Winter antifreeze taste and smell...

[smokeater]

Anyone have any tips on how to get rid of the taste and smell in the water system from the coolant used to winterize the trailer? We use odorless, tasteless stuff we get from Campers World. The mfger winterized the trailer once and we have done it once since we've had it. (2014). We didn't seem to have a problem until this camping trip. It helps if we run the water a lot before we use it and we also use a brita filter. Kinda weird......

[SteveC7010]

Originally Posted by smokeater

Anyone have any tips on how to get rid of the taste and smell in the water system from the coolant used to winterize the trailer? We use odorless, tasteless stuff we get from Campers World. The mfger winterized the trailer once and we have done it once since we've had it. (2014). We didn't seem to have a problem until this camping trip. It helps if we run the water a lot before we use it and we also use a brita filter. Kinda weird......

Somewhere on the forum you will find instructions on the de-winterizing of the fresh water system. Basically, you're adding 1/4 cup of Clorox (brand name stuff works best) bleach to the fresh water tank for every 15 gallons of water. (Mine holds 60 gallons so I just toss in a generous full cup of bleach. Best to mix the bleach with a few gallons of water in a pail or something and then add that solution to the tank and top it off.) Then you run the water (using the pump) throughout the system until you're sure that every bit of piping that had antifreeze in it now has the bleach treated water.

If you do this in the spring, your water heater is drained and bypassed so you would not need to fill the heater tank with bleach water. Doing it now will require that you drain the hot water tank first and the fill it with the bleach water. Remember to shut off the breaker for the water heater as well as the control switch on the main panel.

Since your primary goal now is to remove the taste, let the bleach water sit in the pipes for several hours. Flush it with some bleach water and let it sit again for a few hours. When you flush, make sure you run each faucet and low point drain for a couple of minutes, one at a time, to insure that you've turned over all the water that was in the system.

Drain the fresh water tank, re-fill at least 1/4 and then pump fresh water throughout, same methodical process. The you can switch over to city water and flush a little more.

If you do this in the spring when you de-winterize, it should clear out the antifreeze odor and taste for the entire season. It also helps a lot to use the water system. De-winterizing and the letting the rig sit for a couple of months unused is not the best for clearing out odor and taste.

[hankpage]

Many times folks don't drain the antifreeze from the low point drains and that small amount of "Pink Stuff" keeps mixing with the fresh water over time.
Follow Steve's advice but be sure to flush out the low point drains. JM2¢, Hank

[therink]

Originally Posted by hankpage

Many times folks don't drain the antifreeze from the low point drains and that small amount of "Pink Stuff" keeps mixing with the fresh water over time.
Follow Steve's advice but be sure to flush out the low point drains. JM2¢, Hank

X2 as above. This season I kept getting antifreeze taste and odor in water from bathroom sink only, which is also near the location of the outside shower faucet. One day I ran the outside shower and realized there was still antifreeze in the lines to the faucet. This small amount of antifreeze must have been just enough to bleed back to the bathroom faucet. Once I purged the outside shower with clean water, the problem was solved.

[smokeater]

Thank you all for your quick replies, gonna give it a shot.......

[tdawg]

I had the same out of the bathroom sink. i forgot to flush lines for washing machine.

[JRTJH]

Along with flushing ALL the antifreeze from those "hidden spots" like low point drains and outside shower faucets, if, after sanitizing with Clorox, you still have an "off smell" or "off taste" you might want to fill your fresh water tank, add a couple cups of baking soda diluted in a gallon of water, run it through the lines (as you did with the Clorox water) and let it sit overnight. Then flush the system again. Usually, if there is anything left, the soda will take care of it. I've never had to go that far, but I don't suppose my taste buds and nose are sensitive to those types of "after taste".....

Don't forget that even though the fresh water tank is "food grade plastic" it will not prevent the water from getting "stale" if it sits for weeks on end, so as Steve noted, don't let the water sit in your RV for an extended time.