Water System Sterilisation

jordanej
jordanej Forum Participant Posts: 1
edited September 2023 in Caravans #1

Hi all

We are very new to this caravanning lark and we have just purchased our first caravan this summer

My question is regarding sterilising the water system. I have looked at videos on YouTube (thanks the Trudigans) and it all makes sense (puriclean, not milton and all that gubbins). My issue is that we live in a mid terrace house and as such are not able to carry this out at our house

Do people carry this out on their last day of caravanning of the year, at a site with the electrics hooked up, or is this poor form?

As I said we are real newbies

Cheers

Comments

  • Cornersteady
    Cornersteady Club Member Posts: 14,425 ✭✭✭
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    edited September 2023 #2

    In the past we did but now all we do is put in the tablets into the aquaroll on arrival and usually every other day or so. But we don't use that for drinking or making hot drinks and buy large 5L bottles of water for that. Been doing that for quite a few years now.

    I don't think there is anything to stop you doing it on site.

  • Hja
    Hja Club Member Posts: 846 ✭✭
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    edited September 2023 #3

    Puriclean is certainly the stuff to use. We do our Motorhome once a year. Once puriclean is in your system you need to leave it overnight and then flush the system through. You must also dissolve the puriclean in warm water.  When we had a caravan we had the aqua roll and a small onboard tank that was easily removable. I would have thought you could have done those at home? As for the onboard system I.e. the pipes and hot water boiler, given that you just need to pump enough water through to fill those, and that will be less than an aqua roll full is it not possible to do those on the road side or take half a aqua roll of puriclean mix in the car to your storage place, pump through and leave. You won’t need ehu for that, your pump works on the leisure battery. Does your storage place have a fresh water tap somewhere for people to use? So you could use that for flushing through.

    I really don’t see how you can do it on a site.

  • Hja
    Hja Club Member Posts: 846 ✭✭
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    edited September 2023 #4

    Ps we use our on board water for drinking. Always have done.

  • heddlo
    heddlo Forum Participant Posts: 872 ✭✭
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    edited September 2023 #5

    Similar to Hja here.  We did ours once (sometimes twice) a year, usually in Spring, with Puriclean.  We did ours at our storage as couldn’t bring caravan home.  We used gas to heat up some water to dissolve the Puriclean in the Aquaroll, turn on electric, battery is sufficient for that, and pump the water round the system and through all the taps.  Leave overnight, or at least the longer the better.  Come back next day with full, clean, Aquaroll and flush out.  Usually gave another flush out when first on site with another Aquaroll full and emptied into Wastemaster.   We never drank from caravan water unless it was boiled for drinks, cooking etc. 

  • richardandros
    richardandros Club Member Posts: 2,681 ✭✭✭
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    edited September 2023 #6

    In more than 30 years of yachting - and living on board for over two years at one point - we have always used the on-board water for drinking and considering Ros suffers from Colitis and has to be careful, we have never suffered any ill-effects.  Same has applied to our caravanning over the last 10 years or so. We do use a Brita water filter, though.

    That said, I do run some Puriclean through the system two or three times a year - mainly because I tend to have the water system plumbed in permanently when at home and the Aquaroll pipe can get a bit slimy if there isn't too much throughput of water.

    I agree with Hja's advice and wouldn't have thought it that difficult to do it the way he suggests.

    Certainly wouldn't contemplate doing it on site - where are you going to dump all that water?

  • peedee
    peedee Club Member Posts: 9,383
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    edited September 2023 #7

    So do you also clean or treat your header tanks in the loft if you have one? Stopped cleaning our leisure vehicle systems years ago, just don't drink it, simply as a precaution. We still use it for cleaning teeth and making tea, coffee and cooking. We collect our drinking water from the fresh water taps and store it in the fridge and in a separate water container. Sometimes the mains water is diabolical, usually too much chlorine, in which case we buy bottle water to drink and make tea and coffee.

    peedee

  • KjellNN
    KjellNN Club Member Posts: 8,663 ✭✭✭
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    edited September 2023 #8

    For us, the difference with house header tanks is that they are not used for drinking water, kitchen taps are direct from mains.  We do use the stored water for brushing  teeth, but there is a much greater movement of water through the tanks and pipework at home than in the caravan.