Fresh water odour

[amber jj]

I filled my fresh water tank this weekend and the smell that came from the water was awful.I think it is the pink plumbers anti freeze smell.I poured a half gallon of bleach into the tank and run it through all the faucets but it did not not make much difference.Maybe I should pump the tank dry and start again.Has anyone else had the same experience?

[RobS]

If there was any pink stuff in there and the water heater got up to temperature (either on 110V or via the engine coolant loop) you will surely get a putrid odor. Filling the tank and running it dry numerous times should do the trick. Important: Make sure you run all faucets, shower wand, transom shower, fw washdown, etc. in case there is still pink in one of those branch lines

[amber jj]

Thanks Rob I'll give that a try.

[JackK]

Yup, been there done that.

I brought my boat from storage to it's summer home without comissioning the water systems. Figured I could do that in the water. The engine heated the pink stuff in the hot water tank and the stink was awful.

A friend with a motor home gave me a recipe for treating the water and it worked well for getting rid of the odor. Mix a couple of tablespoons of bleach, a couple of tablespoons of baking soda and a shot of lemon juice. Add this mix to the water tank and cycle through the systems.

Like Rob said, make sure you run all of the lines. I missed my fresh water wash down the first time and had to repeat the process.

[RobS]

Like Rob said, make sure you run all of the lines. I missed my fresh water wash down the first time and had to repeat the process.

The shower wand got me this year and we didn't get hit with the stink until our first night of a multi-night weekend on the hook Luckily I had filled my daughter's solar shower at the dock with the hose so we had a few gallons of odor free H20 aboard..

[Pitou]

This has been an interesting topic. Just out of conservation, I've never added any pink stuff to the main water tank or the hot water tank when winter-izing. I've always drained the fresh water tank and then disconnected the P-Tex fresh water line (blue) where it exits the fresh water tank and slip a piece of clear pick-up hose over the suction side at this point before the pump as well as by-passing the hot water tank by disconnecting the cold water intake and hot water out flow and snapping them together to create a by-passed loop to the hot water supply lines. This saves on anti-freeze. Remember to drain the hotwater tank by opening up the spigot on the bottom of the tank. If you miss this last step you stand the risk of a burst tank ... and that would not be fun.

At spring commissioning I fill the fresh water tank adding a small amount of bleach / 200ppm Clorox solution which is equivalent to 1 Tablespoon per one gallon of water or 15 oz. for the typical 28TE plastic fresh water tank. Food contact surfaces are approved at 100-200ppm, this lower end should not cause any corrosive damage to the water systems. A 200ppm Clorox solution should be effective to sanitize the fresh water tank . I then flush "all" hot and cold fresh water lines of the pink anti-freeze. Once the lines run clear I close the hot water tank spigot and disconnect the bypass that I had created at decommissioning and reconnect the cold water supply (blue) into the tank and hot water line (orange) out of the tank. I usually don't leave the sanitizing solution in the system for more than 24 hrs. before completly flushing and refilling the tank with fresh.

In being frugal with the pink stuff ... I guess I've saved myself from the stink!

[RobS]

I too drain and bypass the water heater, it never sees the pink. I winterize the domestic water early to mid Nov but continue to use the boat for another month or so. I just leave the drain spigot in the full open position to vent the heat from the coolant circuit coil. It was just that small amount of pink I forgot to run out of the shower wand in the Spring..

[jleonard]

The anode in the water heater can cause a stinky smell too. I think that got us this spring. The water smelled like holding tank.

[JackK]

The anode in the water heater can cause a stinky smell too. I think that got us this spring. The water smelled like holding tank.

Yup, that is exactly the description I would give to the odor!

I too bypass the hot water heater for the winter but I reconnected everything before the ride from the storage yard to the marina. Just assumed the pink stuff made it from the lines into the water heater during the short trip.

[Halcyon]

Be careful with the bleach if you have aluminum tanks. I think the PO used a lot and it has erroded the inside of the tank. No leaks but filter clogging "sandy white' granules, that took a while to flush out. I saw a recomendation to use commercial strength peroxide instead.

[DougSea]

Be careful with the bleach if you have aluminum tanks. I think the PO used a lot and it has erroded the inside of the tank. No leaks but filter clogging "sandy white' granules, that took a while to flush out. I saw a recomendation to use commercial strength peroxide instead.

I have the exact same problem (white granules) and haven't found anything really good on the "care and feeding" of aluminum tanks. My water picked up a nasty odor and in the past I'd have used chlorine (plastic tank). I tried treating with Aquabon, prior to this smell incident, but it didn't do the job. I have a large dockside filter to keep the water fresh going in to the tank but I need something to keep it in better condition. I'm installing an additional filter on the cold water tap in the galley.

Any ideas? Was the peroxide a cleaning treatment (as opposed to a storage treatment)?

[Pitou]

I've edited my post above to include the amount of Clorox Bleach that I use to sanitize the water system at spring commissioning. I got the ratio from a friend who runs the QC lab at Gorton's Fisheries in Gloucester, MA. If it's good enough for food contact surfaces then I felt it was good enough for the water system on board the boat which is never used for consumption.