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First Road Trip

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Roger Milne:
Getting ready for first major road trip and will be traveling for 5 days and would like to know what the general consensus is about traveling with the potable water tank filled?? Is there a general rule of thumb everyone uses? I am very nervous about driving with the tank more than 1/3 full. To me that seems like a lot of extra weight to be lugging around plus the strain on the mounts. I'm planning on doing our overnights at campgrounds across the trip, but wanted to have some spare in the case of things going sideways and not having access to water hook up at night.

Thanks for the opinions

Roger

Fred Cook:
Should be no problem filling it up. They are designed to carry the weight. I fill mine up nearly 100% every time we go out which is right at 100 gallons. We have well water and we use it for drinking. We only use campground water for washing clothes, dishes and showers.

Carl Boger:
Roger,

I almost always travel with a full 100 gallon tank.  I have traveled with about 1/4 tank of water,but honestly can not tell any difference in the way it handled or the fuel mileage.  On my MH the fresh water tank is located between upper frame rails and looks to be very solidly mounted. 

I also am on well water and it is very good water, better than I have found at almost all the campgrounds I have been to.
I typically carry a 5 gallon Coleman water container full of home water for the dog and for cooking.  We keep bottled water for drinking as it can readily be chilled in the refrigerator.  We wash dishes and shower with the fresh water tank water and refill it when it gets just below 1/4 tank.  The quality of the campground water dictates how much water I add, poor water I fill to just over 1/2 good water I fill it all the way up.

Joel Ashley:
I used to be cautious about how much water we carried, but our engines don’t seem to notice much difference.  We stretched our home water as much as possible, starting with a full tank on longer trips, and worked it well down before adding the next fill.  I learned to be vigilant thereafter when I once filled at an older campground near Ft. Hall upon arrival without tasting first.  It took weeks to be rid of the awful stuff and its lingering odor. 

After that I not only check water before filling, but use a handy, portable On The Go brand softener as an effective filter.  It’s also good here at home for rinsing the cars after washing, to minimize water spotting.

Joel

David Ciotti:
When I went to my one and only Beaver Rally several attendees told me that they would only use the street water connection to fill their onboard water tank.  Once filled they would shut off the street water connection and use the onboard water tank and pump for all water needs in the RV.  Whenever they would leave the site they would shut off the water pump thus relieving water pressure.

If a water catastrophe happened in the RV while they were away, there would only be a small amount of leakage until they returned.  Sometimes I remember to do that.

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