Tank weight limits

[happycamperbrat]

If you do choose to size down as others have suggested, my thoughts are to keep the fresh water tank as large as you can. THen downsize the others. The reason being that if times get really, really bad (emergency national or world crisis stuff)..... fresh water will be more important and possibly (depending on where you live) harder to come by then a place to dump.

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Ok, so Bob's comment about fresh water weighing 8lbs. per gallon and salt water weighing 8.4 per gallon got me to thinking as i have always seen fresh listed as around 8.4  So of course i had to google it to find out.  Turns out there are some variables  like temperature involved, but what it boils, (pun intended  ) down to is that fresh weighs around 8.34 and most people just round that off to 8.4 when figuring. Salt water also has variables in the amount of salt in the water but the accepted figure is 8.55 lbs per gallon.  Now at 8.34 lbs per gallon, 400 gallons will be 3336 lbs instead of the figure of 3200 that we came up with using 8 lbs. per gallon. Not a big difference on a bus but if you are trying to keep your weight down and your fuel mileage up, it is something to consider.  When we travel we always dump our black tank and if we are going to go to an area where i know the water is good i carry about 1/4-1/2 tank of fresh, depending on how many days it will take us to get there, and as a precaution against breaking down and being stuck somewhere for a few days. If we are going to an area where i know the water is bad i will fill the tank.

[Dave5Cs]

Ok Novice question.

How do you know the water condition. Is there a list somewhere or should there be, Or is it just because you have had a bad experience in that area before?

Dave

[dougyes]

Thank you all for your input!

[Melbo]

Isn't a cubic foot of water 1728 cu in not 231

Just checking the math

Melbo

[Ed Hackenbruch]

No list Dave, i know from being there....ie,  western Wa. and Or. usually have good water.  Az. has a lot of calcium. Some states have a lot of iron or sulpher or other minerals in their water.  Of course that is where filters come in.

[Dave5Cs]

Thanks Ed;

I thought maybe I missed the Memo!

Dave

[RJ]

Melbo -

There are 231 cubic inches in a gallon of liquid.  For quick computation, I rounded the weight of a gallon of water off to simply 8 lbs.

I probably should have written out the formula like this (remember L, W & H are in inches):


L x W x H = Gallons
    231


Does that help?

[happycamperbrat]

Out here (Death Valley areaish) we have ARSENIC in our water! And they have it at least as far as New Cuyama. Just within the last couple weeks it was on the news in Barstow to not drink the water. We get printed warnings from the water company that ARSENIC is above the allowed levels of California here 

[belfert]

Arsenic is in Nevada too.  We never drink out of the water tank in the bus.  We bring bottled water.  It is usually hot most of our trips and we find we take in more water if we have bottles of water readily available.  I don't like the waste, but better than getting sick from the heat.  (I don't use bottled water at home.)

My biggest issue with water has been the combined waste tank.  It fills up faster than the fresh water tank empties.  Both the wastewater and fresh water tanks are the same size.

[Melbo]

Thank you RJ

That clears it up -- I was doing math and felt like a Marooon

So I went to google and found different numbers

I see now what you were posting

Melbo