New trailer. Lots of questions

I agree with Indiana. I hardly ever travel long distances with a full water tank.
You have to learn your rig. No need to empty your tanks every two days, but soemtimes the lights on the gauges in your tanks are not accurate. Dumping grey water is not such a good idea. It is also what you use to clean the drain on your rig after you dump the black water.

Put some cones in a big parking lot and practice backing. It will help a lot.

As we mainly camp in areas with no available water or hookups we always travel with full fresh water and dump the black whenever the opportunity presents itself. We also carry a sewer tote, and extra fresh water in the truck bed if we are planning an extended stay... Nothing worse than having a full black tank and a week to go before you will be near a dump station.

As for backing up.... It will get easier the more you do it... I would suggest a large empty parking lot with a few cones.
Two way radio's also make things easier between you and your spotter when communicating, unless your good with hand signals and mirrors.

I think my backing issue is that with the popup I could look out the rear window of the truck an over the top of the popup. Now I am dependent on the side mirrors and when backing into a site my wife behind telling me this way or the other way. Something she hasn't had to do with the popup. So she is having to learn which way to tell me I need to go as well. We are getting there and are looking forward to our week in june.

tdiller wrote:
Just purchased a flagstaff frbs21. We looked at different floorplans for almost 3 years and kept coming back to this one.

Spent three hours going over it at the dealer and had them showing me stuff and verifying that things worked.

Some questions come to mind of course after the fact.

1. When using campgrounds that do not have water at the site do you fill up before leaving home or does the campground have a spot to fill up when you get there? Or do you just run a long hose to fill up from the nearest water?
2. Do you ever leave one campground headed for another without emptying your black/gray tanks? We are planning a week long trip in June with stays of about 2 nights each in three different campgrounds the one in the middle looks like it will have full hookups.
3. does backing get easier? I pulled a popup for almost 20 years but this new trailer is a different beast. I have taken it out to the local college parking lot three times now to practice backing up and such.

1. I never tow with water in my tanks. I like to keep the weight down and water is heavy. If you aren't sure about water supply where you're going contact them and ask. We have never in 31 years of camping ever had an issue. Plus, we carry a couple of cases of bottled water on every trip.
2. I always empty the black and grey tanks before leaving a campground. I will make sure to run a lot of extra water into the black tank to flush it out good.
3. I find that backing is pretty much the same from a 16 foot single axle to a 27 foot dual axle. The one lesson I learned from mountain campgrounds is that 4 wheel drive can really get you out of a mess when backing into a dark, wet site on an incline or decline. Don't get in a hurry, no one gets a star sticker for backing in quickly. When in doubt get out and walk around. More than one time I did that to discover there was a tree or some other fixed object I would have backed the camper into that I didn't initially see. Never assume anything. Beach campgrounds can be really tight places to back in peak season. Here's a good instructional video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzlOfBGr1i4&t=488s

Thanks everyone for your responses. The maiden voyage of our new trailer was a success. We filled up the freshwater tank upon arrival at the campground. two nights later when we left the freshwater tank was near empty and the grey water was full and the black water showed 1/3. stopped at the dump station on the way out and since we were the only ones with tanks took my time in emptying both tanks. No one else waiting so I got the first time out of the way. I'm a lot more comfortable with the process now. We did find a few things that we need to improve on. With our popup we had a routine for setting up and breaking down. We have not yet got that down pat wit this trailer but we're getting there. We also found the mattress very firm so added a 3 inch foam topper to it. I tried to put the water heater on electric and it never warmed up so flipped it to gas. At home cleaning out the camper from the weekend I opened the circuit breaker box and noticed the circuit for the water heater had tripped. Don;t think it was my efforts that tripped it it may have been that way from the purchase for all I know I never tried it on electric at home because I was only on a 15 amp circuit. All in all a good first time out.

Fresh water I always carry about 20/54 gallons just to be safe. I fill from home 54/54 if going to boondocking site or where the well water at a campground is poor quality.

Black tank after emptying I fill 5/40 just to have some water in there plus bio pack.
If I only have 1/3 full and need to dump, you can always let the toilet run for a bit and fill some more. When dumping I always leave the black open till empty then dump two 5 gallon buckets of water down toilet to rinse before closing and dumping grey.

I now dump black every time before driving many miles.....last year tank was full, had 6 mile trip down rough dirt road to dump station. Toilet down pipe to tank--plastic spin weld was bad .....enclosed underbelly. Horrible horrible smell.

An easy trick that makes backing up easier taught to me by my dad many years ago.

When backing up, put your hand on the bottom of the steering wheel, then push that hand in the direction you want the trailer to go. This helps a lot.

Yes to all, I carry 1/3 to 2/3 tank of Fresh water. I have had few sites with poor water.

I like my black and gray tanks to slosh and break up solids before dumping, so if they are less than half full, I do not dump them between campsites. I do have the advantage of a State Park about 20 miles from home, so I can hop over and dump after returning home. If the park is closed for the season, I dump on my last stop.

Finally, parking gets easier but remember, whether it take one try or ten tries; the camping rate remains the same, you will not be given a certificate of achievement for parking on the first try and the fact that you needed more than one try to get parked, does not show on your permanent record from high school.

Parking gets easier but it is simply not all that important.

Safe travels

Yes to all three of your questions.:)
Barney

1) I always carry about 1/3 fresh water. It will depend on the volume of your FW tank. MY Jayco 23RB has 80+ gallon capacity fresh water in two tanks. If you have a 40 gallon tank or less, you may want a little more water. How much fresh water will really depend on how long you will be between available fresh water.

2) Yes, sometimes I will go home with full black water tank. If we are at a full hookup campground, I will dump there before leaving for home. However, sometimes when we are RV tailgating at my university I will go all the way home. We tailgate all weekend in an open field, so there are no hookups. The school does have an on campus dump site. We will use that, if possible. Depending on when we leave our site, There can be a very long line to dump. In that case we drive home and used a campground that a few miles from our house.

3) Backing up will become easier the more you do it. Practicing is a good thing.

tdiller wrote:
Just purchased a flagstaff frbs21. We looked at different floorplans for almost 3 years and kept coming back to this one.

Spent three hours going over it at the dealer and had them showing me stuff and verifying that things worked.

Some questions come to mind of course after the fact.

1. When using campgrounds that do not have water at the site do you fill up before leaving home or does the campground have a spot to fill up when you get there? Or do you just run a long hose to fill up from the nearest water?
2. Do you ever leave one campground headed for another without emptying your black/gray tanks? We are planning a week long trip in June with stays of about 2 nights each in three different campgrounds the one in the middle looks like it will have full hookups.
3. does backing get easier? I pulled a popup for almost 20 years but this new trailer is a different beast. I have taken it out to the local college parking lot three times now to practice backing up and such.