Q: Freshtank water, safe to use?

A: Yes but keep some things in mind (from Leroy Kreider, RV Newbies group on Facebook).

It’s perfectly safe to use the fresh water in your freshwater tank if you follow these few simple rules:

  • Sanitize your tank and freshwater system annually as directed in your owners manual.
  • Only fill the tank from potable water sources. Potable water is, “water fit for drinking, being free from contamination and not containing a sufficient quantity of saline material to be regarded as a mineral water.” Water supplied at individual campsites is potable water. Water provided for flushing at dump stations is not.
  • Sanitize the water supply spigot before connecting your freshwater hose to it. I use a spray bottle containing a mixture of 1 part chlorine bleach to 8 parts water and I always thoroughly spray the spigot and the end of my hose before connecting. I do this because you never know what the previous users connected to the spigot. (– added by owner of this website: Be sure to use a food grade hose, one made for drink water, not your normal garden variety house to hook between the spigot and your RV)
  • Never use your black water flushing hose to supply potable water to your RV.
  • Use a quality sediment filter. You can get one designed to be connected in line with your freshwater hose or the one built into many RVs. I use both. Optionally you can use filters designed to improve the taste and smell of the water supplied. Most of these use some sort of activated carbon. An example would be those that are used in residential refrigerators for the water supply and ice maker.

If you follow these simple rules you can safely use the water in your fresh water tank and you can save a ton of money over using bottled water.

Added by owner of this website: I also use a Zero Water filter as a last thing before I drink the water whether from city water hookup or the freshwater tank)