Anyone travel with full fresh water

[JohnWedell]

Will be traveling from New York to Florida on Saturday. would like to fill up the fresh water tank which is 75 gallons of water and stay at the Walmarts overnight (2 or 3 nights) to save on money. has anybody done this and has anybody had problems doing it.

[us71na]

You will be hauling an extra 600 pounds. Walmarts are open 24/7 so their restrooms would be available to you, why haul all that extra weight.

[GHen]

I haul with fresh water, but that extra weight will affect your gas mileage especially over any passes. I’m on the west coast, not sure what you have. I also like the quality of my home water, don’t trust some of the campground stuff. Either way I still drink bottled.
3 nights, you could probably get by with 50 if you conserve.

[Kim Gass]

Originally Posted by us71na

You will be hauling an extra 600 pounds. Walmarts are open 24/7 so their restrooms would be available to you, why haul all that extra weight.

None of the WM near us are open past 10 PM so don't rely on them everywhere for a three am bathroom visit.

If you are going down 81 there are a lot of hills and that would affect your mileage.. If you are subjecting yourself to the agony of DC and Baltimore the terrain along 95 is flatter. But that 600 lbs will affect braking and the traffic could be bumper to bumper at 80 mph.

[redsnapper]

Towing with full water tanks is fine..
The only downside it the extra weight.

Extra weight equals more fuel to keep it all rolling along.
You want to "budget" at a Walmart so costs must be a concern to you.

That big V-8, 4.10 axle, one ton dually 4x4 loves fuel....
Pay me now or pay me later might be appropriate in your case

[Camper_bob]

With your rig, I'm not sure the extra weight of a full water tank will be that big a deal.

That being said, you probably don't NEED a full tank for 3 over-nighters and incidental stops on that trip. We can get by pretty easily on about 10 gallons (est) a day, including showers and bathroom use. Showers take about ~3 gallons each (Navy style), the toilet is less than a gallon each flush (use the bathrooms at fuel stops and rest areas whenever possible instead), no dishes (use paper/plastic), and we drink "bottled" from a refillable 5-gal water cooler jug with a manual pump that we fill with RO water. Hand washing uses a little bit too, but again, use on-the-road facilities whenever possible.

And remember, that water goes in your waste tanks after you use it, so be aware of your waste tank levels as you go along.

Now, after I've said all that, I generally will travel with a full tank almost every time regardless of distance in my MH. We use it extensively, and I've been caught at a park where no water was available (boil water notice for bacteria, NOT putting that through my system under any circumstances). When we towed our trailer (80 gallon FW capacity), I would generally travel with about half capacity if not full tanks.

Sure, it's a bit of weight, and it's a "live load", so it COULD create some extra movement in your rig. But with my TT, I had the capacity for the extra weight, and the "sloshing" never bothered me (I don't know that I ever even noticed, really). Same with my MH. To me it's worth it to have a known good source of water on-board. Especially when I'm going to be out on the road that long.

[1carguy]

Unless I know there are no hook-ups where I'm going, I keep the tank with only a few gallons. I like having water for potty stops, etc. My tank is in the rear and I need as much pin box weight as possible so I keep it pretty low, or even empty when possible.

[Micromagic]

Originally Posted by JohnWedell

Will be traveling from New York to Florida on Saturday. would like to fill up the fresh water tank which is 75 gallons of water and stay at the Walmarts overnight (2 or 3 nights) to save on money. has anybody done this and has anybody had problems doing it.

We have towed with full water the length of the Alaska Hwy and back to the Cont. Us, 3,000 with no issues. Will and Marge Jayco Whitehawk 31ft

[oldmanAZ]

What Camper_bob said.



We ALWAYS have our fresh water tanks full when traveling and have never had a problem with it.

[2edgesword]

I've travel with water but keep it to a minimum amount (5 ~ 10 gallons) for mainly flushing the toilet if we have to pull off and use the bathroom if there is no where convenient to pull in and use.

[Flyrotor]

Yes, I run with full tanks (80 gallons FW)

With your setup, 75 gallons (600 lbs) is only 4% of your total trailer weight, you will not notice any difference in performance by carrying a full tank of water.

Enjoy your trip.

[Camper_bob]

No one has mentioned this yet on this thread, but you want to make sure you aren't going to lose a lot of your water through the vent lines. There are MANY discussions throughout the forum regarding this issue, and almost as many ways to solve it.

On my TT, I installed 1/2 turn valves on my tank vents (there were 2). I just closed them off during travel. The risk here is when you forget to open them and collapse the tank, or forget to close them while filling and rupture it from pressure. For my MH, Jayco put out a service memo that involves re-positioning one of the 3 vent hoses on the tank to "break the vacuum" so the water doesn't "siphon" out of the tanks.

One member even fabricated a vacuum breaking manifold out of PVC.

Just make sure that whatever water you DO carry doesn't get spilled out because of this known issue.

[RAurand]

When we went from Pennsylvania to Florida a couple years ago, We carried about 25-30 gallons of water in our water tank so we had water for pottie breaks, cooking and staying overnight in Wally Mart parking lots. (Didn't really see any reason to carry 88 gallons) (5 in our family)

RECOMMENDATION.... Plan which Walmart's you will be planning to stop at to spend the night and call them ahead of time. Ask for and speak to a manager. Tell them what you are doing and ask for permission to spend the night in the back of the parking lot. Everyone I called was thanking me for calling them. We didn't have any problems and we would make it a point to go inside the store and personally thank the manager on duty.
One manager I spoke with while in the planning stage said she would not recommend we stay there because they were having some parking lot vandalism issues. I thanked her and made plans to stay elsewhere at a different Walmart.

The first night, we left at 11:00 PM at night so we were travelling around Baltimore, Washington and Richmond (495 and 95 during the wee hours of the morning.

Stopped at the Walmart (arriving about 4:00 AM) at 671 Southpark Blvd, Colonial Heights, VA 23834
Phone: (804) 526-0844
for several hours sleep and then moved on right after lunch. stopping again at a Walmart in the beginning of Georgia somewhere.

Would I do this again.... ABSOLUTELY!

[Camper_bob]

Also, remember that Wal-Marts are not the only option. We've stopped at rest stops a lot and find them to be quite nice most of the time. In Texas and surrounding states, the ones at or near the borders are the nicest. AND you can get a new state map for free. And SOME of them have "dump" facilities. Not all allow over-nighting though. One example is on IH-10 just inside MS at the LA border. REALLY nice rest stop that doesn't allow over-night parking. But there's a really neat NASA center there that's definitely worth a visit.

Last time out we stayed in a hotel/casino parking lot for the night and it was just fine. I try to scout stops using Google ahead of time so I have some idea whether I want to stop there.

Sorry, a little off-topic on the water thing...

[PlayersZ28]

When we are in transit mode (Ontario to AZ) I keep a couple of jugs of water in the trailer for flushing and sink use. While we haul full tanks when going boondocking I don't bother for transit days. We use FlyingJ/Pilots for sleep stops. Easier in n out and get fuel at the same time. As we leave after Xmas we're not sightseeing on the way and hit AZ after 2 sleeps. If my wife would share the driving I'd run straight thru, that's how we did FL (no trailer, 22hrs to Clearwater)

[glamisbound]

30 years plus with many different types of RV's and always run with full tanks. Last thing I want to do is use a Walmart or truck stop bathroom when I have my own facilities. I don't get that but to each their own. The difference is gas mileage is so minimal the convenience of having water on board for whatever I want far out weighs it. Not to mention, my wife wants water to come out of the faucet when she turns it on and I got to keep her happy or she might just wanted to get planted somewhere...screw that.

[wabirch]

Always

[jimovernon]

Originally Posted by redsnapper

Towing with full water tanks is fine..
The only downside it the extra weight.

Extra weight equals more fuel to keep it all rolling along.
You want to "budget" at a Walmart so costs must be a concern to you.

That big V-8, 4.10 axle, one ton dually 4x4 loves fuel....
Pay me now or pay me later might be appropriate in your case

I travel without water whenever I can if I know I can get it when I get there. A state park I frequent does not have hookups but has a fresh fill in the check in area so I fill up when I get there. But it was designed to be operated with full water tanks so as long as you are not exceeding your weight limits you are fine.

I use gallon jugs of springing water for drinking and cooking. Having your own bathroom while saving money camping is well worth the few extra dollars for fuel in my opinion.

[Duke4857]

Originally Posted by JohnWedell

Will be traveling from New York to Florida on Saturday. would like to fill up the fresh water tank which is 75 gallons of water and stay at the Walmarts overnight (2 or 3 nights) to save on money. has anybody done this and has anybody had problems doing it.

I would fill the tank 1/2 full. 35 or 40 gals of water is enough for a couple of days traveling. You can always fill up at a Flying J or Pilot if you need more. We got by on about 20 gals of "traveling water" (2 people and 2 large dogs) from OR, OK, Il and back. We did stop at some KOA type campgrounds to dump tanks and refill water when needed.

[Atlee]

Normally I do not, however, over the last half of the football season, I've had to top the tanks off because the fresh water gauge doesn't work. Push the fresh water button, and it registers empty, even when the tanks are completely full.

That item is on my warranty fix list for January or February of 2019. Warranty runs out in June of 2019.