# Plastic taste in water from fresh water tank



## cadi-1 (Jan 24, 2009)

Anyone know how to get rid of the plastic taste in water from Fresh water tank. Water was boiled but could still taste it, MH is new, any ideas??

_Mod Note. The "Internet" forum is unlikely to attract many helpful replies!
I'll move it for you.   _


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## Fatalhud (Mar 3, 2006)

Hi cadi
We never drink the water from the tank for that reason
We carry a 5 litre bottle and fill up with fresh water on a regular basis

You could try sterilising the tank but i would,nt hold your breath

Alan H


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## locovan (Oct 17, 2007)

Fatalhud said:


> Hi cadi
> We never drink the water from the tank for that reason
> We carry a 5 litre bottle and fill up with fresh water on a regular basis
> 
> ...


Thats what we do so that we can add Milton to the tank to keep it ok for washing up and shower
Milton say we can put it in the tank and then drink it but I dont want to do that as I like fresh drawn water for the perfect cup of tea :lol:


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## timbop37 (Jun 28, 2006)

I wouldn't recommend it either. You can't be sure that it is entirely bug-free.

A good old 5L container from Tesco does the job.


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## andynkim (Apr 9, 2007)

Hi
We dosed the tank with bicarbinate of soda and after a few doses the plastic taste has gone completly, Just make sure you drain the fresh water tank between trips.

Andy


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## MrsW (Feb 8, 2009)

We were plagued by this problem for ages and Milton did not solve the issue. What did was an in-line water filter with its own tap for drinking water. We saw it demonstrated at the MH show at Shepton last September. It is so effective that we now have wonderful palatable drinking water. I think it cost just over £100 but it was worth every penny. I can't remember the make but I am sure he who thinks he is in charge will know and I'll ask him when he gets home soon.

We are still very careful to drain the tank after every trip away as this seems to reduce although not cure the taste issue.


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## Zebedee (Oct 3, 2007)

Hi Cadi and welcome.

I was so busy moving your post for better responses I forgot to respond myself.   

Just wait and put up with it. 8O   

The taste wears off after a week or two of use even if you do nothing. Bi-Carb helps, but it's a ***, so we just waited. (It's called congenital idleness!! :lol: )

Members will not all agree on this as is already apparent, but we always drink straight from the M/H tap and have never yet caught the lurgy!

I'm not suggesting you do the same, but many of us do, and only give the tank a good clean at the start of each season . . . and drain down after each trip of course.

Dave


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## sweetie (Nov 28, 2005)

Like Zebedee we always drink water from tank had present m/h 17 months cleaned tank with puricleen when van was new tank is always kept full except winter and never had a problem with funny taste.
Previous van had for 6 years and was treated with puricleen twice in that time.


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## cadi-1 (Jan 24, 2009)

Hi,
Thanks for all the tips, will leave it for a couple of weeks then try the bicarb,
Cheers


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## tincan (Jul 31, 2006)

For our first few trips we found that adding steritabs or milton to a half full tank when you leave home helps. The journey causes the water to slosh about (note the technical term - required in this forum) reaching all corners of the tank and we emptied the tank completely on arriving at our destination. We still do the reverse, by leaving our waste tanks half full of fresh water, with milton added, on the return journey. This helps to disinfect and keep smells away

Noel


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## MrsW (Feb 8, 2009)

Nature Pure is the name of the filter we installed and it worked far better than all the other methods we have tried (all of those listed above I think!)
Here is a link to the item, which co-incidentally comes from Outdoor Bits http://www.outdoorbits.com/nature-pure-water-filter-p-535.html


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## pneumatician (May 1, 2005)

*Water Tank*

There must be so many strings on this site about drinking water etc.

But to put my two-pennys worth in again we always drink what comes out of the tank. Clean it with puriclean twice a year and always travel 
empty. 
We have used this procedure on all three of the vans we have owned and 
similar on previously owned camping equipment.

Steve


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## Penquin (Oct 15, 2007)

You might like to read through this recent thread;

http://www.motorhomefacts.com/ftopicp-603876.html#603876

similar problems about taste with a similar range of answers!

Milton left a swimming pool flavour and did not remove the plastic taste, bicarb also left the plastic taste and is not recommended by some component manufacturers. Our final answer was the Nature Pure filter as Mrs W has explained. It works VERY well but is not cheap to install so wait a while as Zebedee has suggested.

Draining tank and pipes completely between trips does help, leaving water in seemed to build up the flavour.

Good luck.


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## brimo (May 10, 2005)

Hi

We had exactly the same problem in our Hymer some years back and after a lot of effort traced it to the cheap non-food plastic hose pipe we filled the tank with before we went on a trip. Changed the hose pipe to a clear food type and never had a problem.

We always use the water from the fresh tank and can never understand why people don't use it. Why have a motorhome with a 70-100 litre fresh water tank and never use it and instead litter the van with numerous 5 litre water containers


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## locovan (Oct 17, 2007)

brimo said:


> Hi
> 
> We had exactly the same problem in our Hymer some years back and after a lot of effort traced it to the cheap non-food plastic hose pipe we filled the tank with before we went on a trip. Changed the hose pipe to a clear food type and never had a problem.
> 
> We always use the water from the fresh tank and can never understand why people don't use it. Why have a motorhome with a 70-100 litre fresh water tank and never use it and instead litter the van with numerous 5 litre water containers


I think you will find M/Homers like myself do use their tanks for all the normal things but I and a lot of others do just draw from a tap our water to make a fresh cup of coffee or tea.
I have had drinks made for us by my friends who take it from the tank and it has tasted awful.


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## andygrisswell (Dec 7, 2007)

Do what all the trades do! buy a tube of 30 Sterident tablets empty the tube into the tank then fill with water, leave for 24 hours & flush. Works every time, cheap too.


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## 38Rover (Nov 9, 2006)

I started Motorhomeing in 1973 when I had a Commer Highwayman it had a black fresh water tank which I never emptied and the water always tasted fine even after a lay up of months I understood that water kept away from light does not deteriate?.
I now have a Burstner with a translucent tank under a forward seat so in the dark and not exposed to light.After a lay up when first running water we get an awful smell similar to bad eggs I did drain the tank so presume it was water trapped in the pipes have now put half a bottle of Milton into 2/3 of the 120l tank and driven to ensure (sloshing) and run all the taps so hope this does the trick.Should I leave the milton in the water until the next trip about 6 weeks.


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## chiily (Feb 13, 2006)

Another vote for Nature Pure in our Murvi. Makes a great cup of tea and no smells at all.

I can't understand way people don't drink out of the onboard tanks, but carry around 5 litres of water in a bottle. In our old Lunar we always drank out of the tank. I cleaned it out with Puriclean at the start of every season, always drained the tank on arriving home, also always used a food grade hose to fill it up and never used the hoses available at MH service points or any other site supplied hose.

No scum on our morning cups of tea


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## cadi-1 (Jan 24, 2009)

Hi
Thanks for all the tips, hope we can sort it out before our trip to France in the middle of May, can't wait.
Cheers everybody


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## MrsW (Feb 8, 2009)

38Rover said:


> Should I leave the milton in the water until the next trip about 6 weeks.


No, bad idea! The plastic pipework will taint and then you smell like milton every time you wash with it (and the drinks taste VILE!)


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## locovan (Oct 17, 2007)

chiily said:


> Another vote for nature pure [MHF Link] in our Murvi. Makes a great cup of tea and no smells at all.
> 
> I can't understand way people don't drink out of the onboard tanks, but carry around 5 litres of water in a bottle. In our old Lunar we always drank out of the tank. I cleaned it out with Puriclean at the start of every season, always drained the tank on arriving home, also always used a food grade hose to fill it up and never used the hoses available at MH service points or any other site supplied hose.
> 
> No scum on our morning cups of tea


That is the answer isnt it the Hose makes it taste as I have asked my friends how they fill up---garden hoses was the replies.
Now we are getting somewhere.
When we go away we will be filling up with a Food grade hose so I will let you know.


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## Spacerunner (Mar 18, 2006)

definitely make the filler hose number one suspect. We had a problem whenever we filled up at home, thenrealised the hose was 20 years old and a cheapo one at that.
We have always used the on board tank for drinking and never sterilised it, and lived to tell the err..ah...oh no!!! 8O


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## Zebedee (Oct 3, 2007)

As a chemist of no discernible distinction  8O I'd suggest you repeatedly fill your tank to the brim, leave it for 24 hours, then empty and refill.

If you can use warm water so much the better as chemical actions almost always happen quicker when warmer, and the sterilising stuff in your tank will leach out into the water a lot faster.

Keep doing this until you go away, and by then your water will probably have lost all or most of the taste. 

Just leaving your tank empty until you go will certainly achieve nothing, and as Mrs W suggests, adding Milton or any hypochlorite-based sterilising agent will take you rapidly back to square one.


Just for interest, our tea tasted vile for ages, until we realised it was the melamine cleaner Mrs Zeb was using to get the stains off the mugs. Better quality melaware was the answer. It hardly stains at all.

Hope this helps

Dave


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## zappy61 (May 1, 2005)

*On board water*

See my post >here<

Over sterilisation e.g. leaving to a high of concentration of chlorine in the tank, can cause the taste because the chlorine leaches in to the plastic. Get the dose correct and flush out after about 30 minute no longer than 1 hour. Never leave chlorine in for long periods.

Milton and puritabs are only expensive sodium hyphorclorite (chlorine) I use Instachlor tablets (cheap and last ages) 2 in a 80l (18gal) tank does the job. I don't draw it through the internal plumbing, due to its corosive nature, but rely on the small residual of clhorine left in the drinking water.

For the waste tanks to prevent build up of bacteria which can cause smells I put a couple of tablets down the waste hole and fill through with the second flush from the sterilised water tank. This you can leave for a couple of hous and then drain. We never have smells.

Graham


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## chiily (Feb 13, 2006)

This thread spurred me on to give the Murvi's tanks a flush through with a dose of Puriclean. The dance went like this:

Fill up both fresh water tanks with water and PuriClean.
Leave for 30 mins - making sure not to draw any of the solution through the hot water system or water purifier.
Pump enough of the solution through to fill the waste tank.
Drain the fresh water tanks.
Refill with fresh water, pumping it through taps, but not into hot water tank
Drain fresh water tanks
Refill water tanks. Again pump through the taps. Leave for 30 minutes
Drain fresh water all out - leaving drains open.
Finally, drain waste after a night standing.

Did the same procedure with the Lunar and never had a 'plastic' cup of tea/coffee.

Just to check I added some water to the tank today and poured myself a drink. Tasted like, erm, water.

Do invest in a long food grade water hose, various connectos for taps and a small tool kit for removing the supplied hose from fill up points. Oh and don't be put off by people moaning as you dismantle their fill up station, I have the T-shirt!


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## brimo (May 10, 2005)

We wrote



> We had exactly the same problem in our Hymer some years back and after a lot of effort traced it to the cheap non-food plastic hose pipe we filled the tank with before we went on a trip. Changed the hose pipe to a clear food type and never had a problem.


Chiili wrote



> also always used a food grade hose to fill it up and never used the hoses available at MH service points or any other site supplied hose.


There's the first port of call folks and we've been saying it to people for ages :lol:


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## zappy61 (May 1, 2005)

chiily said:


> This thread spurred me on to give the Murvi's tanks a flush through with a dose of Puriclean. The dance went like this:
> 
> Fill up both fresh water tanks with water and PuriClean.
> Leave for 30 mins - making sure not to draw any of the solution through the hot water system or water purifier.
> ...


Sounds good to me Garf.

Graham


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## patnles (Oct 26, 2006)

You could also try one of these 
gizmos  
Lesley


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## bob44 (Mar 9, 2006)

I had a similar problem until I discovered Schmirnov, Shmirrnoff, Shramroff?

But any vodka will do!!


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## mandyandandy (Oct 1, 2006)

Another vote for Nature Pure here, we got one almost straight away when we got the van, I went through here with a fine tooth comb which is how we ended up with 
Nature Pure
SOG
External BBQ point 
Refillable gas 
And of course a bucket. 

Andy fitted the seperate tap himself took around half hour and he is not into DIY at all. 

Mandy


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## AberdeenAngus (Jul 26, 2008)

We use a BRITA filter jug. The water comes out just fine.


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## ballymoss (Jan 30, 2008)

Hi
To clean my fresh water tank I use a product called 'Kem Direct' it does exactly what it says on the tub

I put 2 scoops of the crystals in the tank and then fill with water then take the van round the block when I get back turn on the cold taps and fill my waste tank and gbo round the block again then drain the waste tank and there all clean no plastic taste annd no smells from the waste 

it also has many other uses as well

I get it from this retailer 
Trail-A-Mate


Regards
Ballymoss


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## zappy61 (May 1, 2005)

patnles said:


> You could also try one of these
> gizmos
> Lesley


Hi Lesley

First time I have seen a UV purifier this small and portable. Having been in the water industry and involved in sterilisation I know UV is used by a lot by Water Companys and especially well or spring sources. About 10 years ago a colleague bought a place in France with a spring supply which kept failing bacteriological testing so we built a UV unit out of a piece of 100mm poly pipe two UV lamps purchased from a tropical fish centre and a flow switch. When water was called for the flow switch would activate the lamps and kill all bactria and pathogens. It worked a treat and is still working. I wonder if such a unit could be made for M?Hs? Smaller of course.

Graham


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## brimo (May 10, 2005)

Cadi's original post read



> Anyone know how to get rid of the plastic taste in water from Fresh water tank. Water was boiled but could still taste it, MH is new, any ideas??


We say again that if you're putting the water into the tank with a crappy plastic green garden hose thats gonna taint the water then NO AMOUNT of tank sterilising is gonna take the taste away. The taste is in the water not the tank.

Put the water in with a proper food grade hose and in most cases the problem will be solved and all for the price of a couple of quid a metre. :lol:

We can understand the use of filters and purifiers if you've got crap water or your filling up from loads of different and suspect filling points but other than that.....


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## Zebedee (Oct 3, 2007)

Unfortunately Brimo, your advice will make not the slightest difference until the newness has worn of Cadi's tank. 8O 

The sterilising chemical added to new tanks tastes vile, and until it wears off there's precious little anyone can do to alleviate the problem.

After that a food grade hose may well be the answer, but poor Cadi has to suffer for a week or three first.  

Dave


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## brimo (May 10, 2005)

Sorry Dave, I didn't see anywhere stating that Cadi's tank was brand-new. I gathered he'd got a van and filled up with water and it tasted crap  I didn't realise it was new :lol:


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## Zebedee (Oct 3, 2007)

No apology needed Brimo.   

Your advice is obviously sound, but I thought you might not have spotted that Cadi has a new van.

When we got our new van the water was vile for several weeks, but once the taste does wear off it's relatively easy (as you say  ) to ensure that your water is good.

That's why I suggested earlier that Cadi might try repeated filling and emptying on a daily basis. It can't hurt anything, and should speed up the process of leaching out the evil taste. :? 

Cheers

Dave


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## brimo (May 10, 2005)

Blimey, don't know how I missed that !! I actually posted it in my quotes i.e. MH is new  

Yes, fill and empty as often as possible seems good advice :wink:


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

We re-use old Robinsons Orange squash bottles, now everything tastes of orange (slightly) until we boil it for tea/coffee, then it tastes fine. go bottled, 6 x 1.5 ltrs from Netto (Isabella) about £1.50 ish.

Kev.


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## chiily (Feb 13, 2006)

Kev_n_Liz said:


> We re-use old Robinsons Orange squash bottles, now everything tastes of orange (slightly) until we boil it for tea/coffee, then it tastes fine. go bottled, 6 x 1.5 ltrs from Netto (Isabella) about £1.50 ish.
> 
> Kev.


There has been quite a bit of concern with the leaching of chemicals when plastic bottles are reused. If they are made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) then their should be okay, so please check.

Plastic Bottle info


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Oh dear better check.

Kev.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Yeah, we're Ok they all have PET on them, Thanks for the heads up on that one, I assumed as they were being used for drinking purposes they would be OK though.

Kev.


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## patnles (Oct 26, 2006)

zappy61 said:


> patnles said:
> 
> 
> > You could also try one of these
> ...


It's a neat little gadget, sure enough, but I wonder how long the batteries would last if it takes 48secs to purify 500ml of water. 
It shouldn't be too difficult to make a unit for MHs. We have a small UV unit that is an integral part of our pond filter. Our filter is 240v but I believe you can get 12v filters too with UV light units in. Would that be the same sort of thing?
I must add that I know absolutely zilch about water purification but I do like gadgets :lol: 
Lesley


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## WiltonShagpile (Apr 10, 2008)

Hi,

Had the same problem with the Autocruise starfire. I used the Milton regime to clean the tank every 10 months. Keep the bacteria down.

BUT TO STOP THE PLASTIC TASTE!!!

We got a Whale taste filter, costs about £18.00. Most caravan shops stock them.

http://www.campingworld.co.uk/Models.aspx?ModelID=1133

Cut the cold feed to your sink tap, couple of jubilee clips. Warm the pipes in boiling water then push onto either end of the filter (it has an arrow to show direction of flow).
Tighten jubilee clips round just to make sure. BOBS Ur UNCLE!!

If your fridge/freezer is below your sink you can sometimes get at the water pipes through the fridge vents on the out side of your van.

Iv'e just installed my second one, last one went in about June last year.

I believe there are proper connecters to fit these filters inline. When I got my first I didn't realise you could get connectors. Still haven't got them.

Beats paying over £100 for a filter system if it's out of the tap!!

All the best Wilt.


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## MikeyB (Jun 20, 2005)

We traced our "plastic" taste to the fill hose (tap to van tank). Now we always run water through it for a couple of minutes before topping up the tank and have no problems at all, use the water straight from the van tap for everything. We reasoned that the few droplets left in the hose allow the plasticiser to leach out and create the taste. Incidentally, the much-mentioned "Food quality" when referred to hoses does nothing to guarantee that there will be no unusual taste, it is merely an indication that the item is hygienic. Let's face it, Milton is extremely hygienic, but it makes your tea taste awful. Mike.


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