Cleaning inside white water hose?

[Alphonse]

I recently cut my 50' potable water supply hose to make 15' and 35' sections. I have never needed 50'. I was surprised to see the mildew inside the hose when I cut it. I guess I should not be surprised since they are put up wet and stored in the heat of the summer.

I put some bleach in each of the two sections, let them soak, and then flushed them out. I think I will now carry a bleach solution with me to put in the hoses before I store them. Then I would flush them out carefully before using and they should be mildew free and clean.

Any insights on this?

[dznf0g]

That'll work. I just use the bleach water after sanitizing the tank and lines. Fill the hose and accessories and let sit to kill stuff. Once or twice a year for me. I have some clear section for the filter and softener, so I can tell when it's time.

[mandolindave]

At our festival, we used hundreds of feet of hose, once a year.

Your method is what we did.

I don't know if this hurts or helps but we stored them with one end attached to the other, after they were drained.

[SteveH]

Take half a paper towel saturated with dishwashing detergent, and stuff it into the end of the hose that attaches to the faucet. Then hook it up to a high pressure faucet, and let the pressure force the paper towel thru it like a swab.

[NavyCorpsman]

Steve's "paper pig" is a good idea. If you could fish a bottle brush through, it would probably work a bit better than paper.
Instead of bleach which can break down the plastic over time, pour a pint or two of Hydrogen Peroxide 3% into the hose and screw the hose ends together. It will eat the biolocicals and reduces to H2O. For extended storage, open it up let it dry completely and then put the ends together.
Bleach is great to disinfect, but even after rinsing the hose out, the plastics will continue to leach out bad things.

[greghoro]

A little off topic but I carry ay spray bottle with a bleach mixture and spray down my water inlets, filter ends, hose ends and the campground spigot before hooking up.

That Airstream put the black tank spray inlet above the city water inlet on my trailer drove me to this. Dump station flush water is usually marked as non-potable.


Greg

[Wayne&Sam]

Originally Posted by greghoro

A little off topic but I carry ay spray bottle with a bleach mixture and spray down my water inlets, filter ends, hose ends and the campground spigot before hooking up.

That Airstream put the black tank spray inlet above the city water inlet on my trailer drove me to this. Dump station flush water is usually marked as non-potable.


Greg

To actually disinfect the fitting you'd have to allow about 10 minutes of contact of your chlorine solution.

I always thought the location of the fitting was poor too.

I'm pretty sure dump station was is from the same source as the drinking water but there's a very good chance the fittings are contaminated from handling.

[Alphonse]

Thanks SteveH for the pigging idea. Just for fun I gave it try and it works fairly well. I rolled up some paper towel as tight as I could get it and threaded a 3" length into the hose. Hooked up the water the little paper pig did its work and blew out the end. I ran 4 through my 15" hose and the 4th came out clean.

Thanks NavyC for the hydrogen peroxide idea. Easy enough to carry a bottle of that in the trunk with the hose.

So here forward, disinfecting and paper pigging until clean.

By the way, if we wanted to really get fancy we could buy some foam pigs for this job.
Foam Projectile 3/16" - 5/8" I.D.| Hose & Pipe Cleaning | Hose & Tube Projectiles | Hose Cleaning Pigs | Goodway Technologies

[comprose]

We've been spraying the campground hose bib with Lysol every time.
About hoses, one assumes that only hoses certified for drinking are used, most "garden" hoses are from recycled materials and are toxic. Just saying.

[CDONA]

I replace mine after a year or so. I've found that the green grows where the white hose is exposed to sunlight. As a full timer replacement works better for me. I use the old hoses for utility, not drinking water.