Towing with full fresh water tank

[dlwilliams48]

Anyone with a 243RBS traveled with the fresh water tank full? We are about to go camping in a National Park with no hook-ups, and I am debating whether or not to fill the FR tank before leaving. I've read horror stories of the supports not being adequate to travel with a full tank. There is a fill station at the park where we can fill up the FR tank upon arrival, but it might be nice to not have to do that. Takes a bit of time to fill a 40 gallon tank.

Any thoughts?

[rebeltown]

With a decent length of hose, and a water bandit or thief it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to fill a 40 gallon tank. Take your mind off of traveling with an extra 320 lbs of weight and stress on the tank brackets. Put 5 or 10 gallons in to use on your trip if you want. Enjoy.

[Witch Doctor]

Originally Posted by rebeltown

With a decent length of hose, and a water bandit or thief it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to fill a 40 gallon tank. Take your mind off of traveling with an extra 320 lbs of weight and stress on the tank brackets. Put 5 or 10 gallons in to use on your trip if you want. Enjoy.

X'2 I agree you can even stop at a travel plaza like loves and fill your tank before you enter. I also only travel with 5 gals of water....

[SilhouettePenny]

Originally Posted by Witch Doctor

I also only travel with 5 gals of water....

That's about what we do, a couple if one gallon bottles will last all day. 8 pounds per gallon is expensive fuel wise.

[TheWolfPaq82]

If it's a short run, I'll fill my tank. Longer runs...I also throw in a few gallons and call it good, then fill completely at the park.

[LTnTN]

Originally Posted by rebeltown

Take your mind off of traveling with an extra 320 lbs of weight and stress on the tank brackets.

Interesting ... I've only done this once with my fresh water tank, but will do it 3-4 times per year with my black water tank. I'll leave it about half full so that the tank will get a good agitation to help clean it out and keep the level sensors clean and working reliably.

I wonder what FR says about their design, regarding whether they are intended to handle the weight while the camper is in motion?

[TheWolfPaq82]

Originally Posted by SilhouettePenny

That's about what we do, a couple if one gallon bottles will last all day. 8 pounds per gallon is expensive fuel wise.

"He who dies with the most tools....still dies, and I buy everything at a garage sale for 1/4th the price."

[dlwilliams48]

Thanks for the replies... I think I will just go empty and fill when I get there. I'll only be on the road for about 6 hours, so probably will not have to make any stops other than gas.

[tamdle]

Originally Posted by dlwilliams48

Anyone with a 243RBS traveled with the fresh water tank full? We are about to go camping in a National Park with no hook-ups, and I am debating whether or not to fill the FR tank before leaving. I've read horror stories of the supports not being adequate to travel with a full tank. There is a fill station at the park where we can fill up the FR tank upon arrival, but it might be nice to not have to do that. Takes a bit of time to fill a 40 gallon tank.

Any thoughts?

If I were you, this is how I would consider:

1 - The manufacturer design the support for the tank, must have some additional safety factor. If my tank is 40 gallons = 320#, the support should be at least at 500#. You could look at the frame and determine that. The brace to support 500# does not have to be very extreme.

2 - If I will be driven on a hilly and steep grade, I would not add more weight to my coach. Maybe I will have 10 gallons which are only 80#, enough to survive conservatively. I the road is hilly but not a very steep grade, then I may burn some extra fuel to carry enough water for my need.

3 - If I can fill at the park, then I do not need to carry any. To fill a 40 gallons tank, it does not take very long, between 5 to 10 minutes is the most may be sooner depending on how much pressure would you get from the source. If someone has to wait, he or she has to wait and they will understand. 5 to 10 minutes is not the end of the world. Now, if you can not wait for 5 to 10 minutes, then that would be another topic that we could talk about.

I have a 60 gallons fresh water tank, 40 gallons of gray and 40 gallons of black.

During travel, and before departure, this is my normal procedure:

1 - Empty the gray water tank completely. There is no use for having any water in this tank during travel.

2 - I emptied my gray water tank completely, fill up my black tank and empty it at least 3 to 5 times until I can see clear water come out at least 2 times. Since I have already paid for the water at the campground, I would not mind to use it. Then refill it back up about 3 gallons (estimated), to ensure that the solid waste does not sit in the tank too long between stops.

3 - Fill about 1/3 of my fresh water tank. For use during days that I have to boondock between locations.

I have done this for the last trip which is about 4000 miles in two months. Just got home yesterday, and I went through some of the tough steep grades of 7% to 9%, the coach doing just fine.

Hope that you could draw some conclusion from my experience on the long trip that I just did.

[NMWildcat]

If I could not travel with a full tank of fresh water in my RV, I would trade it in for one that could. We frequently go places where water is not closely available.

Aren't RVs made to be self contained? We always travel with fresh water......

[325BH]

Originally Posted by NMWildcat

If I could not travel with a full tank of fresh water in my RV, I would trade it in for one that could. We frequently go places where water is not closely available.

Aren't RVs made to be self contained? We always travel with fresh water......

Exactly. The mere suggestion by the manufacturer to travel with an empty tank is absurd. You have a tank because there is no water available at the destination. If they are making junk that cannot carry water - which is the whole point of the water tank - then they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to build a camper.

In addition to the obvious, I travel with a full tank to maintain a consistent tongue weight every time I tow. I have my WDH dialed-in just right. I don't want that to vary by 500 lbs depending on me carrying water or not.

[BobHanke]

Less weight to save fuel or load up on windy travel days.

[Havasu Bill]

Originally Posted by NMWildcat

If I could not travel with a full tank of fresh water in my RV, I would trade it in for one that could. We frequently go places where water is not closely available.

Aren't RVs made to be self contained? We always travel with fresh water......

I travel with full fresh water tanks as well. Most people I know do as well.
Nobody that I know has had a problem.
I'm not sure how many broken tank supports there have been. It could be 10 out of thousands and it gets spread across the forum like it's a huge issue for everyone.

[Tomgky]

I always travel with a full tank. I also like the the weight on the hitch. I did reinforce the tank brackets after seeing how they bowed.

[markb422]

On our last TT I added straps to the top and bottom of the fwt. I noticed a leak one day and investigated to find out the tank would actually bounce when hitting bumps and the overflow fitting broke off because there was not enough hose for flex. I bought some hardware straps that are about 2 inches wide and added some foam tape between the strap and tank to prevent abrasion. After that I could choose to go full or empty depending on destination. Also I liked to use a filter when filling at the cg which slowed the fill to about 2 or 3 gallons per minute. For 40 gallon tank it took about 15 to 20 minutes to fill from empty depending on the cg water pressure.

[Jeff_and_Abby]

It's always worth it to have at least a few gallons in the FW tank.

We got stuck in a several-hour traffic jam on the New York Thruway one Summer ... the only thing better than the fully functional bathroom, was the fully stocked fridge.

[Witch Doctor]

I don't do it because of the weight, not that I'm afraid that it will fall out, big difference, between 40 gals and 5 gals
There are so many places to add water why carry the extra weight, I even limit myself to one case of beer.

[Stovebolt]

Originally Posted by NMWildcat

If I could not travel with a full tank of fresh water in my RV, I would trade it in for one that could. We frequently go places where water is not closely available.

Aren't RVs made to be self contained? We always travel with fresh water......

We do too. The unit is made to hold the water and besides that, I like my own water that I know is good. When I used that up I get water from where ever we are at and use a filter to add water.

[rebeltown]

Originally Posted by NMWildcat

If I could not travel with a full tank of fresh water in my RV, I would trade it in for one that could. We frequently go places where water is not closely available.

Aren't RVs made to be self contained? We always travel with fresh water......

I think we would all like to think that our RVs are made to stand up to all the rigors encountered but we read about countless times that they don't.

[NMWildcat]

Originally Posted by rebeltown

I think we would all like to think that our RVs are made to stand up to all the rigors encountered but we read about countless times that they don't.

I don't know all the circumstances with the failed fresh tanks mentioned in forums. Don't know how they did maintenance or what the original build looked like. But I do know that in real life, my rig and all my groups rigs all carry full fresh water tanks over many miles of dirt roads. No failures. So I am confident in my rig. If you aren't, then you need a different one