Bleach Alde

mandt

I want to put 1/4 cup of bleach in the fresh water tank. How do I keep the bleach from reaching the Alde system?

ColoradoJon

Close the hot water and cold water valves as shown in this picture, and then open the bypass valve, also shown:

dhauf

Might also be safer to use White Vinegar, this also is a disinfectant and can also be more effective than bleach.  Not to mention bleach is not good for any seals or rubber parts.  White vinegar will not harm anything in the system and is also good at descaling if you have hard water.

BigGrover

X2 on the vinegar and it won't harm the Alde HW tank!

Dalehelman

@dhauf
what would be the ratio of vinegar to water?

BigGrover

I have had success with a 10% solution.

dhauf

Agree with @BigGrover 10% should be sufficient and let it sit for a few hours and drain it out.  If you go higher on the concentration that’s fine also it won’t hurt anything but just make your water smell like vinegar.  You may have to flush it out a bit more, but it’s just vinegar so it’s even safe to drink if there is some residue left.  Another reason why I don’t like using bleach, you have to waste a ton of water to rinse the tank thoroughly.  I don’t normally drink the water in my holding tank but just in case I need to I want to make sure it’s safe.  I also use a zero water filter pitcher to filter my water when camping.

mandt

Is that 10% of the holding tank. So is that like a gallon and a half of the stuff?

BigGrover

10 gallons of water and one gallon of vinegar is what i use and run it through all the lines doing the hot water lines first.  

DougH

The interweb says vinegar, unlike bleach, will not handle critters like staphylococcus, just our gram-negative micro-neighbors (whatever that means).  Measured by health departments to be 80-90% effective vs 99% for bleach. 

dhauf

DougH said:

The interweb says vinegar, unlike bleach, will not handle critters like staphylococcus, just our gram-negative micro-neighbors (whatever that means).  Measured by health departments to be 80-90% effective vs 99% for bleach. 

If thats a concern you can always mix a bit of hydrogen peroxide in and that should take care of staph.  Hydrogen peroxide seems to be compatible with rubber and ABS and other plastic parts so it should not effect it see here http://www.ozoneservices.com/articles/004.htm.  For me I have always used White Vinegar to disinfect things and have never been sick from it.  I do also use bleach on other things, but when it comes to all the plastic bits in the camper I'm not too keen on trying it and causing a leak or something because it ate through something.  Bleach can be very corrosive on things including certain metals.  Also I think if your not planning on drinking the water in the holding tank then it should be fine.  If you do have to drink it just make sure you have a good filter.  The Zero Water filter I purchased works very effectively and comes with a TDS meter to test your water.  I have tested it using water in the holding tank TDS tested 148 before filtering and 0 after filtering.  Its the only filter besides Reverse Osmosis that I trust now.

JanandDave

Something else to consider for sanitizing is Saniclean.

http://a.co/d/7MrVPXI

It's a low foaming version of Star San, which is an acid based sanitizer that I have used in my home brewery for many years. When used in the proper concentrations (one ounce to five gallons of water), it is rinse free.