What size water / waste tanks are you using

[BRUISER]

we bought our bus in July 2011 and have been on 19 trips since then..

over half have been boondocking and the one thing I have learned is get as big of a gray tank as possible if you plan to boondock.

I have 100 gallon fresh water
45 gallon gray
45 gallon black

I have just recently started to see how to modify my gray tank mounts to get a much larger tank..

even when we take military showers we can usually only go 3 to 4 days with that small gray tank..
That is 2 adults and 2 kids.
we have never had an issue with the black tank..

[Scott & Heather]

With tanks, IMO bigger is always better. We have 100 gal fresh and 100 gal black/grey combo. I have diverter valves on the shower and washing machine so they can dump grey directly to ground in emergency or acceptable situations when I don't have  a sewer connection which is rare. Someday in coach number two we are planning tanks twice that size. Fwiw, I'll never separate my grey and black tanks. Grey water stinks worse than black so might as well put them all together. Keeps the black tank cleaner and better flowing and if I'm short on tank space I'll just divert the grey water to the ground.


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[akroyaleagle]

There are tanks available in whatever shape you require.

We have 100 gal fresh and 100 gal waste.

We also have a gray water bypass that lets us bypass any combination of the two sinks and shower.

I've found that it's best to let the bath sink drain into the tank when bypassing the other two.

In 18 years, we have only needed the bypass twice. Both times were at friends homes with no dump.
Bypassed to a corner of the yard to water flowers.

We do not do long (more than 5 days) dry camping often. Only a couple of times at Quartzite.
Even then, we just went and dumped and refilled. Not a big deal. Certainly not worth hauling around bigger tanks
that would require another bay.

[TomC]

If your gray tank gives off the rotten egg odor, just dump some bleach into the tank (about 2 cups) and magic-the smell is gone. I've always had separate gray and black tanks. There have been plenty of times I've had to dump my gray before the black. I have a curb side dump to dump into a drain if need be. Good luck, TomC

[Iceni John]

My question is if anyone knows of L shaped tank manufacturers.

http://www.plastic-mart.com/category/2000/plastic-tank-manufacturers

How about using two interconnected tanks instead?   If you have heavy-duty (or extra-heavy-duty if available) threaded fittings spin-welded into the tanks, you'll be able to make a 100% reliable connection between them.   Ronco in Tustin CA made all four of my tanks, and they used these fittings:  http://www.bunnweb.org/spinwelding.com/index2.htm

John

[scanzel]

110 fresh, 110 black/gray and 50 diesel for Proheat and 9kw generator.

[harleyman_1000]

 Im not sure what size my tanks are? I have a cylinder fresh tank and a rectangle waste black/grey. Is there a way to measure the tanks dimensions to determine how many gallons they hold? If so can you tell me how to figure it?

[Dave5Cs]

Scott just put the numbers in and it will tell you.

http://www.watertanks.com/calc.asp

Dave5Cs

[TomC]

My fresh water tank on my truck is two 98gal tanks tied together. Then have 110gal gray, 69gal black, 150gal fuel for the truck and 75gal for genset (both fuel tanks are tied together with bottom cross over with valves), and 20gal propane. Why so much-because I can! Good Luck, TomC

[harleyman_1000]

Scott just put the numbers in and it will tell you.

http://www.watertanks.com/calc.asp

Dave5Cs

Thanks Dave

[Seangie]

Dave (dlsnow),

We bought our tanks from Ronco.  They have a great selection of tanks.  Its funny that they have so many tanks but it still took a while to choose the right ones.  They will make them to order for you but it will cost you a penny or two for that.  The tanks are high quality tanks and I don't think I'll ever have to worry about leaks from them.  3/8" walls and the fittings are spun welded and all fixtures are exactly square off the tank.  They did a great job at putting the right fixtures exactly where I asked for them.  Linda who I spoke with from Ronco (I think it was Linda) got me the tanks for half the listed price.

If you want to do an "L" shaped tank - it might be easier to find (2) rectangular tanks and just do as John mentioned and interconnect them.  This also might give you opportunities to change it up down the road as well as make it easier to pull the tanks if you ever had to.  I built a "cage" for my Fresh/Gray tanks as neither is strapped down but tightly squeezed into the cages to fit.  There is a chance they could have some vertical movement, especially on a bouncy road but so far we have had no issues with setting up the tanks this way.  The black tank is strapped in tightly and will not move.

We are fulltiming with 4 kids and have (1) 115 gallon Fresh tank, (1) 115 gallon gray tank and (1) 40 gallon black tank.  We can go normal about 4 days with that setup, longer if we stretch it. It can quickly run low in 2 days if we are all showering and do a load of laundry.   With the gray tank being the same size as the fresh tank you really only have to monitor your fresh water supply as when your fresh water is out your gray tank is full.  Unless you fill up at some point without dumping the gray.  I looked at combining the gray/black, having more fresh water than gray and having a larger black tank but after talking to a few other well seasoned fulltiming and RV pros they convinced me that the best system is matched sized fresh/gray and a separate black tank.

One other thing we did was to attach a dual house type water filtering system inline with the fresh water connection.  This filters the city water coming into the bus whether it is going to the tanks or straight into the coach.  If it goes into the tanks it gets filtered a second time (once when we fill and again when we use it) before it gets used.  I also installed a fresh water drinking filter at the sink (If you read our blog you will see that has caused some problems as well...nothing to do with the plumbing though) So we can filter the water a third time with a drinking water filter.  Ultimately I'd like to put a ceramic filter at the fresh water drinking tap but we needed it in a hurry so everything was bought from the big box home repair store.

Im amazed that you have 178 gallons of fresh water! Thats a ton of weight!   

Let us know what your project is and what you decide and how it works out.

thanks.

-Sean
www.herdofturtles.org
1984 Model 10S

[belfert]

I have a 105 gallon fresh water tank and about a 125 gallon waste tank.  It is basically about the largest I could get in a single bay with a standard tank size.  Waste tank should be bigger than the fresh tank if you really want to use all the fresh water.  Bodily fluids and TP will take up extra space in the waste tank.

[Oregonconversion]

165 fresh
170 black/grey

option to put shower/ sinks to the ground

[Scott & Heather]

^ nice. That's what I want. Actually 200 gallons would make me sing.


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[luvrbus]

Here in AZ and other states the dumping of grey water is against the law,but the dumping of wash water (shower) is not a system with the kitchen sink tied into the tank where food particles are in the water is classified as sewage in most states just passing it on