Fresh Water Tank Flush — Every 90 Days

Your fresh water tank grows bacteria. Slowly. Quietly. Every ninety days you should flush it. Most owners never do.

Quarter cup of unscented household bleach per fifteen gallons of tank capacity. Mine's a forty-gallon tank — so a cup of bleach.

Step one — pour the bleach into the fresh tank fill. Step two — top off the tank with water. Step three — run every faucet, hot and cold, until you smell bleach at each one. Including the toilet flush, the shower, the outside spigot. Then turn them off.

Step four — let it sit twelve hours. Step five — drain the tank completely. Step six — refill with clean water, run every faucet again until you can't smell bleach anywhere. Sometimes takes two refills.

Ninety-day reminder. Quarter cup per fifteen gallons. Sit twelve hours. Drain. Rinse.