Full tank to travel?

[iplumb]

Do you travel with a full fresh water tank if you can fill up at a State camp ground when you get there? As I was filling my 25 gal. Tank last night I got thinking about the 200 pounds I was adding and started to wonder what everyone else does. I just like brushing our teeth and washing faces with our own well water. I guess it depends on the distance and if you will need it for potty breaks.

[honda03842]

Traveling we typically run with a 1/4 tank. When entering a National Park or where water is not available we fill our tank.

[Donna D.]

I travel with ALL tanks empty. I fill at the campground or hookup. I only use the water in the trailer for flushing and doing dishes anyway. I buy or bring bottled water for cooking and brushing my teeth. The plumbing in my trailer is 23 years old. There's nothing I've been able to do to get rid of the bad "taste" of plastic. I think a prior owner winterized using automotive antifreeze rather than RV antifreeze.

[Kevin K]

I fill tank at the campground and carry 5 gal from home.

[Perry J]

Last year traveling through the hot Nevada desert I had barely enough water to help out a family with an over heated engine.
Next stop I filled the water tank.
I traveled over 4000 miles with a full water tank and noticed no difference in my fuel mileage.
John

[Kevin K]

Every 100 pounds in the trunk will reduce your fuel ... lowers gas mileage by 0.4 percent.
20 gal water tank at 8.35 LBS per gal =167 lbs so you would loose 0.668% MPG

If you got 16 MPG with a empty water tank

Now you would get 15.3 MPG with a full 20 gal water tank


Under-inflated tires lowers gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every one pound of drop in pressure of all four tires.

For every ten miles per hour , you lose as much as 15%.

[floyd]

Originally Posted by Perry J

Last year traveling through the hot Nevada desert I had barely enough water to help out a family with an over heated engine.
Next stop I filled the water tank.
I traveled over 4000 miles with a full water tank and noticed no difference in my fuel mileage.
John

Aerodynamics is generally as important as weight when towing a trailer. An empty enclosed trailer can actually be more stress on the TV than a loaded open trailer (Within reasonable parameters). The aerodynamics are generally a constant,but the closer you get to the TV's capacity the more a couple hundred pounds can make a difference. In the realm of small lightweight fiberglass trailers, small TV's are common and a little extra weight means more,so it is important to get to know what works best for your individual rig.

[floyd]

Originally Posted by Kevin K

Every 100 pounds in the trunk will reduce your fuel ... lowers gas mileage by 0.4 percent.
20 gal water tank at 8.35 LBS per gal =167 lbs so you would loose 0.668% MPG

If you got 16 MPG with a empty water tank

Now you would get 15.3 MPG with a full 20 gal water tank


Under-inflated tires lowers gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every one pound of drop in pressure of all four tires.

For every ten miles per hour , you lose as much as 15%.

That weight calculation is for an average car I'm sure It has a kind of counter effect as the weight and power of the vehicle goes up the less the effect.
A small underpowered vehicle will loose much more than a large powerful one.
I once carpooled 30 miles to work with a guy who drove a Honda Civic, It cost him a little more than 5MPG to carry me, and when he rode in my Fairmont the loss was negligible.(less than 1MPG) of course the Civic went from 37mpg to 32mpg and the Fairmont went from 22MPG to 21MPG.
Also generally speaking, acceleration costs more than speed.

[AndyGee]

With the "monster" 29' TT I travel with a full tank , 25gal, the ventura is another story, the existing tank was old, brittle and gross looking. So i yanked it and welcomed the extra storage, we use it for short weekend trips.

[Carol H]

I dont tow with water for two reasons - older trailer older tanks - who knows with the water rocking around in the tank when something might give. The other is weight & balance - carrying the water lowers gas milage and it also lowers the tongue weight more than I would like.

I will fill up when I arrive at the park or if I know they dont have water I will stop at a gas station that is close to where I am going to fill. I carry a large bottle of water in the fridge for brushing my teeth and drinking.

[Frederick L. Simson]

Originally Posted by iplumb

Do you travel with a full fresh water tank if you can fill up at a State camp ground when you get there?

If water is going to be available at the campground we are heading for, then our standard procedure is to drive with the tank empty. However, when we go from San Diego to Quartzsite, Arizona for a weekend in January and February we usually fill the tank and take the mpg hit. On those trips we also drive home with the gray/black tanks full and dump at home. (We have full hook-ups in the yard for the Fiber Stream.)

[BCDave]

I always leave home with the freshwater tank full, so I know what kind of water I will be drinking, cooking, washing and brushing my teeth with

[rgrugg]

We always travel with at least several gallons on board. More times than I can count one or the other of us has had an emergency bathroom situation.

[theresa p]

we have never filled our water tank yet in 6 years of ownership.....i bring about 4 liters per day for tea/teeth/cooking. if there is water available, i use it for dishes. if no water is available, i dip into our drinking water supply but sparingly. i do, however, ensure that the portapotty flush reservoir is full if no facilities will be available for our use.
i have found that alot of the camgrounds' water has a "funny"/metallic taste that i object to---not that the water itself is bad, but it taints the taste of my tea. once i boiled up some pasta in water from the tap and it tasted so awful that i pitched the whole lot of it!

[Pete]

Typically, I travel with a sanitized and full fresh water tank. My TV will handle 2800 lbs over the dry tank weight. I'd rather have the flexibility and safety factor afforded with any extra weight of the H2O on board.

Cost due to MPG lost ... minimal. Peace of mind ... priceless.

[Marg]

I always travel with a full tank of water. I don't think it matters that much about mpg. It could be very handy in an emergency. I take bottle water for drinking and cooking.The best way to get good mpg is to watch the speed. I try to keep my travel speed at between 55-60 and find that with my 6 speed, manual transmission Nissan Frontier 4-door pickup I consistently get between 16-18 mpg towing at those speeds. Without the trail I get 20-22 mpg. Twice a year I clean the tank with about 1/2 cup of bleach in a full tank and take the trailer on the highway to get the water to slosh around good. When I get home I drain the tank. The tank will dry and be ready the next time I decide to go on a trip. Marg

[honda03842]

Theresa P "funny/metalic taste"

To resolve water quality issues we carry water filters, sometimes one for the inlet water and sometimes one for the kitchen sink tap. The choice of filter(s) depends on where we are going and the water expectations. We have been on some spring trips where virtually every small community had a boil water warning.

As well we always carry a case of bottled water in the tow vehicle as backup for our dirt road trips and ....

We have found that filters can take care of everything, particularly the best of them.

[honda03842]

In our motorhome there was a drinking water spigot. On that we used the following filter. This takes out everything. Since the water went thru the primary filter, this drinking water filter lasted about a year. We would use this water for drinking, coffee and some cooking.

It's a trully amazing filter. Because it's such a fine filter it has a low flow rate but adequate for drinking and the like.

Trav-L-Pure Camper water purifier for pop-up RV by General Ecology

[reeves99]

Originally Posted by honda03842

In our motorhome there was a drinking water spigot. On that we used the following filter. This takes out everything. Since the water went thru the primary filter, this drinking water filter lasted about a year. We would use this water for drinking, coffee and some cooking.

It's a trully amazing filter. Because it's such a fine filter it has a low flow rate but adequate for drinking and the like.

Trav-L-Pure Camper water purifier for pop-up RV by General Ecology

Looks like a good all-around solution. Specially if you're on an extended trip and can't carry something from home. I'm not a real fan of bottled water.
Also, I don't think a tank of water should cost much in gas mileage. If I remember my physics, a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless it is acted on by other forces. Wind resistance seems to be the main culprit. Gravity/friction shouldn't increase much with an extra hundred pounds. ....just my thoughts, any "real" physicists out there to set me straight?
Thanks
Phil

[honda03842]

I don't think a tank of water should cost much in gas mileage. If I remember my physics, a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless it is acted on by other forces. Wind resistance seems to be the main culprit. Gravity/friction shouldn't increase much with an extra hundred pounds. ....just my thoughts, any "real" physicists out there to set me straight?

Phil,

You are generally correct. The additional water weight is less than a couple of percent of the typical tow vehicle/trailer combination.

Frontal area and speed is the big deal. The loading for frontal area goes up as the square of the speed. Towing a trailer at 70 mph takes twice the horsepower of towing a trailer at 50 mph. If going 50 takes 60 horsepower, going 70 takes a 100 horsepower. One reason in the 1937 thread that those people got great gas mileage, they drove slow compared to today. 85 horsepower was plenty for them.

Physics for four years, application for life. Ayn Rand wrote only Physics and Philosophy are worth studying, or something like that.