FW capacity

Kayteg1 wrote:
Loading and unloading the camper is a skill.
Some will do it in 3 minutes, others will spend 1 hr and still have it crooked.
We spend 10 weeks of 2017 summer traveling across the continent and having dogs, we most of the time drop the camper, so we could leave dogs with AC and go for visits or dining.
BTW one of best entertainment at lakes is go to boat ramp and see people backing up.
That might apply to loading campers as well, but you will not see many of them doing it at the same time.

I know what you mean having owned boats. However my friends with 5th wheels are just as bad setting up camp.

Gjac wrote:
These have been very informative posts for me having never camped in a TC or even owned a truck. My thinking for a TC was that I could always use a truck as a second vehicle. I also noticed most of you have DRW trucks. Did purchasing this kind of truck for other uses factor into your decision for the truck and a larger camper? If you did not require a DRW for other uses at home or farm use would you have purchased a SRW truck and a lighter camper? I have been driving for over 50 years without one so my only reason would be to haul a TC and maybe some firewood.

DRW was bought specifically for the camper

Loading and unloading the camper is a skill.
Some will do it in 3 minutes, others will spend 1 hr and still have it crooked.
We spend 10 weeks of 2017 summer traveling across the continent and having dogs, we most of the time drop the camper, so we could leave dogs with AC and go for visits or dining.
BTW one of best entertainment at lakes is go to boat ramp and see people backing up.
That might apply to loading campers as well, but you will not see many of them doing it at the same time.

work2much wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
AF860 = 50 gal I believe.
I carry extra water in a ballast bag (think bladder) that we use for ballast in our boat. Folds up small when not in use and the same 12V pump for use on the boat works well to get water transferred into the camper tank.
400lb ballast sack fits nicely on the back seat floor, seat or in the truck.

I am looking at these as well. We could run into town with the jeep and grab another weeks worth of water without breaking camp.

Is this common to tow in a truck camper? Do any of you leave the camper at the campsite and use your truck to run around for extended stays? Or is it too much trouble to unload and reload the camper off the truck?

My AF990 has good size tanks. IIRC it will hold 56 gallons (including WH) fresh water. The holding tanks are about 43 gallons each. I don't usually fully fill the fresh water tank and have never run out. We use RV parks as little as possible preferring NF, SP, NP and such.

Grit dog wrote:
AF860 = 50 gal I believe.
I carry extra water in a ballast bag (think bladder) that we use for ballast in our boat. Folds up small when not in use and the same 12V pump for use on the boat works well to get water transferred into the camper tank.
400lb ballast sack fits nicely on the back seat floor, seat or in the truck.

I am looking at these as well. We could run into town with the jeep and grab another weeks worth of water without breaking camp.

I boondock all the time, I carry a 30 gallon FW tank on my roof.

Gjac wrote:
These have been very informative posts for me having never camped in a TC or even owned a truck. My thinking for a TC was that I could always use a truck as a second vehicle. I also noticed most of you have DRW trucks. Did purchasing this kind of truck for other uses factor into your decision for the truck and a larger camper? If you did not require a DRW for other uses at home or farm use would you have purchased a SRW truck and a lighter camper? I have been driving for over 50 years without one so my only reason would be to haul a TC and maybe some firewood.

I grew up with pickups and only had a hiatus when I was stationed overseas (even though I wished I had a truck there too). For over 30 years I have owned a boat or trailer, so a truck has always made sense even though some of my cars also have occasional towing duty. I am on my fourth truck and each time I replaced one, it was for a bigger one. My last upgrade was to a Ram 5500, so I hope my growing has stopped and any replacement will be like or smaller. In the case of my current truck, I needed something that could carry the largest of truck campers and still have capacity to tow a heavy trailer full toys behind it. On occasion I remove the camper from the truck to do other tasks, but find most of the time I do not have to. I bought this truck rather than a motor home because I wanted the smallest foot print that could haul, tow, have sufficient chassis clearance for logging and service roads and have 4wd for poor conditions. My truck is not a daily driver, but I still work full time and usually commute by motorcycle and bus.

Whether you choose a DRW truck will depend on how big of a camper you want. You should be looking at campers with 3000 lbs or lighter dry weights if you want to stick with a SRW. This will keep you under axle capacity, close to tire and rim capacity and yet still be over the gross vehicle sticker. If you are trying to stay under all the sticker weights or want a larger camper with more room and amenities, you need a late model DRW truck.

burningman wrote:
The water in the heater gets used if you take showers or anything else using warm water.
My camper goes to Burning Man (hence my username) where absolutely zero grey water, trash, or anything goes on the ground.
Sometimes it goes to races or car shows where you can’t dump anything in the ground.
It’s going to the Bonneville Salt Flats where you can’t dump on the ground. In fact you have to park on a tarp so you don’t so much as leak a drop of oil.
Sometimes it’s even a portable guest house for visiting friends
I’m a little surprised I’m that much the odd truck camper user. I almost never go to a campground.
My primary reason for owning it is the heavy trailer pulling ability.

Sure you can use hot water, but only if there is cold water to push the hot water out. Once your FW tank dries up the remaining hot water just sits there.

Camping where you have nowhere at all to dump any gray water is indeed a little outside the norm. Since you can pull a heavy trailer, there’s your solution to extra waste storage. For nearly everyone else having more fresh than waste storage (or splitting the waste between gray and black) is fine.

Ours has 46 fresh, 26 gray and 22 black. So if we had to, we could transfer some gray into the black and hold it all.

These have been very informative posts for me having never camped in a TC or even owned a truck. My thinking for a TC was that I could always use a truck as a second vehicle. I also noticed most of you have DRW trucks. Did purchasing this kind of truck for other uses factor into your decision for the truck and a larger camper? If you did not require a DRW for other uses at home or farm use would you have purchased a SRW truck and a lighter camper? I have been driving for over 50 years without one so my only reason would be to haul a TC and maybe some firewood.