Travel with water tank full or empty? (1 Viewer)

[MandM]

We have a couple of 10 litre water bottles that we use when travelling. Leaving the on board fresh water tank empty between stops. While in France we were advised by a fellow UK MH driver that he travels with the tank full for better stability. We also watched a large Concord owner (German) fill his two huge water tanks before departing....

Now this did not seem a sensible option to me. Less weight seemed to be the way to go especially as it might compromise the vehicle weight limit.

Thoughts please?

 

[Don Quixote]

I don't pour fresh water down the drain, I fill up what I want to use and no more.

 

[gus-lopez]

I always travel full as I use the shower daily + rarely stop on anything except laybys/lorry parking areas. I always fill & dump at any opportunity. When down to half a tank,I rarely pass a diesel pump during the day , especially in France.

Be interesting to know how many that travel full have a 3500kg van as 100lt of water is as you know 100kg which eats a huge amount of payload and could well take it over the gvw.

First 5% of payload over gvw is a warning so on 3500kgs that is 175 kgs, just open valve & dump it.

 

[Dave and Ginny]

Your choice of course but you don't know you can fill up at next stop or destination.Many times our plans have changed en route. Isn't it better to know you have water rather than hope you can get some. What happens if you arrive at an air where the water is tuned off or broken.

I do know if I can fill up at next planned stop, especially if it's a site either home or abroad. We always have a 5ltr extra container that has always been ample a brew or cooking. If any risk of an aire not having water then we move to another, not that that has ever happened. Besides, if desperate you can always buy some!

 

[JeanLuc]

Always travel full, or nearly so (100-120 litres). What if you need to flush the loo whilst on a journey or wash something? Main reason is that our motto is fill and dump whenever possible - you may not know where the next supply will be: particularly important when using camper stops or 'wilding'. And as Don Q says, it is very poor practice to make a habit of running water to waste when leaving a site, just for the sake of travelling empty.

The earlier report by DBK about meeting a CC member who doesn't use metered water at home is parsimonious to say the least and irrelevant in the scheme of total motorhome / caravan costs. I have just checked our water bill and the cost for metered supply and concomitant waste water disposal is 220p per cubic metre. For a 100 litre fill that is 22p! Presumably those same people never wash their motorhome either - that would take a lot of metered water!

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[iandsm]

I do know if I can fill up at next planned stop, especially if it's a site either home or abroad. We always have a 5ltr extra container that has always been ample a brew or cooking. If any risk of an aire not having water then we move to another, not that that has ever happened. Besides, if desperate you can always buy some!

As I said, your choice of course. Its just that having been caught out once or twice I prefer the certainty of knowing I won't get caught out again. Not being able to flush the toilet or have my morning shower would not be the end of the world but I prefer to know thats not going to happen.

 

[etap]

I understood that the payload weight of motorhomes took into account the water tank as being full ??

 

[9526]

We met some folk on a Caravan Club site who went to great lengths to explain to us why they always travel empty. The reason was at home where they had a water meter it cost them money to fill up so as water was inclusive with the pitch fees they always filled up on arrival.

Hmmmm caravan clubbers

Heaven is full fresh, empty grey and black, full diesel - the worlds then your oyster

 

[Hymie]

Always full. I quite often don't know my destination till we get there. If there is then no option to fill up I would have no water. So clean water full, grey water empty and cassette empty. Then ready for anything.

What He said.

 

[Larrynwin]

I understood that the payload weight of motorhomes took into account the water tank as being full ??

Hymer include 90% water in miro , but if you only carry 50% you can then carry a further 60kg of beer and wine , priorities
BTW not all mhome builders leave the same allowance in miro.

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[sdc77]

We always have at least half a tank ... mainly depending on my laziness and the weather. If it's nice then we'll fill up before moving on .. no point in turning up empty at the next stop.
Ideally we'll be full of water though.

 

[jonandshell]

It depends where we are going to be stopping next. If we know we can get water we will probably travel half full, if we are going to an unknown place or intend to park somewhere we will have the tank full and two 10ltr water carriers and any 5ltr water bottles we might have knocking around.

Another good bit of advice we had was to not count on the Aires in winter having the water turned on, or even in the summer as things can change since the Aires book was printed, hence we always travel at least half full.

We aren't as optimistic as you, we travel half empty!

Only joking, we always travel full.

 

[StitchesnFluff]

Good to see some differences of opinion.

Always full & bottles of water

 

[maison]

Tend to travel full or half full.

 

[REKERLY]

Why carry 120lts (100kg ish) or more of water - thats like having 1 or 2 people in the rear and thats lowers your MPG. We carry 10lts and only fill up of we are not moving for a few days or using shower also dump grey waste before driving.

j

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[maison]

Only carrying ten litres is fine if you only want water to drink.

As a regular user of Aires, in France, we always carry at least a half tank of water for showers etc. as not all Aires have top-up facilities or may require a token which we cannot find.

We always drop our grey water before moving off, if possible, in order to reduce weight. The fresh water load we consider necessary.

 

[PP Bear]

Always full to the brim, plus 2 extra 25ltr jerry cans at the ready. You just never know when or where you'll need it all

Also carry around 20lts inside in plastic bottles for when we want a brew. Simply refill these at every opportunity we can, along with the main tank and extra jerry cans

You must experiment and see what suits you best, but it's not always guaranteed to be available on arrival, could be belting down with rain when you get there, or dark, cold and horrible

Trial both ways and see if it suits

 

[gus-lopez]

I understood that the payload weight of motorhomes took into account the water tank as being full ??

Some only take 20% in to the Miro

 

[SMB]

Half full normally depending how far I am travelling next, whether it will be an aire or campsite and the time of year (as mentioned earlier, a shower in hot weather on an aire is nice). Toilet flush tank is seperate so thats topped up regularly

 

[Steve]

i also like to travel with full water tank. you never know for sure when the next fill up will be. weight maybe an issuse for some. and running full or empty 0 or 110kg makes no difference to driving. nice to be selfsurficent for a few days.

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[ceejayt]

Full for sure.

 

[Minxy]

Definitely full! In our previous PVC the fresh water tank only took 66 litres and the toilet flush used it too! Consequently we also had a couple of 5L rigid containers which we used to keep full if we weren't sure whether we'd get water over the following few days and if we were going to be washing hair/showering etc we'd also put some water in a 15L collapsible one too! I used to get fed up of having the ruddy containers all over the place so when we changed to our current PVC with a 100L tank it was absolute bliss!!!

There are some motorhomes that will be overweight if their tanks are just aprt full, especially some of the newer ones where the manufacturers now don't have to allow for 90% fresh water any more ... some don't allow for any!!!

 

[Old Soldier]

Half full for me. Use to carry a bit more than that until I found I could stash away a further 12 bottles of real ale between the fresh waster tank and the rear of the van......Have to keep the weight down as both the van and I grow old and get heavier together!!

 

[The Wino]

Usually full or nearly full 125 litres but have wondered if it would stay in place in an accident!!

 

[RowleyBirkinQC]

There are some motorhomes that will be overweight if their tanks are just aprt full, especially some of the newer ones where the manufacturers now don't have to allow for 90% fresh water any more ... some don't allow for any!!!

I was curious about this in respect of our 2006 Autotrail, so I checked the documentation which states the following:-

Mass in Running Order (MRO)
The weight of the vehicle in ‘running order’. This figure includes engine coolant, oils, spare wheel, tool kit, 90% fuel, and a 75 kg allowance for a driver.

Definitely no water allowance there, fortunately the same doc also states a 740kg available payload (minus 24kg for SE pack), so I can just about squeeze myself onboard!

We tend to depart pretty full with fresh water having disposed of grey waste.

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[travelling wilbury]

in the 'fill and dump when you can' camp.
...we use some aires when overseas and dont generally have too form a plan as to whether the next stop will be a site or an aire....so just ensure we can do what we want and stop where we like.....can then shower and wash up without thinking about 'water'......

 

[Gaston aires]

Was that water or wine......

Both !

 

[SuperMike]

Always full, with 85gals. If it's just me, I can last a week easily, without trying. If Management is with me, about a day and a half.

 

[Geo]

Broken Link Removed Broken Link Removed

Always full to the brim, plus 2 extra 25ltr jerry cans at the ready. You just never know when or where you'll need it all

Also carry around 20lts inside in plastic bottles for when we want a brew. Simply refill these at every opportunity we can, along with the main tank and extra jerry cans

You must experiment and see what suits you best, but it's not always guaranteed to be available on arrival, could be belting down with rain when you get there, or dark, cold and horrible

Trial both ways and see if it suits

Over kill if ever I saw it,
Are you an ex Desert rat perchance? Was your previous mode of travel a Camel? Have you had an anti Rabies Jab that cured all fear of water.
Do you have a Jacuzzi on board? The mind Boggles, WHY?????
Geo
PS Have you got some of this

 

[Microchip]

Good idea to check weight on weighbridge before making your decisi

Very good idea....
We had full tank of water, full tank of diesel, everything we needed for 8 weeks away then went to weighbridge and found we were still light by 50 kg, not bad for Burster travel van.....

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[Granjan]

Varies, no fixed routine, when we went to Spain, full 120 litre tank of Yorkshire water to go with the tea bags, we hadnt booked any sites or finalised any plans, didnt corrupt it till we had to about a week into the trip. Probably a bit over on payload. Got 27MPG all down hill! Filled it again to the top twice more whilst away adding Aqua tabs to tank, no deli belly whilst away, only bought one bottle of water for guests whilst away. Travelled home with about 40% just in case we were delayed at port. Got 26 MPG, coming back, all up hill! Meant to buy lots of wine but disappointed by rip off bodegas and poor choice on ferry. Note to self to buy wine as we go in future. So brought very little liquid home! Will empty and clean system now as husband looked in tank and saw bits in it . Always try to travel with an empty waste would probably just take 20% if in Uk and on sites.