There's a procedure to sanitize the water heater tank that's in the water heater owner's manual. Essentially, what you do is remove the anode rod (in the outside water heater door, near the bottom) if it's a Suburban water heater. If it's an Atwood water heater, it won't have an anode rod, just a plastic "screw in" cap. Remove either, then open the relief valve located at the top of the water heater compartment by pulling the lever. The water heater will "gush out" its contents.
Then use a small diameter tube on your garden hose to flush out any sediment that might be in the water heater.
After that, you can use a funnel to pour about a cup of bleach into the water heater, replace the cap or anode rod (use Teflon tape on the anode screw threads) and fill the fresh water tank using about 1/2 cup bleach for each 15 gallons of capacity. If you have a 40 gallon fresh water tank, that's about 1.5 cups of bleach. Then run the pump and allow the water heater to fill with the chlorinated water. Open each cold water faucet starting with the one closest to the water pump and let it run until you smell the bleach, then open the hot water faucet until you smell bleach. Move to the next furthest faucet and repeat until all have been purged and smell of bleach. Don't forget the outside shower.
Then let your water system sit overnight. In the morning, drain the fresh water tank, remove the anode rod and drain the water heater, flush it well, replace the anode rod and you should be "good to go".....
If you smell the bleach, flush your fresh water tank and you might want to add a quarter cup of baking soda to help neutralize the bleach smell.
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John
2015 F250 6.7l 4x4
2014 Cougar X Lite 27RKS
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