How long to fill 80 gallon fresh tank?

[perkioman]

We just bought a 26bh and are out for our first weekend. We are at a campground with hookups so we hooked up to freshwater. We have a regulator, and know that we have a gallons we can feel, and we're trying to monitor it from the panel inside to see how full the tank is. The water's been on a while, maybe 20 minutes, but it's still registering is empty. Is this right?

[klpoppe]

If you are hooked up to the city water connection (hosed is connected to threaded connection at camper) then it will not fill the tank. The hose hooks straight into the plumbing - no need for water in the tanks. You fill the tanks through the gravity fill (has a cap that comes off and is big enough to fit a filler hose into).

[TCNashville]

And no need to run your water pump either as the campground water system acts the same as your house in pressurizing your water system.

[JEFF1963]

To elaborate a little, the "hookup" provides the pressure your water system needs in the water lines them selves to operate the system without the need of filling the 80-gal fresh water tank. (Sorry, I can't get rid of this underling). Should you, however, need to have water, without hookups, it may take a few minutes to fill your 80-gal fresh water tank. Strongly recommend, when you fill the 80-gal tank, to have someone monitor the level of the water in that tank to preclude overfilling.

[perkioman]

You all ROCK. And that makes sense now...thank you! And Jeff1963, makes sense too...good advice. Thanks!

Duh

[perkioman]

So one more question, since we're hooked up directly to city water, do we just leave it on to the trailer? This feels like a very naive question to ask, but I know my concern with filling up the tanks is that we would overthrow them. So I'm just a little concerned about leaving it on, although I can't imagine it would do damage. Thank you

[jgerhard]

If you ever do dry camp and want to monitor the water going into your tank, here's an inexpensive water meter I use:

https://www.amazon.com/P3-P0550-Wate...ds=water+meter

[Heady]

You can leave it on, however you never know when a pipe might leak. If we leave our camper for an extended period we will turn off the water to be safe.

[clubhouse]

to answer your original question though, if actually filling the FW holding tank it can easily take 20min, that's a gallon every 15 seconds.

[klpoppe]

Your water tanks will not fill when hooked up to city water (the one exception would be if there is a bad check valve in the pump - but to reduce confusion and worry - that would be unlikely) As far as overfilling the tanks, there are overflow vent tubes that allow water to escape the tank once it gets full. So when you are filling the tanks through the gravity fill and water starts flowing from the overflow tubes then your tank is full.

[TCNashville]

Originally Posted by clubhouse

to answer your original question though, if actually filling the FW holding tank it can easily take 20min, that's a gallon every 15 seconds.

Clubhouse is correct. We have twin 40's on our Eagle and fill it with the hose about half on. This seems to allow the tanks to vent better. It easily takes 15-20 minutes to do this way. We also stop the flow when 3/4 full and turn the pump on to fill the 10 gallon water heater then resume filling the tanks the rest of the way.