Fresh Water Tank Bleach Injection System

[Thane]

This is the third of five links that address my efforts to clean, and keep clean, my 17 footer fresh water tank.

This is the first link. http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f8/fresh-water-tank-extreme-maintenance-7425.html#post134332

This is the next link. http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f8/fresh-water-tank-vacuum-system-7428.html#post134335

To make the Tornado Rotary Rinser that installed in my fresh water tank more effective, I came up with a bleach injection system that should make it easy to sterilize the fresh water tank and the fresh water hose. The rinser is discussed on this link. http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f8/fresh-water-tank-scrubbing-7426.html#post134333

The injection system is shown on the attached picture. It includes the following components from right to left:

1. A flexible hose fitting that hooks up to the hose bib. (came with the filter)

2. A pressure reducer to lower the high house pressure to 60 psi or so to protect the water filter and bleach injector.

3. A water filter.

4. A back flow preventer to keep bleach out the filter. (came with the injector)

5. An Add-It fertilizer injector that is used to inject the bleach and is hooked up to the fresh water hose and then the tank. http://www.amazon.com/Add--fertilizer-injector-breaker-capacity/dp/B00065266U/ref=sr_1_2?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1459015109&sr=1-2&keywords=add-it+fertilizer+injector
Not shown is a bungee cord that I used to keep the whole assembly level while in use. I bungeed it to an adjacent fence but a chair or stepstool would have worked just as well.

The fertilizer injector holds one pint. It will distribute that one pint of fluid as 15 gallons of water flows through it. The fresh water tank on my 17 footer is 20 gallons.

The rinser flows at 2.5 gallons per minute (I timed it) and the filter is rated for 2 gallons per minute. So it should take 6 to 7.5 minutes of water flow to use all the bleach in injector.

For sanitizing without filling the tank I would add ¼ cup of bleach to the injector, this is a typical amount recommended for 15 gallons of water. For sanitizing with fully filling the tank I would add 1/3 cup of bleach to get the same bleach/water ratio as noted before for 20 gallons. I put a little water in the injector, add the bleach, fill up the injector with water and shake it a bit.

It is pretty easy to use; fill it up, hook up and turn it on. The rinser thoroughly sprays the inside of the tank and hopefully dislodges any contaminates and pushes them to the low point. When the water is about three inches deep, the rinser is submerged and no longer effective. At this point I can disconnect the fresh water hose from the rinser and finish filling the tank via the normal water inlet or empty the injector into a jug for later use. I can also run the injector with the tank drain plug removed so the rinser operates continuously as the tank never fills.

After running the injector for 7.5 minutes I opened it up and could not smell any bleach, so it apparently worked as advertised.

The nice thing about this system is that I don’t have to move the trailer to slosh the tanks. I can sterilize it, let it sit, rinse it and drain it where ever I want. My parking spot is on 6 inches of road base gravel so I can dump the tanks where I park.