Tastes Funky, Smells Funky....

[Cody Madison]

Hello friends,

I purchased a 74 31' sovereign last week and I'm still warming up to things.

I've noticed the water from the freshwater tank tastes and smells a little funky. It's a little moldy and plastic tasting. I've been using the Britta filter and it takes care of most of the smell and taste but it still makes me nervous.

The original owner told me he had just recently sterilized the freshwater tank and he performed regular maintenance. I know it's common sense not to trust the seller's word, but I felt he was trustworthy and seemed to be overly tidy and organized. But who knows...

Tomorrow my plan is to flush and sanitize the freshwater tank but if that doesn't solve the problem what do you dear friend suggest? New tank?

Also when I hookup to city water does it bypass the fresh water tank?

Thank you thank you
C

[Harperbear]

Ive been wondering the same thing on my 69. I dont care for the idea of drinking out of plastic from the 60s. I guess today's plastic isn't always better though. I'm debating on replacing mine with a new one.

[xrvr]

Never use a garden hose for filling the on board tank or for the pressurized system. Use a special rv white hose. Good idea to flush and sanitize with bleach. Fill and drain and refill. We never drink the water from our on board tank, either in the new AS we had or the vintage. Too easy to carry water from home or purchase bottled. We use the water for everything else, we just never drink it. Just us I guess. Jim

[Harperbear]

Jim- i was thinking the same thing about just taking water to drink. I have also been kicking around using the old 30 gal tank as a grey water tank as it is pretty thin. I haven't measured it yet though.

[perryg114]

You have to sanitize the tank with bleach before drinking out of it. I would not drink out of a tank unless it was used on a regular basis or sanitized prior to each use. For drinking just use bottled water or gallon jugs. Now when you are connected to city water once you have flushed the pipes out a little all that stale water is gone. Storing tanks when they are close to empty seems to generate less mold etc in the water.

Perry

[Protagonist]

Sanitizing is all well and good, but tasting and smelling of plastic is not necessarily due to improper sanitizing. The comment about the ordinary garden hose is spot-on (though you didn't say you were using one). Ordinary garden hoses leach chemicals into the water, especially if the water sits in the hose for any length of time, and it happens faster if the hose is heated by the sun.

If you're already using a blue-and-white hose made of food-grade plastic— meaning that its chemical composition is designed to prevent it from leaching chemicals into the water— then it's entirely possible that your 1974 trailer's plumbing was repaired or replaced at some point by a previous owner using the wrong type of plastic tubing or fittings.

But as with any troubleshooting, it's usually a good idea to check the easy things first. Find out if the water coming into the trailer tastes of plastic first. If it doesn't, then you know that something inside the trailer is the culprit.

[kswelsh]

I go to Big Lots and buy gallon bottles of drinking water for a $1.00/bottle. I bought an upholstered ottoman that doubles as a storage cube and that is where I keep the water - fits 4 bottles. Those can be refilled easily at potable spigots. Even though we sanitize the fresh water tank, we never use it for drinking or coffee.

[AWCHIEF]

Every time I hear someone say never drink out of a regular yard type hose I think about the gallons of water I drank from the hose as a kid and as an adult. Still here. Stomach is fine with no issues at 63. As a responsible {?} Airstream owning adult I no longer drink from the garden hose and use only white hoses with an external filter for filling my fresh water tank. I had some nasty odors that I thought were coming from the holding tanks in my new to me 2006 Safari. Filled, sanitized and flushed several times to clean them out. I now have nice clean tanks. However it turns out the smell was not from the tanks. I found a decomposing mouse stuck to a sticky pad under a drawer. Cleaned the little beasty up and no more smell.

[TG Twinkie]

We carry bottled water for drinking. Fill them from our well here on the farm. Can't stand the taste of chlorine.
I been drinking out of garden hoses all of my life. I am knocking the door of '70 and still here.
Can't imagine how many millions of gallons a person would have to drink from a hose to do any harm. There are still cities, small towns homes that have lead and/or galvanized water lines.

[perryg114]

Water sitting in a plastic hose is not good. Once the hose is flushed the level of plastic taste is much smaller. When I drank out of a hose as a kid it had usually been flowing a while. I have some black rubber hoses made by Goodyear that are pretty darn good. They don't leave a taste or smell and they don't get stiff when cold and they don't kink real easy. I use the white hose to dump gray water.

Perry

[xrvr]

I just don't like the taste of water from a garden hose. We use on board water for everything except drinking. Sanitize once a year. If you use the water tank as a gray tank what will you use for washing hands, etc, while traveling? Also the on board tank is a fallback if the rv park water is not in use or not available. The water tank would be your backup. Jim

[cwf]

Get some Clorox regular bleach.. Not the scented one.

1- drain
2- add Clorox (about a cup)
3- fill tank until water comes out vent
4- run all faucets until smell of Clorox
5- let stand 15 minutes.
6- run more water through faucets into clear bowl. Check for debris.
7- top off water tank
8- remove "aerator" on each and clean
9- run more water... Remember the goal is to flush and disinfect the lines. Once you have fresh Clorox water in the pipes let it set another 15.
10- repeat until no debris for a couple of cycles. Let stand over night with full Clorox tank and water... As you add water you dilute.... Add about a half cup in last refill before letting stand.
11- repeat process next day... No debris? Drain...checking for debris
12- add about 1/4 to 1/2 tank.... Drain and check for debris
13- all clear? Fill, flush lines....no debris? Good to go.
14- drain a final time then refill and maintain

[cwf]

Oh.... You can use the garden hose/filter/ "blue/white water hose" from your camper to fill tank.

Don't forget to also Clorox the blue/white water hose then Screw the ends together when full of water.

[xrvr]

Good instructions! Jim

[Zil]

Any hose could be a problem. If the water sits in the conveyance it leaches contaminates. The solution is to run the water for a few minutes to flush before using the water. The same rule for the water from a faucet. I well remember the "rubber" taste from 1950's hoses.

[BentMetal]

Since I currently have my fresh water tank out because I did some floor replacement, I decided to go with Smokelessjoe's method of retrofitting the water tank for optimum cleaning by installing 2 clean out hatches. However, as long as you can get to the tank easily, you don't have to remove the water tank to do this. Here's a link to his water tank "recipe." I use a wet shop-vac to get out anything that doesn't drain when I'm cleaning.
http://www.airforums.com/forums/f443...tch-69584.html

Here is where I bought the marine clean out hatches:
BECKSON MARINE Screw-In ABS Plastic Deck Plates, Non-Skid Diamond Cross-Cut Pattern | West Marine