Do you travel with full fresh tanks?

[RocknRoll]

Originally Posted by Marine359

Of course a long drive on I-26 through South Carolina can produce some failures too.

Boy, you're not kidding!

[Marine359]

My dw locks me out of the camper and leaves towel and soap outside. Her logic is: “isn’t that why we have an outdoor shower?” Please turn on the water heater dear. “You don’t need it”

[tinglett]

So far all our trips have been 100-200 miles, and we've drifted into hauling along a full tank of FW every time. It's just one less hassle of things to do when we get there, and early/late in the season the water at the park is off anyway. While I haven't tried an experiment, I really doubt I'm going to measure an mpg change with only an additional 250 lbs. I'm guessing the wind resistance is by far the bigger factor.

Also, our 2019 has chloroplast, but no tank heaters (the heat is ducted under instead). So I can't see what's going on.


While on the topic, what do you guys do for the return home? Do you keep water on hand for the trip (ok, maybe not for 100-200 miles), or do you "dump" it? If you dump it, how? I've wondered about etiquette of dropping remaining FW, but I'm always worried someone is thinking something horrible with gray water (or worse) is going on .

[Morich]

We've never really got into the weight and fuel question as the whole issue is how much do we enjoy the trip. If the wieght of an extra person was going to block a trip, we likely would not own an Rv as they are certainly not a cost effective way to live!
So we usually do keep some water to travel home as we do want the convenience of the bathroom breaks and when we do get home, we want to fully clean, so will need water.
Rinse and flush it all and prep for winter at the end of a season has always been good enough for us.

[FlyingV]

Heading out for a 5 day trip tomorrow going about 130 miles into blm land. I’ll fill my fresh water tank before I leave and bring 2 5 gallon jugs in the truck. No issues with weight. Been doing it this way for three seasons now with no problems. Now I’ll be thinking about the water tank falling out the whole way.

[Marine359]

Originally Posted by FlyingV

Heading out for a 5 day trip tomorrow going about 130 miles into blm land. I’ll fill my fresh water tank before I leave and bring 2 5 gallon jugs in the truck. No issues with weight. Been doing it this way for three seasons now with no problems. Now I’ll be thinking about the water tank falling out the whole way.

Sometimes gravity wins. Have a sweet trip, and check your tapping bolts before leaving.

[FlyingV]

Gravity gains on me a little every day. Are these tapping bolts inside the enclosed cover on the bottom of the trailer or somewhere else? I would like to check them.

[Marine359]

Look just aft of the steps. If you know where your fresh tank drain is, there is a brace bar that traverses the frame rails near the drain. Follow each end of the brace bar to the frame rails were each end will be secured to the frame with two tapping bolts. If any of them are loose or missing, you should take action.

[No1Hunter]

Originally Posted by Marine359

Look just aft of the steps. If you know where your fresh tank drain is, there is a brace bar that traverses the frame rails near the drain. Follow each end of the brace bar to the frame rails were each end will be secured to the frame with two tapping bolts. If any of them are loose or missing, you should take action.

Interesting. My brace bars sit on top of my lower frame lip, not below it. Mush better design than using screws, unless I need to replace my tank.

[jeb]

A group camped next to me up in MN a couple of weeks back. Had a nice, newer 5th wheel (forgot the brand/model). Owner said it was one of the better ones. The 60 gallon fresh water tank had fallen during their trip to camp, and caused much drama as a roadside repair. The RV had a 2nd fresh water tank, so they got by on that. Both where full to start the trip. Owner was pretty razzled.

Won't stop me from traveling with a full water tank though. Never been an issue for our DP.

[Four Seasons]

This is always a popular topic of discussion. RVs are supposed to be built to support the full tanks, but IMHO it depends largely upon how close you are to your GVWR. I have a Minnie Winnie 31K which is about 12,000 lbs empty, with a GVWR of 14,500 - so i have room for 2500 lbs of whatever. If I have 350 lbs of fresh water, and leave home with the waste tanks empty, that weight doesn't change - it just moves from the 44 gallon fresh tank to the two 33 gallon waste tanks while we travel. It's still 350 lbs of liquid onboard, which is only about 14% of the allowable 2500 lbs load.

Of course the proportions will be different for different RVs, I'm just offering this as an example. Presumably, a lighter weight motorhome or RV trailer with a lower GVWR would have somewhat smaller tanks - but at the same time, the full load of fresh water might represent more than the14% in my example. In a really big rig, the water weight may be entirely negligible.

Bottom Line: Do the math and see how much of your total cargo allowance would be represented by a tank full of water, and consider whether that's a reasonable amount of extra weight. I don't think it should make a big difference in gas mileage, unless you're pulling a trailer with a really small car.

[Sullivanclan]

On travel days we carry about half a tank of fresh water. Prefer grey and black empty.

If are headed for boondocking, for anything more than three days we carry a full tank of water.

[RocknRoll]

Originally Posted by Sullivanclan

On travel days we carry about half a tank of fresh water. Prefer grey and black empty.

I'd personally recommend to never leave your black tank completely empty. After emptying/rinsing, I'll fill up a bucket with ~3 gal (or more) leftover hot water from the shower and pour in into the toilet and ad a little treatment. This water will somewhat agitate whatever may be stuck at the bottom and suspend it.

[No1Hunter]

Originally Posted by RocknRoll

I'd personally recommend to never leave your black tank completely empty. After emptying/rinsing, I'll fill up a bucket with ~3 gal (or more) leftover hot water from the shower and pour in into the toilet and ad a little treatment. This water will somewhat agitate whatever may be stuck at the bottom and suspend it.

I agree 100%. I also leave a couple gallons in each gray tank. I decided to not use the digestive treatment, and I am going to a "cleaning" solution. I will see if that improves my sensor readings.

[reeman]

Road conditions have a great deal to do with whether or not to fill the fresh IMO. Boondocking where we go it is not a good idea to fill the tank because of load shock. The more mass the more the load shock so it is better to use our pickup or even load some of the water in fresh containers secured inside the trailer. The plastic tanks are decently secured but if full of water do bulge down a little and if a large stick whacked it while full going down a bush road the result could be problematic.

I have seen one poor fellow with a full black water tank on the side of the road going to Bamfield. A large rock broke the lines right at the exit from the tank and solved his problem with having to find a sani dump in Port Alberni. Lesson is to always bring along a shovel if you boon dock and really watch if you have a low ground clearance rig especially to tanks and fittings!

What I try to do is run down the road with a small amount of water in all tanks to make them easier to flush and then pump the small amount of water in the fresh into the black tank to give it a sensible level with added treatment pack before setting up to camp.
This way the systems stay clean and gives us no problems doing a full flush before winterizing each year.
But running down the road with a full tank on a travel trailer is a crap shoot and will put excessive strain on the tank supports and bulge the plastic tanks over time due to the added effect of load shock going over bumps.

Physics is physics and the formula F=Mx(Vsquared) does not change regardless of whether or not the mass sloshes around or not.

[SactoSteve]

Originally Posted by reeman

Physics is physics and the formula F=Mx(Vsquared) does not change regardless of whether or not the mass sloshes around or not.

True, but, static vs dynamic loads do matter. A “slosh” of water (dynamic load) is a much greater force than a static (or less dynamic) same mass of water. A sloshing half filled tank could present a more serious force than a full tank. Less slosh, less acceleration of the mass, less force. Depends where the force gets applied that matters.
These travel trailers, even if they do have beefy looking tires and rims, aren’t really built for off road adventures. IMHO

-steve

[reeman]

Originally Posted by SactoSteve

True, but, static vs dynamic loads do matter. A “slosh” of water (dynamic load) is a much greater force than a static (or less dynamic) same mass of water. A sloshing half filled tank could present a more serious force than a full tank. Less slosh, less acceleration of the mass, less force. Depends where the force gets applied that matters.
These travel trailers, even if they do have beefy looking tires and rims, aren’t really built for off road adventures. IMHO

-steve

Good point! What I meant was a small amount in the black water to keep it from doing the poop pile thing and every once and a while the same thing in the gray water. But never more than enough to do a few flushes in the fresh.

[outthere]

We pull the 2108ds with a 2500 GMC. I use a 55 gal. drum in the bed and gravity feed
our potable tank for boondocking. Everything else campgrounds and water spigots.
The trailer only carries enough water to flush and rinse hands between campgrounds.
Black tank starts out with 3-4 gals. of fresh mix after cleaning and gets dumped at long stay destination or 2nd light indicator. So far no problems between FL..NC...TN..VA
and GA.
Our a/c failed under warranty and I replaced my stuck 6' grey cable with a straight 2' cable section. The black cable is on borrowed time. It's also a 6" coil of cable.
We do really enjoy the little camper. It's been a solid platform for us in hot cold and rainy weather.

[reeman]

Hmmm???? I just wonder if creating a rig with an extra water tank and 12 volt on demand pump that can be hauled around in the back of a pickup might be a neat way to augment fresh water capacity to the full 50 US that the black and gray water can hold. We get about 4 days out of 30 gallons US if we are careful the option of not having to dump and pump for over 5 days would be great.
The rig I have in mind could hook up to the street inlet with a hose and still have an on demand self priming pump do the water delivery off grid. Filling our fresh tank is a royal PITA and takes a very long time because it needs to vent as it fills. I get my wife to do it because inevitably the system shoots back as it her and she gets wet. It takes almost 20 minutes to fill it with 30 gal US because the air pressure release tube is so small at the fill top in relation to the inlet pipe. So if you sent the water in at more than about a gallon a minute the thing decides to puke up on you. Hilarious really unless it is really cold out then I do it and suffer the consequences instead of watching my wife curse at the thing!

Having a supplemental water supply that would not be in the trailer but still off grid would could be a really nice setup along with extra batteries to extend the time. As it is we rarely if ever load the black and gray water tanks to the maximum that they can hold. Only on one occasion have we had to dump and pump and that is when we camped for 6 days off grid in Pacific Rim national park where there is no water or sewer in the sites but electricity and a sani dump included in the costs so we have to do pick up and do a dump mid way in the time we are there.

With this pump and a decent 20-30 gallon fresh water tank there is no reason why we could not rig up to have a water supply separate from the holding tank in the trailer and just use the street water in as if there was a tap in the campsite.

[Morich]

Some of our first RV were converter from othe ruses and modded to do what fit at the time. We would never do that now as we are too soft but an old beer wagon with a big tank in the back was plenty of water to do a long time for the family groups we were doing at the time.
Black water was one of those "camping" things that we had not worked into at the time but we still had lots more fun.

Now if the faucet drips it seems to be a major crisis, where before we never had faucets!