water tank

[mark-jwir]

Hi Dave how much vinegar to water do you recommend 3:23

[michaelmorris]

Another great video Dave.
Our motorhome has a 50 litre tank. How much white vinegar should we use for cleaning it? How much water should /can we add to this?

[imcurious]

if your going to spend the time doing a video such as this..you might consider giving the measurements of vinegar to water ratios

[clydealspaugh]

You said that products with chlorine can harm stainless steel tanks. I have to agree and to disagree at the same time.

While prolonged exposure or frequently repeated exposure to chlorine products or concentrated products can eventually harm stainless steel surfaces, the chlorine solutions used in water sanitation are not likely to be harmful for many years. By many years, I mean longer than the probable life of the RV, camper or caravan.

A proper sanitation done two to four times a year using a 50 PPM chlorine solution with a 30 minute contact time isn't going to make your stainless steel tank fail. Even a super chlorination of 100 ppm with a contact time of 4 hours won't accomplish making the tank fail if it is only done twice a year. Well, not for several decades anyway.

The danger here is the "more is better" thoughts that seem to be more and more common among people today. Somebody thinks that if 50 parts per million is recommended, that they will make absolutely sure that the tank and lines are clean, so they introduce a 100 parts per thousand solution and let it sit for a full 7 days of contact time. They think that by doing this they are being extra safe. They are wrong.

Of course there is also pressure on YouTubers and motor home dealers to only use/review/sell ultra expensive commercial products to accomplish what simple inexpensive products will do just as well. I like your suggestion to use vinegar or lemon juice as they are weak acids.

While these acids will do little if anything to sanitize your fresh water system, they are useful in reducing alkaline deposit buildups and it retarding the growth of certain bacteria since they change the pH of the water in the tank.

Chlorine products such as a 50 ppm solution of bleach water will do little if anything to reduce alkaline buildups, but will kill bacteria that is harmful if ingested.

I see no harmful effects to my vintage RV's water system from over 30 years of being sanitized several times a year with a 50 ppm solution of bleach water. Used properly, chlorine solutions are a valid and useful treatment for your fresh water system. Used improperly, they can have devastating effects. The same can be said for naturally occurring weak acids and for nearly any other chemical.

I guess there are valid arguments both for and against. Personally, I'm going to keep with what works.

As my parting shot, I'll say that any tank which is made so poorly that using a 50 ppm bleach solution with a 30 minute contact time twice or even four times a year for 20 years would cause it to fail due to the bleach solution, then such a poorly made product shouldn't have been installed in the first place. A higher quality product should have been installed. (And if after 15-20 years the product fails, how can one say definitively that it was the chlorine bleach that caused the failure and not some other cause?)

[anthdci]

If you use a 25L or 40L aquaroll, how much citric acid or vinegar would you use?

[Aethelwulf_Freawine]

For us on olde English, I believe it's 2 quarts per 30 gallon fresh water tank (Class C RV). It would be nice if you converted for your American viewers. Cheers!

[silekiernanphotography]

How much vinegar per gallon or liter of water? How much citric acid per gallon or liter of water?

[gugolero]

I think the best is sand or fine gravel and later water with disinfectant type lye

[quietlyliving]

Why Oh Why the annoying music destroying an otherwise great vid. it DISTRACTS from your content badly my friend