Why such small tanks?

[hedge]

I've started at looking at upgrading my camper to a newer model. I've been mostly checking brochures. I keep coming back to Adventurer because of the much larger tanks. I'm looking at an 86 or 89 adventurer and they have 25-31 gallon tanks whereas others have 7-10 gallon tanks.

Why so small, I do a lot of boondocking so it must makes no sense to me to have such small tanks.

I know AF have larger tanks too but I think they are out of my price range.

[crosscheck]

When boodocking as Jefe has said, sometimes it is a trade off when dealing with liquids. We find that our 44 gal. fresh is the limiting factor in the time spent away from services if you camp in a dry area. We usually carry fresh drinking water with us in the crew but as we are active every day and have short showers,you will eventually run out of fresh. If you camp in wet areas where there are lots of creeks/lakes, then this is less of an issue if you refill your fresh tanks manually or you sometimes take baths in the lakes or waterways which is what we do if camping in our neck of the woods.(British Columbia).
Grey water (18Gal)unless forbidden by law,can be dispersed in remote areas to the trees/vegetation/cactus who usually have their tongues out and appreciate a little drink.

Black water(cassette)can be emptied at any pit or regular toilette or dump station. If you are care full and I don,t want to go into too much detail, it takes a fair while to fill up the 6 gal portable tank. I was a little concerned at first about this option(cassette) for boondocking but have found that having to find a dump station to dump your black water tank when out in the boonies for awhile is not that easy.

Having limited capacities except maybe for fresh allows you to conserve and ultimately lets you stay out longer in the remote places that you appreciate.

Best of luck in your TC search.

Dave

[jefe_4x4]

Yep, TC holding tanks are always a tradeoff between lots of capacity (and lots of weight) and smaller capacity (and less weight). Assuming the above adventurer's tanks are full, the combined weight of the contents would weigh 852 pounds! It's down low in the TC, but that's a lot of weight.
Our Lance has a very small capacity:
18 fresh
11 grey
12 black
We have ways of extending the days of the grey and black tank. Our showers are very short, usually at the same time sitting on the pot with your feet in yet another plastic tub to catch runoff. During hot weather (not our first choice) and way out there, we use the outside shower and a funky little shower enclosure that looks like a tall narrow pop up tent. Of course, none of this water finds its way into the grey tank. Our dishwater goes into a plastic tub (yes, the same one) and is deposited outside saving space in the grey water tank. We can honestly get about 5 days using this system, but we don't stay in one place very long. For us it's the journey, not the destination. If you like to quickly get to a boon dock destination and stay a couple weeks, obviously this style will NOT work for you.
We supplement the fresh with 6, gallon plastic bottles stored on the floor in a rearmost cupboard space. This we use for cooking and drinking. Another 24/16 oz. plastic bottles for drinking are stored in the dead space in front of the inner fender wells (through the little doors at floor level).
The truth is our model Lance was sold as compatible with a H.D. 1/2 ton pickup and they needed to shave every oz. of fat off the carcass to make that work.
Since this is our first camper we have just gotten used to a spartan and light weight existence on the road to XTC. YMMV.
regards, as always, jefe

[billyray50]

I know my just sold in July... 2012 adventurer 86 FB had 32 gray, 32 black, and 40 fresh capacity. Bought a 2004 lance 815 with much smaller tanks and the gray shower drains into black on these models. Big time sellers remorse but with the basement storage on Adventurer it was very heavy camper. Miss the capacities but not the wet weight.

[Buzzcut1]

here is the lance page with specs to all their short bed campers. Smallest capacity is the 825 has 30 fresh 11 grey 14 black

largest , the 855 has 30 fresh 20 grey 25 black

http://www.lancecamper.com/lance-2013-truck-campers.php

[hedge]

well it is what it is, but it is important to me. I just don't like being held captive to one brand to get decent size tanks.

I'm not entirely sure what the size of the tanks are on my '99 810WS but I definately would not want to go smaller. I think they are around 20G

I have it on an F350 so I'm not that concerned about weight, I am limited to the size of the camper though because I have the smaller 6'9" box.

[RZAR66]

Non-basement style campers have usually have small tanks.

[12V_Cummins]

Small Campers= Small Tanks. Than's why I use a camper with a cassette toilet. Small quantity but I can dump it anywhere!

[elkhornsun]

I doubt many people do serious boondocking or those that do don't mind going without a shower for days at a time. I plan on 1 gallon per person per day and it has always been enough. For high capacity holding tanks your best bet is a trailer.

[69_Avion]

With larger tanks comes more weight. A lot of camper manufacturers are trying to make the campers fit trucks that aren't large heavy duty duallys. I'm like you, I like a lot of capacity. If you are boondocking you are going to want a large fresh water tank and decent sized gray and black water tanks. My minimum capacity for fresh water is 40 gallons. Anything less than that just isn't going to work for me.