How heavy of a trailer can I get?

Ron Gratz wrote:

Shorteelaw wrote:
So say our trailer is 6,000 pounds when we leave and we verify the hitch weight is 900 pounds.... How much would I want it to be on the way back?

First -- we need to know the following:
1) Do you plan to have a full fresh water tank when you leave? If so, does this mean there is no place to fill the fresh water tank at your camping destination?
2) Do you plan to return home without emptying your gray and black water tanks?
3) Why do you want a TW% of 15% when you leave home?
4) How many pounds of food and beverage do you plan to carry with you when you leave home?

If the weight of the trailer remains close to 6000#, the TW should be kept above 600#.
And the TW should never be greater than 940#

With a trailer weight of 6000#, there is no reason to have a TW of 900# (15%) when you leave home, unless you're sure that the TW is going to decrease by 200-300# for the trip home.

If the fresh water tank is full when you leave AND empty when you return, AND if the gray and black tanks are full when you return, AND if the fresh tank is ahead of the axles AND the waste tanks are behind the axles, then the TW might decrease by 200-300# for trip home if you are not able to move any load from the rear of the trailer toward the front.

If the fresh water tank is full when you leave AND empty when you return, AND if the gray and black tanks are full when you return, AND if the fresh tank is behind the axles AND the waste tanks are in front of the axles, then the TW might increase by 200-300# for trip home if you are not able to move any load from the front of the trailer toward the rear.
In this case, the TW should be limited to 600-700# when you leave home so it does not increase to more than 940# when you return.

The location of fresh and waste tanks varies with manufacturer and model.
Ideally, the fresh tank would be between the axles, with one waste tank ahead of the axles and one waste tank behind the axles.
Then, if the fresh tank goes from full to empty and the waste tanks go from empty to full, there is very little change in TW.

We really can't say what will happen to TW unless we know the tank sizes and locations, whether tanks will be full or empty when travelling, and where the consumables such as food and drinks will be stored.

Ron

Thank you for your posts! You're right- everyone has been hammering this 15% into my head that I'm stuck on making my TW precisely 15%. I just want to make sure that I'm not way over 15% but not under 10%. So I guess I could load it up, take it to the scale, pick a number between say 13-15% and call it good. Right?

To answer your questions - the only way we will have much fresh water in our tanks is if the CG we go to does not have water and in which case another vehicle we would be traveling with (my mom or in laws) would be hauling all of our food to cut down on weight. We won't be keeping food in our TT while we are not camping so it won't be a hassle to just pack it into someone else's vehicle until we get there. Do most CG's have a place to drain our tanks? Obviously RV'ing is new to us.

Which by the way- you're one of few who has always been nice and not snotty when I ask questions (albeit some ignorant ones I'm sure, but that's how we are learning!) and so I wanted to say thank you!