Forum Discussion

bbaker2001's avatar
bbaker2001
Explorer
Apr 09, 2017

How much water in holding tank

When I break camp, I drain all tanks.
How much water should I put in the tanks to travel.
I am thinking a couple gallons with some bleach

18 Replies

  • After dumping black tank and flushing, then grey tanks I have mix of Calgon,cheap liquid detergent 50-50 shake well, then put in 1 cap full to 2 toilet bowls of water,no problems and the gauges all work just fine.

    The gray tank gets a squirt of Dawn down the drain then about a gallon of water.
    The sloshing around on the way home seems to have has kept all my gauges working.
  • Grey empty. Black about 4 gallons to aid in "cleaning. Fresh water about 1/4 full in case we need to use the bathroom while going down the road.

    Found a new way to help clean the black tank while going down the road - put a bag of ice in the black tank before leaving and the ice cubes will help clean the bottom of the tank and the melted ice will aid in cleaning too.
  • We travel with 5 or 10 gallons just to use the toilet. If we are going to a local State Park, the tank is full so I don't have to stop and fill it prior to getting into the campsite.
  • We keep enough clean water and enough in black tank so we can use bathroom while traveling. Works well.
  • We only drain when we winterize. We prefer to travel with water as we don't always know where we'll spend the night - if there will be water available. Have seen several RV breakdowns on the roadsides the last couple of days and I wondered if their water tanks were full or empty?

    Bill
  • We normally travel with our fresh water tank completely empty. Contrary to what other say, when I have water in the tank, I can feel the difference pulling the trailer. There have been occasions when I've forgotten to drain, or we had water in the tank at home and I didn't drain when we left for a trip. One mile down the road and I'm always saying to my wife, something is wrong, it just doesn't feel right. She says every time, "Did you drain the water?" Duh. I can tell the difference. We carry a 6 gallon jug in the camper with filtered water from home. We use this for my wife's coffee and to use to flush the toilet if we are on the road.

    Now about the black and grey tank. We travel with the grey tank as empty as possible. But if we end up using the sink, we have no problems letting water go down the drain (there again, using that 6 gallon jug.)

    The black tank is a little different. When flushing the tank, it's always back-flushed with the grey first, then empties completely. Once we know it's cleaned out as humanly as possible, we'll add 2 or 3 gallons of water. If we want to clean the tank a little, we'll add a bit of Dawn Dishwashing Liquid, and sometimes some bleach. We only add bleach if we know we can refill the tank and dump it all. I don't like bleach water in my tank too long. I don't want to risk the valve seals drying out, or crumbling because of bleach exposure. Bleach is caustic if it sits long enough. So, when using bleach, I have to be able to rinse the tank and flush within a short while. We'll do this sometimes when traveling and moving from one camp ground to another, or do it at home when leaving, knowing that afternoon we'll be in a full hook up camp site and I can flush the tank then.

    If using Dawn or Tide or something like that in the tank, all you need is a couple gallons of water and a nice generous amount of Dishwashing or Laundry soap. All the sloshing around in the tank when driving will pulverize the inside of the tank and clean it real nice. No need to dump it, just use it and dump when full at the campground.

    We have, on occasion, traveled with a few gallons of water in the fresh tank. But we avoid it as much as possible.
  • I travel with about 10 gallons in fresh tank unless going boondocking. Gray tanks empty,black tank empty then add 1 toilet full of water with chemical for travel.
  • Fresh water tanks, we flush with a little bleach once a year or so. Grey/Black, I drain them completely before we travel if at all possible, or at the first dump station. As far as how much water to carry with you, I usually travel with my fresh tank full.