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Old 08-09-2011, 07:53 AM   #1
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Default Adding water when dry camping

We have done a little park camping and a little dry camping. In general, we much prefer getting away from it all. However, the convenience of hooking up to shore power and water are very alluring.

We can go long periods without shore power thanks to our Honda generator. We don't use a lot of propane, so the 2 20 gallon tanks are plenty for - well we don't know how long! We've gone about 10 days on 1 tank so far.

However, we can only go about 3 or 4 days on the 30 gallons of water in the fresh water tank - at most - bring in the grandchildren and all bets are off!

We have several 6 and 7 gallon water jugs, but trying to refill the tank from those 50# jugs is hard work and not terribly efficient - we spill a significant amount just getting the spout to the inlet.

How do you refill the water tank? Is there some kind of pump that will transfer the water from a jug to the filler at a rate that won't back up faster than the water can get in? A siphon would require some kind of platform higher than the filler which is about 4' above ground level already!

Thanks,
Fran
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Old 08-09-2011, 08:41 AM   #2
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The cheap thing would be to get one of those Camco water tank fillers designed to fit on the end of a garden hose. It has a plastic tube that you insert into the filler neck and prevents the backsplash. The hard part would be adaptiing it fit your water tanks and of course having to lift them to pour into the tank.

Camping world sells a portable 12V water pump - but it says its not for potable water. Not sure why exactly. Possibly could get oil from the pump into the water?
http://www.campingworld.com/shopping...pump-kit/55153

The only other option I found was Shurflo makes a pump that has 12V battery clip on connecters that could probably be mounted to board or wooden box of some sort so that it could be moved around as needed. It's 1.5 gpm so it woudl transfer a 7 gallon water jug in just a few minutes. It's not cheap though - online prices I found were $110 and up!
http://www.shurflo.com/rv-products/r...p/default.html

Maybe someone else will chime in with some better ideas.
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Old 08-11-2011, 11:48 PM   #3
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My wife likes to take two showers a day so I have to fill the tank every day when we camp. I installed a shurflo pump T'd into the fill line. I then connected the inlet to a hose fitting on the outside of the trailer and a switch to turn it on. Then I just connect a short hose to the fitting and drop it in the portable tank to transfer water. I have an 8 gallon tank on wheels to haul the water. It was a a fair amount of work but well worth it when we camp. If you don't want to do all the work to install, just buy a shurfo pump with hose fittings on each end, and alligator clips for the battery, install short hoses then insert the inlet into a portable tank and the outlet to the fill port and pump away.
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Old 08-12-2011, 09:59 AM   #4
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Just curious, what do you do with the gray water, if you are filling the fresh tank each day when dry camping. Are you hauling it in a portable tank to a dump?
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Old 08-12-2011, 12:40 PM   #5
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The campgrounds we go to have drains by the water spigots so I just use a bucket and dump down the drain. You can buy the big gray water portable tanks and haul to the dump station but I havn't had the need for that yet. It's basically water with a little soap, if you use bio-degradable soap you could probably just water the trees with it (as long as the campground doesn't have rules against that).
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Old 08-18-2011, 02:20 PM   #6
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Default Filling water tank

I use four 5 gal sealed buckets with removeable caps,I stack them next to fill door and use my 10 ft hose to siphon the water out and into the fill hole. Switch buckets to top till their all mt and repeat as needed. No pumps or power used but you do have to do some lifting.

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Old 08-23-2011, 11:27 AM   #7
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Default Update on the filler

Our past trailers had the kind of fresh filler line that was 1 1/2" diameter that you could actually pour into and that actually fit a nozzle on my 6 gal water jug. Has anyone looked at just replacing that filler access port? Seems that would be the easiest fix, as long as the line into the tank is also a large diameter and easily detachable at the external port.

Think I'll have to take that up with my dealer when I do the walk through. We dry camp a lot and adding fresh water needs to be a reasonably simple task.


****We just took delivery Thursday 9/1 on our trailer. I had the dealer swap out the stock filler port and door with the one I mentioned above. Will be easier to fill and while at it, had them check to be sure the water line was DOWN HILL all the way to the tank! At least that part is good to go.....

Now, if we can just get the Slider leak and rain gutter issues taken care of......
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Old 08-26-2012, 06:28 PM   #8
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MY SOLUTION was to install a second water tank and connected to the original. You will have to watch your gray water tank level but its made our camping much easier. Our previous toyhauler had a 100 gal fresh tank so the 30 was just not enough. Good luck.
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Old 08-27-2012, 07:16 PM   #9
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Any number of "water transfer pumps", the simplest would be a Terapump. I use one for transfering kerosene, but, they work fine for any liquid, including potable water. Similar to a siphon, but, they use a couple of "D" batteries for power. If you get a folding lightweight table to set your jugs on, it should work just fine. Since it is a battery powered pump, it can pump "up hill"; you will just be limited by the length of the ouput hose. This pump will not pump faster than your tank can accept is actually quite well made.

Terapump on Amazon.com

You could, for that matter, get a regular RV type water pump (cheap, low output) and modify it with hoses of your choice of length and put some battery cable typ clips (light duty) and use your tow vehicle's battery to power it (or the battery on the trailer).



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Old 08-27-2012, 09:08 PM   #10
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Well, As I said in my earlier post (last year!?!) when I bought the trailer, I had the dealer change out the filler inlet with the larger 1.5" opening so's I could use my trusty 6gal water tote tank. In camping this June, I did get a work out packing the 6 gal from the centrally located faucets back to the camp site, then hefting the tank up to the fill hole ...... Ah, I'm not 30 any longer (not for 30 yrs says spouse ... too often me thinks!), but it worked for me! Empties the 6 gals in less than a minute or so. Would be nice to have a way to set the tank on something just below the filler so you didn't have to lift it quite so high to get it started. Haven't come up with that yet.... pulley, rope, spouse, A-frame ....
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Old 09-17-2012, 03:51 PM   #11
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Something that may work for you that I use for transferring diesel from 5 gallon containers... It is battery powered (rechargeable) or can plug into 12v power and pumps very rapidly:

FloJet Pump system

You can search to find them at other locations, but, CW's price is about par for what I found and paid for mine elsewhere. I found that the pump head wouldn't drop into my diesel containers, but, if you pop the filter end of the motor and put a short piece of hose on it, it will pump from virtually and container and do a short job of moving 5-10 gallons...even multiple containers. I found that one charge of the battery will pump my 25 gallons of diesel and some without needing a recharge. It does say "Not for potable water", but, I'm not aware of why. The unit is all plastic and I don't see any reason why, if that is all you used it for that it wouldn't be just fine. I think they just don't want someone like me using it for transferring my diesel and then wondering why the water that I used it for afterwards tastes funny...



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