By Russ and Tiña De Maris
We recently traveled out of the Arizona desert country looking for cool air. We found it in the Nevada high country. What a relief! But a couple of hours after setting up camp, we thought we had a weird gray water problem. It seemed like the sink drains smelled terrible!
But some logic set us straight. P-traps would prevent gray tank odors from coming into the coach. The outside tap water smelled fine. It hit us—we had “RV stink hose”! That’s RV scientific shorthand for bad odors emanating from the freshwater hose.
Cause of our stinky RV freshwater hose
It should have been obvious from the start. Some unnamed person had left water in the freshwater hose several weeks back at the last fill-up. Remounted on the RV’s spare tire carrier, that hose had plenty of sunlight and plenty of heat.
This same unnamed individual (whose initials are RD) had run a few seconds of water through the hose before hooking up the discharge end, but that was it.
Now that good old stinky water was chugging into the RV. The smell? A little hellacious—call it really, really bad sulfur. With a side of something else. In any event, the smell was enough to knock you over. We won’t even mention what the taste was like.
How to prevent a stinky freshwater RV hose
What do you do about stinky freshwater RV hoses? Prevention will save you time and a whole lot of badmouthing. When you’ve disconnected your RV freshwater hose from the rig, get the water out of it. If you work for a health department, please turn your eyes off for the next sentence. Yes, it may require actually putting your mouth to one end to pressurize the water out of the line.
Or get a helper, and while one of you holds one end of the hose up in the air, the other lifts the hose up from that end, up and down, until the water is out of the hose. Store the hose away.
A mild case of RV stink hose is an easy fix. Hook the tap end of the hose up to a freshwater tap, and blast water through for a couple of minutes. Don’t do this during daylight hours in Arizona. People get really, really touchy about “wasting water.” After a short flushing, the stink will usually be gone.
In seriously bad cases of stinky freshwater hoses, here’s the way to clear it up:
1. Disconnect and drain your hose.
2. Whip up a sanitizing solution of 1.5 – 2 teaspoons of bleach in 2.5 gallons of water. Refer to the manufacturer’s directions.
3. Pour the sanitizing solution into the hose until it fills up the entire hose. You may need a funnel, depending on your mixing container.
4. Connect the ends of the hose together to make a closed loop. Leave the solution in the hose for 12-24 hours.
5. Disconnect the hose ends, and drain the solution.
6. Connect the hose to a clean water tap.
7. Run clear, clean water through the hose until it’s thoroughly rinsed. You’ll know it when there’s no more strong bleach smell.
Again, RV stink hose is better prevented than cured. Take it from the culprit who left water in the hose. No amount of Crystal Light will cover up that awful taste and smell!
RELATED:
- How long can you safely keep fresh water in your RV’s tank?
- Unusual ways RVers can use old water hoses
- Why you should carry an extra hose in your RV
RVDT2676
Pocket Hose (you know the self-retracting hose) makes a potable water version (don’t get the garden hose version). That and a 1.5 gallon plastic bucket holds hose, filter and regulator (and quick disconnects if you are so inclined). While I do drain the hose and filter before going in the bucket, based on the bottom of the bucket later that day, there are still a few drips. Point being that 1.5 gallon bucket holds it all, and it goes into a bay taking up very little space. The bucket is also an otherwise handy tool.
Always enjoy your articles Russ. Enjoy Nevada.
To get all the water out of the hose I ran one end through an upper rung of the RV ladder and slowly pulled it through as I coiled it up. The “up and over”motion allowed the water to drain out the free end.
After every trip, I sanitize the hose. Fill it with a bleach solution for 12 hours, then flush it and allow it to drain or blow it out with my air compressor. Easy to do if you use 2-25 foot hoses instead of 1-50 footer.
We very seldom ever need both hoses.
Thank you for the calamitous tale of the nefarious RD, 😉 whoever THAT may be, Russ and Tina! I certainly will benefit from all the information here, particularly the cleaning solution recipe. Have a great day and safe travels!