Horrible tasting Water

We bought a new van in 2001 and have traveled around much of Australia including all states. I read several caravan forums and often read about people with poor tasting water in their tanks. I know filling from a water hose causes bad tasting water, but I am pedantic with things like that and always fill ours with tank water through a short syphon hose, so I knew the problem was something different. We have never had that problem until recently and when I looked at the plastic piping and tank found a lot of mould growing inside the pipes and I suspect the tank also.

My remedy to fix the problem was to go to the pool shop and add about 2 litres of chlorine to the water tank. I then cut a length of pipe to go from the hand pump in the sink to the inlet water filler pipe on the outside the van. As I have previously installed an electric Whale pump in hand pump sink pipe line I was then able to pump heavily chlorined water through the pipes and back into the tank several time a day for a couple of days. An inspection of the plastic pipes now showed them to be crystal clear again and the water taste is also fine again.

I am sure this is not the only way to solve poor quality water problems, but it worked for me and I thought someone else may also get some benefit from my experiences, as well as realizing that others may have used the same or similar methods well before me.

Brian DJ