For years, we’ve made coffee in our RV using a stainless steel French press. The process involves adding coarse coffee grounds to the bottom of the French press, heating water in a saucepan to 180 degrees, pouring that water over the grounds, letting the mixture steep for 3 minutes, stirring it, and letting it sit for another minute or two. We learned this technique on a cruise coffee excursion in Colombia.

After many weeks of moochdocking — and drinking coffee our hosts provided — I decided to make coffee in our fifth wheel one morning. As I checked the temperature of the heating water on the stove using an aim-and-point thermometer, I spotted floaties in the water. 

I spooned them out as best as I could but noticed a residue on the spoon afterward. Not wanting to fill our kitchen gray water tank needlessly, I dumped the pan’s contents outside. Then I washed the pan really well and refilled it with fresh water to start the process again. I still saw floaties. It appeared that we had bacteria in the RV freshwater tank. And we’d been drinking filtered water from that tank.

Getting to the bottom of the issue

Bob ran hot water through a translucent glass. He too saw lots of floaties. He tried again with cold water and saw fewer floaties, but they were still present. 

He researched the issue and determined we needed to flush the freshwater tank. We turned off the water pump and water heater and emptied the water lines to our kitchen sink, bathroom sink, toilet, and shower. Then we went outside. 

Bob added 1.25 cups of bleach to a 7-gallon container and pumped that into our tank. He filled the tank the rest of the way with water from his brother Bill’s house. 

The research said to let the bleach water mixture sit for four to 12 hours. We opted for 12 as we had plans to meet friends that day.

Draining the freshwater tank

When we returned that night, we connected a hose to the tank drain valve and stretched the other end into the forest behind Bill and Kim’s house. Bob opened the valve to let it drain overnight, and we got ready for bed. That meant brushing our teeth in the house. (Yes, we had also brushed our teeth with that bacteria-infested water before that.)

The next morning, Bob checked our freshwater tank gauge and discovered that only half the contents had emptied. There must have been a bubble or something in the line. He got the water flowing again, and we left for church.

Checking the water

We hung out with friends after church and again returned in the evening, happy to find the freshwater tank dry. Bob refilled it with water from Bill’s place, and we went inside to see if our efforts fixed the issue.

Like before, Bob filled a translucent glass with water. We still saw some floaties but significantly fewer than we had seen before. Maybe they had been stuck in the water line. He filled and dumped the glass a few more times, and it ran cleaner every time. 

Although we had some residual floaties, whatever had been in there couldn’t be alive after we shocked it with bleach. We could get back to normal.

I’m grateful I attempted to make coffee that morning, or we wouldn’t have discovered the issue when we did. The timeliness was important as Bob had to leave early the next day to go out of town for a few days. 

It just goes to show that you don’t have to be in Mexico or South America to get sick from drinking water with bacteria in it. Thankfully, we didn’t have any physical or health issues from drinking ours. 

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