RV water shouldn’t smell like it came from a swamp. If yours does, do these 3 things right now.

If your RV's water smells like eggs you should first give your whole RV's water system a good cleaning either with bleach or with hydrogen peroxide. 

You can check out the step by step process on how to go about that here.

But this will only solve the smell for a short amount of time, if you don't identify the source problem. 

There are usually two sources that could cause this smell. 

1. You could need to upgrade your anode rod.

An anode rod is a sacrificial rod put into Suburban water heaters to help prevent corrosion. 

The most common anode rods are made up of either magnesium or aluminum. These can sometimes mix with the chemicals in your water to create a rotten egg smell. 

If you swap yours out for one made of aluminum and zinc that should help with your water's smell. 

2. You could have a compromised heating element. 

This is one I learned about recently from Mike Sokol over at RV Electricity. He's very into electrical safety and goes deep into electrical concepts for RV's. If that's something you're interested in I highly recommend you check him out. 

But back to your smelly water. 

The heating element in your water heater is supposed to be hermetically sealed - meaning the parts of your heating element that have electricity going through them should be completely separate from the water in your tank. 

But if your heating element gets a crack or a pinhole in it this can allow the electricity and the water to come in contact. - a volatile combination. 

When the electricity starts flowing through the water it can start a process called electrolysis where the H2O starts breaking down into oxygen and hydrogen. 

And if your water is especially chlorinated a second reaction can occur that turns that hydrogen into hydrogen sulfide gas - which is what is giving you the rotten egg smell. 

That electrolysis process creates bubbles around the heating element and when those bubbles pop it makes an echoing sound inside the tank. If your water heater sounds like it has a leak inside when you run it on electric and that sound goes away when you turn the water heater off - then it may be time to change out your heating element. 

You Got This. 

P.S. If you want to never call a tech again about the appliances in your RV - check out RV Academy.