How Much Water

oldog12 · 03-25-2008, 04:48 PM

How much water are ya'll carrying and what are your gray and black water capacities?
I'm figuring on 40 gal gray and 40 gal black... Anyone have any real world experience with this subject field?
We're not planning an doing too much dry camping, but I'm sure we'll come across the opportunity sometime.
Potable water holding tank I figure 2 or 3 X 30-40 gal tanks... If this is overkill, I'd appreciate most everyone's views on this...

reprobate · 03-25-2008, 07:08 PM

I have absolutely no experience with this subject, but we have installed a 75 gal. water tank and a 95 gal.(only because I couldn't find a 75 that would fit) gray/black water tank. We hope and plan to do a fair amount of dry camping.

KC10Chief · 03-25-2008, 09:04 PM

I'm going to use 95 gallon tanks from http://www.plastic-mart.com. Each tank is about $160, and they make them in all sorts of shapes and dimensions. They have one that will easily fit underneath the sides of my bus. I'll have a tank on each side. When you order your tanks from Plastic Mart, they send you a full size plan for the tank you want. You then choose which fittings you want installed and where, and send the plans back to them. They make it and send it to you. The have a place in California, and a new place in Texas. I called recently and asked about shipping. Both tanks shipped from California to Oklahoma City would run me $90. That's about $410 total for two tanks and shipping. Not a bad deal.

Also, I had a 35 gallon tank in my old travel trailer. If it was just my wife and I dry camping, and we brought our own drinking water and disposable dinnerware (no washing), we could make the water last for almost two days. That was a couple of 3 minute showers per person and flushing the toilet! Pretty much ALL of my camping is dry camping. So, I can tell you, that 40 gallons is pushing it. You'll need to plan accordingly. But if you can, and you plan on dry camping occasionally, get bigger tanks!

oldog12 · 03-26-2008, 01:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KC10Chief

Also, I had a 35 gallon tank in my old travel trailer. If it was just my wife and I dry camping, and we brought our own drinking water and disposable dinnerware (no washing), we could make the water last for almost two days. That was a couple of 3 minute showers per person and flushing the toilet! Pretty much ALL of my camping is dry camping. So, I can tell you, that 40 gallons is pushing it. You'll need to plan accordingly. But if you can, and you plan on dry camping occasionally, get bigger tanks!

So 95 gal water will last you about six days then.... 95 gal is about 380 lbs.... You planning to mix your gray & black, or are you figuring on keeping them apart?

sportyrick · 03-26-2008, 08:26 AM

Your black doesn't have to be near as large as your gray. I have an 18 gallon black, 38 gallon gray and 55 gallon fresh. It works out pretty well with those numbers. Sometimes you can run your gray onto the ground but I think you had better plan on holding all you can just in case. We have never filled up the black tank completely but have filled up the gray. Usually we (2 people) can get 7-8 days out of this combo being very careful of our use. Now that's being gone during the day with evening and night time bathroom calls, morning showers and bathroom calls, no dish washing or cooking. sportyrick

oldog12 · 03-26-2008, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmyaustintx

I think 95 gals is 760lbs since I think water is about 8 lbs per gal.

OOPS... My bad... "A pint's a pound the world around".....

wmah · 03-26-2008, 06:03 PM

I'm not sure but my fresh water is around 20 gallons I think. Could be more or less.
My black water set up is about 9 gallons. My gray water is maybe 7 gallons. I wanted bigger ones but again I couldn't find the type of tank I wanted to fit the area.

The fresh water tank I had out of a travel trailer. And I have that tightly mounted under the driver seat or well under the heater core by the driver seat.

oldog12 · 03-26-2008, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wmah

My black water set up is about 9 gallons. My gray water is maybe 7 gallons.

To me, I'd imagine there would be more gray to black water.... Well, I guess it depends on how much beer and how many burritos you do...

wmah · 03-27-2008, 07:21 PM

It would make sense for the gray to be bigger. My tanks are the same size. The difference is I have a little more pipe coming from my black water tank since my toilet is in the center of the bus. Besides I have no problem letting a little soapy water on the ground and with the way my shower drains into the gray tank which is just a hole with the shower pipe going into it, it overflows through the hole onto the ground. This is also my vent pipe on the gray water. Yes I did vent the black tank up and over to where my last window used to be on the driver side using a air duct vent connected to the black pipe using a 2" to 2" rubber connector. I didn't want to go to the roof, too much hassle for where the pipes came up.

GoneCamping · 03-27-2008, 08:28 PM

Having owned a couple of RV's already, and currently building my own I do know a little on this subject. First of all, the black tank does not need to be as big as the gray tank, you'll use a lot more water for gray purposes (dishes, showers, etc) than you ever will down the toilet. Be that as it may, I used a pair of 36 gallone gray & black tanks that I bought HERE for $45 each. My water tank is a bit larger at around 60 gallons.

Now, I will never - ever fill that black tank as such, so I'm going to add a transfer pump so I can pump gray water into the black tank, thus expanding my gray water capacity...and by doing this, I'll add enough water to the black tank that it'll have plenty in there to help flush out the solids when times comes to do the dump....

captainkf · 03-28-2008, 12:53 PM

What kind of transfer pump are you going to use? Can you use a normal 12v water pump like the kind that you use in a fresh water system?

-Richard

oldog12 · 03-28-2008, 01:29 PM

Even though I'm installing a macerating toilet, I have another macerating pump that will end up being my pump out transfer pump, just to make sure all those little itty bitty turds didn't gang up and decide to gum up the works....

Elliot Naess · 03-31-2008, 04:06 PM

No significant experience yet, but I'm quite sure that tanks are like money: More is better, with no limit. And running out of water, or waste capacity, would be simply unacceptable.

I bought my tanks by ordering them at a local RV store, but I'm having to install my own fittings. That Plastic Mart deal sounds great.

GoneCamping · 03-31-2008, 08:26 PM

Any 12v pump will do it, I'm using a used SurFlo...it's just moving waste water from one tank to the next, so don't need anything facny...

oldog12 · 04-01-2008, 02:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elliot Naess

No significant experience yet, but I'm quite sure that tanks are like money: More is better, with no limit. And running out of water, or waste capacity, would be simply unacceptable.

But when does the law of diminishing returns kick in ???

Abbott · 05-24-2008, 04:34 PM

To calculate capacity of holding tanks, first find the total volume in cubic inches (Length x Width x Height in inches) and divide by 231. There are roughly 231 cubic inches of liquid in a gallon.

Water also weighs about 8 pounds per gallon.

oldog12 · 05-24-2008, 04:49 PM

SO.... After thinking about it, I figure on carrying about 80 gallons of potable with an even split on the gray and black, (40 gal / 40 gal), and about four cases of beer... OK six cases....

oldog12 · 05-27-2008, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wanderin_blues

a composting toilet. its really the only toilet option i will consider and i can always use it elsewhere if i ever have to give up this schoolie, or decide to upgrade. im still debating on where to put it, but i think it could go on a back porch sort of deal.

I don't know much about a composting toilet.... But let me tell you, that my experience with a port-o-let in the rear passenger side corner was disastrous !! The port-o-let spewed every time I hit a bump...

A while back I remember seeing a bus-cam video of some school kid in the last rear seat going airborne when the bus hit what I guess was a pot hole... So just keep that in mind when you're planning where to put your toilet... Oh, and also keep it in mind that your center of gravity will be affected by the amount of water you decide to put up on your roof....

Abbott · 05-28-2008, 11:14 PM

I am leaning towards using two tanks (no gray tank). I am thinking about 40 gallons of fresh water and a 40-45 gallon black tank. But the actual size of the tanks will be determined by whats on sale at the time of purchase. We usually take along a couple of 5 gallon fresh water jugs and about a dozen 32 ounce bottles of drinking water as well. Adding to the fresh water tank with the 5 gallon jugs could be accomplished easily enough. Our plans are to use our bus 2-5 days at a time parked at the lake (s), often with electrical hook-ups and a fresh water source nearby. I also plan to plumb the gray water to drain through a hose before reaching the holding tank when the option is available.

Here is a post with a bit of good information at
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels ... urces.html

oldog12 · 05-29-2008, 08:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smitty

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldog12

I don't know much about a composting toilet.... But let me tell you, that my experience with a port-o-let in the rear passenger side corner was disastrous !! The port-o-let spewed every time I hit a bump...

I'd like to hear the story of that one

Nothing much else to say.... It was my first attempt at a conversion, back in oh, I think it was '93 or so.... Some pals and I decided to get a bus and make it our canoe hauling, camping and party bus... Not thinking too hard about where to put what inside the bus, we decided to build a "privy" in the rear passenger corner and installed a port-o-let inside. Looking at it after we finished, we all felt it was a good place for it. We didn't fill it with the prescribed "Blue water of death" until we stopped for an overnight on our first canoe trip north to Ely, MN... That night we decided that we'd use the port-o-let since we were camping near a farmer's barnyard and didn't want to spoil our welcome. The next day we hit the road, everything seemed OK until it got sunny and hot and one of the fellas started to complain about an odor coming from the "privy" and went to investigate.... Blue water of death, and all of the other added components were adorning the inside as well as part of the window... Eeeewwww.... We cleaned it up the best we could, and needless to say, that was the last we EVER used the "privy".... I wouldn't place any kind of toilet, sink or anything that has an open source of liquid past the rear axle.... That's my story and I'm sticking to it....

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