Diesel in Water Tank Forums

kokopeli

When my six year old son came home from a day out in the 'van with his mum and said "Dad, you're gonna freak out", I knew they'd had a bad day...

To cut a long story short, my wife put £50 worth of diesel into the fresh water tank... Our dealer warned me to expect a bill for anything between £300 and £1000 for replacing the tank. Apparently, it's not the plastic bits that cost money, but the labour required to strip out half the interior and get to the tank which is sandwiched under the seats between the double floor. Ouch!

Because we'd drained the system, isolated the pump and left the frost valve open before the 'incident', the contamination was confined to the filler pipe and tank, which contained about 30 litres of water before the diesel went in.

I took great comfort from previous posts in this forum (many thanks to those who bared their souls) and spoke to the nice people at Clover Chemicals.

The good news is that one bottle of washing up liquid and 5 litres of VIRO-SOL (total cost £7.50 from a stockist nearby) and the water tank is back in service. No new parts, no expensive labour and no residual smells or contamination. Phew! Laughing

Kokopeli

ps. Does anyone know where I can get a 'Fresh Water Only' sticker?

hymmi

Hi Kokopeli,

That has made me sweat just reading it,has your wife come home yet,i would have left town........

I think you would get one of those stickers from car or caravan accessory shop,if not stencil it on yourself.

kokopeli

Cheers Hymmi - My wife said she felt physically sick when she got back in the 'van and realised that the fuel light was still on... I can tell you that the prospect of an enormous bill was the last thing we needed the week before Christmas. Thankfully, we can just about manage a laugh about it now...

The only good news is that we narrowly avoided even more expense when my father-in-law (trying his best to be helpful and salvage the situation) attempted to syphon the diesel from the water tank and into the fuel tank. He didn't know there was still water in the tank and thought he was being helpful! Shocked

Fortunately, he couldn't get a hose pipe down the filler pipe and didn't know how to access the water tank from inside the van.... Now that would have been grounds for a divorce.....

BarryandSue

Thanks for posting this, kokopeli - it confirms that this treatment really does work, and the info is bound to come in useful in the future (when some other unlucky person does the same as your poor wife).

Now, off to the archives with you!

Barry

PamNPete

Hi kokopeli

At first I thought oh no - New Tank

Bit of advice to prevent it happening again

We keep the wter filler cap Key seperate from the ingniton keys & alarm button

I have a seperate key ring in the van with the roof box, water filler cap, & cycle lock keys on

I have had a Garage hand waiting to take the water cap off to fill with deisel but my deisel cap is on the other side of the van
The GH looked puzzled. He obviously didnt know MH's also filled with water

Try a camping shop or 'Towsure' for the sticker

Anonymous

On the plus side, I suspect better that, than water in the diesel tank - or windscreen washer in the oil sump.

kokopeli

LOL. The trauma has been enough to put my good lady off filling up with anything for a long time to come. I'm wondering if Viro-Sol would help shift those baked-on summer flies from the windscreen...