Tips For Dealing with Water with High Iron Content

Iron is a great metal. It’s used to make so many things that we use every day. Though it is versatile and useful, it can become a nuisance if there is a lot of it dissolved in the water you are using. If you live in a house, a water softener can usually solve this issue. It is much harder to deal with it in an RV park. The biggest complaint with iron in the water is rust. It can stain anything from clothes to sinks and bathtubs. Fortunately, it is not a problem that is impossible to rectify when it comes to cleaning. The following are a few things you can do to combat water with a high iron content at an RV park.

What is Rust?

I’m not a chemist, neither is the average RVer, I’m guessing. So instead of going into a lengthy explanation that even I don’t understand, I’m going to try to simplify this process. Iron bonds easily with oxygen in the presence of an electrolyte such as water. When iron bonds with oxygen, you get iron oxide or rust.

What does that mean? When you have iron, water, and oxygen in contact with each other, you will inevitably get rust. Having iron dissolved in the water already gives you two of the three ingredients. Splashing high iron content water onto a surface exposes it to the air and that is why your shower turns red when you are trying to clean it. What can one do to stop this from happening?

Related Read: Conserving Water When You Are a Full-timer

Get a Filtration System

There are some in line water filter systems for RVs that have a metal trap cartridge that will filter out iron and other metals that cause problems entirely. One such system is sold by www.rvwaterfilterstore.com. Their ESSENTIAL SYSTEM + IRON claims to do this and more. If you are looking for a way to not use all kinds of chemicals to get the rust stains out and have safe drinking water wherever you go, this may be a good route to take. It does come with a price tag. The ESSENTIAL SYSTEM + IRON costs a little over $200. If that is not in your budget, there are other methods you can take that will not eliminate the iron from the water but may help eliminate the symptoms it causes.

Use Rust Removing Chemicals

It is a chemical process that turns iron into rust. So it stands to reason that a chemical process can turn rust into something else. One of the most used products in the US is called Iron Out. This, like many products intended to get rust out, does so by binding with the iron oxide and changing its properties. The rust changes color and becomes easier to rinse off. Iron Out comes in powder form that can be mixed in a spray bottle. It works very well for rust stains in showers and sinks or anywhere else you may get rust.

Iron Out also works great on laundry. Add half a cup of Iron Out per load to get rust and other stains out. Many commercial washers in laundromats don’t have a soak cycle which is what the product recommends. You can try just running a load of laundry with it to see if it works in the area you happen to be in. If not, the same company creates products that are specific to laundry such as OUT® White Brite® Laundry Whitener.

Make Your Own Rust Removing Chemical

White vinegar is a mild acid that will eat through rust. If you don’t want to use a commercial product than you can clean your showers and sinks by spraying white vinegar on the rust areas of your sink or shower, being sure to get it nice and soaked. Let it sit for about 10 to 20 minutes. Sprinkle baking soda on the area to neutralize the acid and scrub it with a damp towel until the stain is gone then rinse the area. You will want to neutralize the acidic vinegar because allowing acid to contact the iron in the water used for rinsing may cause rust stains all over again and quicker. Sprinkling a little baking soda in the shower may help prevent rust stains from reappearing in the future. The baking soda also acts as a minor abrasive which won’t scratch the surface but it will help loosen any tough rust stains. If that method isn’t working this site has a few more homemade rust cleaning recipes.

Related Read: The Green RV: Chemical Free Cleaning Products

Use An Outside Laundromat

There are times that the only laundromat around is in the campground. If that is the case, then you are stuck with the methods above for cleaning rust out of clothing. If you have options however, it may be a good idea to find a laundromat in town that uses water softeners or filters. If the area has a known high iron content, many owners of laundromats want to make sure their patrons don’t go home with orange socks that were supposed to be white.

If we are getting poor results at the campground laundromat, we usually call around to see which laundromats use softeners, etc. The down side is you pay a little more for your laundry, but your clothes will come out the same color they went in.

What NOT to Use

Bleach is a no go when it comes to trying to clean rust. It is also a very poor choice for cleaning in general if there is a high iron content in water. Bleach is even faster than water at oxidizing iron and turning it into rust. If there is a lot of iron in your water and you try to clean your shower with bleach, it will probably turn red by the time you take your next shower.

Instead of getting the red out of dingy white clothes, bleach is more likely to set the stain and make it harder to get out. Bleach is a great cleaner and sterilizer for many things but iron or rust isn’t one of them.