Towing with water?

Do you tow with your water tanks full or empty?

 

Empty usually.

Saves me 420# of weight that is located in front of my trailer axles. Saves the tongue weight. We have water at the camps we go to. I have filled them before, it's a lot.

 

Same, empty whenever possible. You feel less movement from the shifting water, plus less weight moved back off tongue (mine is in rear), easier to tow.

 

Depends if there's water available where I'm camping

 

at 8 lbs a gallon, only if I would need it and the designation does not have water available. It gets heavy quick and can make the tow feel squirrely as it moves around.

 

Fresh and gray empty, usually keep black tank 1/3 full with water so it sloshes around while traveling and ready to use upon arrival.

 

This ^

If boondocking, I fill the FW (40g) and tend to keep about 5g in the B/G tanks at all times.

 

I also carry a 6 gallon potable jug so I can add water if needed without having to break camp and drive to the nearest hose bib. Buddy of mine has a transfer pump and he'll just use one of his coolers to fill up and then transfer to his RV tank as needed.

 

In most cases (a majority) is it relatively easy to get water on the road?

 

Completely full, 78 gallon camper tank, unless I’m traveling a long distance, then I will do a 1/3 or less.

I have a 35 gallon transfer tank if I have to use that, I will pump it into the RV tank. Pic here is when I had a Sequoia, which I sold. And yes, the Sequoia had air bags.

 

I only filled my tank when the destination only had well water that stinks of Sulphur. No thanks on that in my tanks. Brought my own fresh that time. All of the state parks we camp at have water at the sites or at the dump station when you pull in. If boondocking (which I haven't been) you can stop at a rest stop or truck stop and they usually have available hose bibs with potable water. I always filter what goes in the tank.

 

Thanks very much for your reply. Your method seems to be a very good idea.

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

Thanks. Great suggestion

 

I've also seen a bladder that you can put on your truck roof that holds like 15-20 gallons. Has a hose that you use to fill it, then to empty it into the RV tanks. Uses gravity, so no pump needed. Also rolls up flat so doesn't take up much room in the truck or camper.

 

78g, nice I travel with a 30g bladder and pump in case as well.

Mine is similar to this:

$32 113 L/30 gal Water Bladder Storage Containers, Foldable Portable Water Tank Large Capacity Soft Water Bag, Drought Resistance, Fire Prevention, Emergency Water

Amazon.com : 240 L/63.4 gal Water Bladder Storage Containers, Foldable Portable Water Tank Large Capacity Soft Water Bag, Drought Resistance, Fire Prevention, Emergency Water : Sports & Outdoors

Yup, AZ water is typically pretty hard so Ill fill at home with soft water.

 

I like the bladder idea, and I looked at those pretty hard. It’s just that I have room to store the hard tank in my upper bunk bed, out of the way.

The bladder, I didn’t want to deal with keeping it clean. It can be done, but I just didn’t want to deal with that.

The hard tank I got I like a lot. I wish that they had a slightly smaller one, but it’s fine, I have room for it.

My camper is a bit tall, and the gravity idea with the bladder would be wonderful, but I can’t hoist a bladder up that high.

That’s the background on how I ended up with the tank. I will probably get a wagon for it at some point.

 

Yeah, you unroll the empty bladder onto the roof and fill it from a hose bib. Then drain it from the roof position back into the RV tank. Then remove the empty bladder from the roof.

 

I’m stuck with pretty low water pressure at the campgrounds we go to. The volume is there, but the pressure won’t do much, it would take too long.

 

90% of our camping is boondocking, and usually not too far from home.
My water is a known quality, and I actually prefer how my trailer handles with some tongue weight, so I almost always travel with full fresh.

I fill it all the way (45 gal) so it's not sloshing around.

I'm currently sitting in my trailer, first time we've camped in an actual campground in quite some time.

Our "partial hookups" site isn't, SDG&E has the power turned off cuz of high winds and fire warnings.

 

On the upside, we have the normally crowded campground all to ourselves!

Probably because everyone with any sense saw the winds, temperatures, and fire warnings forecast and stayed home.

 

All of this is very dependent on specifics. How do you camp, where do you camp etc. Usually where I camp is undeveloped and there's no water anywhere near. And still, it depends. Am I roughing it (as much as a person can rough it in a house on wheels)? Or going into town regularly, or even using the camper for work? If I'm truly camping, I'll have just enough water to get by. No showers, no toilet use, but some very conservative water use for doing dishes, brushing teeth, occasionally washing hands.

In my camper, water actually helps balance things. All the appliances, shower stall and waste tanks are on one side. Fresh water tank on the other. So having a little water helps balance the load. That depends on the camper.

If I'm way out, far from water sources, and nowhere near home (like if I drive from Montana to southern Utah or something), I'll put water in the tank at the last town before hitting dirt roads. You learn to find water and dump stations if you use the trailer enough. Bring an inline water filter to connect to the filler house. Knabores is right, sulphur water is no good and the filter doesn't really help with that. But regardless you want to filter the water to strain sediment that can otherwise clog your pump.

If I'm sleeping in the camper but need to be presentable, then yeah, I'll fill the tanks as close to the camp spot as possible. Sometimes that's several miles. Sometimes dozens of miles. I was pulling my camper with a Tacoma, and you can bet that water weight made a huge difference.

One thing that can screw you is the water heater. Mine was 5 gallons. So if you travel dry, then want to add just enough water to wash hands/brush teeth etc....remember the water heater must fill before you have any useable water. So if you put 5 gallons in the fresh water tank before heading to camp, and the water heater is empty, you'll get to camp, flip on the water pump, and the water heater will take every last drop of fresh water. You'll have a nice full water heater and no available water. Something to keep in mind if you're really watching weight and only adding just as much water as you think you'll need. I tended to try using my camper as efficiently as possible, because I wanted to be out as long as possible and I'd be miles and miles down dirt roads, which where often already dozens of miles down a paved road from the nearest town. I had efficient water use down to a science. Something we may all have to learn before long...