My vans been off the road for about 6 months but I’ve recently got her back on the road and am getting her ready for a Europe road trip. I’ve got her serviced and checked over, oil, new tyres, brakes checked, new crank and leisure batteries etc. Once I’d dealt with all the mechanical/technical things I started thinking about the living aspects of the van. Suddenly I thought, when’s the last time I ran the water tap?
Probably about 6 months ago. I’ve no idea what the water in the system is going to be like but I can tell you I’m not about to drink it. The 40 litre water tank is a proper inert, sterile, blue plastic tank. It’s supposed to slow down the build up of bacteria etc. I thought it best to completely flush the system.
The main water storage in my campervan is a plastic 40 litre cold water tank. This is connected to a 12 volt water pump. The pump will automatically activate when it detects a drop in pressure and pumps water into a pressure equalisation chamber. This makes the water flow nice and smoothly. Without one of these water pressure balancing devices, the taps would splutter and splash a lot and the water rate would change drastically when the pump kicks in.
This connects to the single tap. The sink drains into a 10 litre waste tank. This tank is closed and emptying it requires disconnecting it and then disposing of the waste water. One modification I have yet to do is to put an overflow pipe on the waste tank and make it vent outside the van. I would also like to fit a dump-valve/tap to the waste tank so that the contents can flow to the outside of the tank.
Flushing to Water System in my Motorhome
Because the water has been sitting for a long time in the tank I thought it best to flush the whole system. I fed a hose pipe into the main tank fill tube. I disconnected the waste tank and attached a length of flexi-pipe I had spare to the waste pipe so that it could flow outside the van. I then opened up the tap so that it flowed into the sink. Thus the water coming in from the hose would flow into the tank, through the pump and pressure balancer, out the tap and into the sink, out the sink and into the waste, where it would flow out the van and run to a drain in the ground.
I did three cycles of filling up the tank and then running the system dry. On the second flush cycle I introduced a little bit of non-toxic detergent into the system to help clean the entire system. The third cycle was to flush out the detergent. I then did a fourth pass where I had the water flowing in at the same rate as the pump was pumping it out. Finally I opened the inspection hatch in the main tank and visually inspected the water, which looked fine without any odour.
Would you Drink the Water From Your Campervan Watertank?
I’m pretty sure the water in the tank would be fine but I’m also aware that the water does stand for a time and may not be as fresh as possible. Generally when travelling I drink bottled or filtered water if available and use the water from the tank for cooking, washing and cleaning.
