Leaving bleach water in system?

[Ted Fyden]

I filled my system (not hot water) with a bleach and water mixture. I don't plan on going anywhere soon. can I leave that in the system and drain before next trip or should I drain and leave system dry? Filling with fresh water doesn't seem correct because it's just going to sit. thank you. not sure if it would hurt the tank.

[Morich]

No reasonable amount of bleach water will harm the tank but there are some things to keep in mind as well.
The bleach is normally sold shipped and stored at a much higher concentration than we use in sanitation so not likely a mix, far reduced from the normal straight bleach content of 6%, is going to harm any plastics we have!
Chlorine is an oxidier which means it loves to combine with organics and it is also something that gasses off readily when exposed to air. It combines/reacts well with things we want to kill or sanitize. But the reason we smell it around a pool, spa or when we drink treated water is that it is somewhat hard to keep it in the water!
We have to keep treating pools because the chlorine keeps blowing away!
That means the even in a tank which is not moving much, the chlorine will gradually gas off and be gone!
That is good and bad, depending on the situation. If you want to keep the bleach water in the tank for a week or two, it will continue to protect the water and tank from bacteria growth getting very high. good for keep ing water from one trip to the next?
But if we want to store the RV for three months, the treatment will likely not be good by the next summer, so we would need to retreat to be sure we were safe!

But from years in community well water treatement as well as breeding tropical fish, I knw there is a vast number of people who are scared to death of chlorine. They think of WW1 chemical chlorine attacks and make the jump to that being what we buy in a bottle for laundry!
Most of the older group will have grown up with their mother using bleach to clean their skivvies but now some are certain it is a deadly poison!

We live in an age where science and bad information are often used to promote nonsense, so do your own checking to avoid the noise!

[wyocamper]

Chlorine decays in water over a period of 1-5 days. Even in a closed system it will be completely dissipated within one to two weeks.

[Morich]

One of the big things about water treatment is that is has to be an estimate, even under the best of conditions as there are so mnay variables involved.
Start with how much chlorine we add to how much organic debris to react with the chlorine and that is going to throw out the best estimates of what if going to be left as a residual.
Then throw in the weather, how much surface movement and the time question is a really big question!
For between trips, we never tried to save the water as it was less difficult to figure how much cleaning we had to do when we just started over! We never added untreated water to the tank and the water we did fill with always had some chorine remaining as regs require.
That left me feeling okay to drain the tank and if it was a month or less, simply refilling with city water felt safe as the new chlorine would be enough to deal with any small amounts of bacteria grown back in the tank in a short time period.

But it is an estimate and the body is usually up to manage any small missteps. We live in a toxic stew of diseases and bacteria of all kinds , so we did not feel it a big hazard.

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by Ted Fyden

I filled my system (not hot water) with a bleach and water mixture. I don't plan on going anywhere soon. can I leave that in the system and drain before next trip or should I drain and leave system dry? Filling with fresh water doesn't seem correct because it's just going to sit. thank you. not sure if it would hurt the tank.

Do your option 2. You said you don't plan on going anywhere soon, so why leave water in tank. Drain it per your manual for storage or winterization. Also, when I sanitize after after a winterization I use bleach, but I drain it no later than next day. You can refill with fresh water and drain again if you drink the water from fresh water tank. The chlorine left standing may impact seals.