Ultra High Water Capacity: How did you implement over 200 gallons of holding tanks?

[Inner Love]

After searching for posts on ultra high water capacity, more than 200 gallons of holding tanks in a bus, I only found bits and pieces.

For those who have installed more than 200 gallons of freshwater & greywater capacity on their skoolie, how did you build it? What kind of tanks did you use (U shaped, rectangular, barrels, etc.)? How many angle iron straps did you use on each tank and what did you use in between tanks and angle iron (rubber, foam, plywood, other)? If you insulated your underside tanks, what were your considerations and how did the result hold up? I don't want to reinvent the wheel when someone else has figured it out.

I want to boondock luxuriosly as the anti-miser. In the summer when I am boondocking in the SW for whatever reason, I estimate half of the freshwater will go into the evaporative coolers, and another 10-20% into transpiration. 100 gallons is my minimum standard; with space, ground clearance loss minimization, center of gravity & GVWR load factors really the only limits to my ambitions.

I had thought up having one 255 gallon IBC totes for the fresh & gray tanks ahead of the rear axle on each side of the bus. This is a problem as I will have over 1 ton left / right weight distribution range as the grey fills up. Back to the drawing board.
Then I remembered you can strap 55 gallon drums under the bus - I want to be more space efficient than that.

For 300 gallons fresh & gray, what is the ideal weight distribution that will improve the handling of the bus? For your typical dog-nose, how low can things go before you start losing ground clearance with the stock skirting?

I want to know how you did it and what lessons you learned, and what you recommend when installing over 200 gallons of tanks to do it right and make it last.

[joeblack5]

We are in the southwest now and paying for water. Not so easy to get unless you go to an rv park or fancy campground. Also not all water taste great. RO water price in Ridgecrest, CA is $.39/ gallon. We carry 50 gallon wash and 12 gallon drinking water. And some beer of course. We are good for 5 days boon docking on the drinking side. But I would not call it luxurious and this is in winter. Water is heavy and hard on fuel...It is all in your mission plan.

Good luck j

[Inner Love]

Can the bus nuts with jacuzzies please chime in?

[TJones]

I'm planning on putting 100 gal of fresh water. For weight distribution I'm planning on using long, wide tanks that are around 6 inches high. I will mount the tanks inside, under my passenger seats or bunk beds since I will be doing winter camping in the cold. I will be putting a fresh and gray tank on the left side and a fresh and gray on the right. I'll connect them together so they will be at the same water level.

If your thinking you want to put 200 gallons of fresh pay attention to your weight distribution as that will be almost 1600 lbs of water. For a bus with duals you will want approximately 1/3 of the total weight of the bus on the front axle and 2/3 of the total weight on the rear axle.

Ted

[shaymcquaid]

I am/was planning on using the RecPro 200 gallon kit.

https://www.amazon.com/RecPro-Fresh-...73423193&psc=1


I have a pusher and am sorta forced to put them aft of the rear axles under the bed room.
My wife requires a clothes washer on board.
That's why I'm looking at 200 gallons fresh.

Top tip: TELL your wife you are installing a washing machine but make up reasons why it isn't done yet. I'll report on how this goes. lol


We plan to boondock on BLM for extended periods. Have a nice lil' 4x4 pick up as toad. So I reckon we can tote water back as required.

I am also intrested in what the other "anti-misers" have to say.

[Inner Love]

I feel like 800 pounds strapped to the left-right cross members will start to sag the cross members under the bus, no matter how much I spread the load and reinforce. Or can the underside of the dog nose support way more?

Because I want to have the most aux diesel capacity as I legally can before needing permits on top of at least 200 gallons of freshwater.

What is the highest freshwater capacity you have seen or heard of installed in a bus conversion (not just skoolies, any type of bus including million dollar motorcoaches)?

“I will mount the tanks inside, under my passenger seats or bunk beds since I will be doing winter camping in the cold.”
Not to derail the thread on a related issue. Since I’m going to make the bus ready for -115 F with 100 MPH winds (as well as 115 F with 100% humidity) is it even a good idea to have extremely insulated tanks & plumbing under the bus? Could the water stay above freezing from the heat given off by the bus (-115 to 68 F temperature delta means a very well insulated bus will give off heat), or will I need to circulate the freshwater to keep it from freezing in this inhospitably cold extreme?

I am even looking at ways to evaporate & boil off grey water so I can carry more freshwater because I won't have to have equal grey capacity. I've heard of the conventional RV with its exhaust-powered grey water boiler, marine bilge water boilers and other implementations of sending grey water into air. If diesel exhaust is hot enough, I'm thinking of diverting the engine exhaust to a home built grey water boiler system that ideally would send 100 gallons of grey water into thin air in less than a days travel. While boondocking, utilize the generators exhaust heat to a hybrid mini boiler / forced air evaporator to evaporate some greywater. That and im thinking a small metal line meant to drip feed grey water Into the wood burning stove, for wintertime. All three will be discharge above the roof of the bus so the stink blows above everyones head.

Lastly, if I can cheaply & cost effectively - recycle shower water.

[Iceni John]

I have two 110-gallon water tanks, one on each side of the fuel tank. No problem. I could even have fitted a slightly larger one on the right side, but 220 gallons should be enough! My gray tank is 115 gallons and the poo tank is 65 gallons, so I have 400 gallons total tankage (plus 100 gallons of diesel). All the water and waste tanks were rotomolded by Ronco Plastics in Tustin CA, with umpteen threaded fittings spin-welded into each one. They are all rectangular/square section to minimize wasted space, sitting on support frames that hang from the frame rails and body longerons.

After I installed the water tanks I filled them and took the bus for a test-drive - I couldn't feel any difference to its steering or braking at all, and it rode slightly smoother because of the extra ton of weight behind the front axle. So far, so good.

John

[cadillackid]

one thing to remember is if you can distribute it right... the kids that rode the bus were also weight.. an RE with 84 passenger capacity.. even it was little kids.. 50 pounds a pop would have over 4000 lbs of bodies ..



distribution seems key to me..

-Christopher

[Sleddgracer]

I plan on having 2 x 100 gal tanks - I'll carry them as far forward as practical - I'll be having considerable weight behind the rear wheels in the garage, and think I'll need a counterbalancing weight to keep traction on the front wheels when driving on icy roads

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by debit.servus

I feel like 800 pounds strapped to the left-right cross members will start to sag the cross members under the bus, no matter how much I spread the load and reinforce. Or can the underside of the dog nose support way more?

My bus can carry 65 kids - at 100 pounds a kid that's 6500 pounds. One row of seats alone would be 600 pounds. An 800 pound water tank is not a big deal.

Also, the cross-members won't sag, as the middle of the floor is resting on top of the chassis rails. If there's any tendency of the floor to bend, it would be bending down at the outside edges from the weight of the walls (known as "hogging" in sailing terms) rather than sagging.

[Inner Love]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Also, the cross-members won't sag, .

Vehicle weight rating isn't much of a factor then. Now to begin researching tanks. Could provide fire support with the amt. of water I end up carrying.

How many inches of skirt are there on the typical dog nose? I don't want to lose more than a couple inches of ground clearance when installing tanks. What kind of tank and support is best?

[FamilyCircus]

Im using 4 55 gallon food grade barrels connected in a manifold type valve setup so I can eliminate holding capacity if I dont need it and it also prevents the whole water water shifting from side to side or front to back.
The 4 barrels are under the queen size bed in the back moved forward to get close to the axle center line to prevent or minimize polar movement of the weight.

Family of 6 so we need water capacity for boondocking.

[Inner Love]

If only half height caged IBC Totes were a thing...

[Inner Love]

Originally Posted by Iceni John

I have two 110-gallon water tanks, one on each side of the fuel tank. No problem. I could even have fitted a slightly larger one on the right side, but 220 gallons should be enough! My gray tank is 115 gallons and the poo tank is 65 gallons, so I have 400 gallons total tankage (plus 100 gallons of diesel). All the water and waste tanks were rotomolded by Ronco Plastics in Tustin CA, with umpteen threaded fittings spin-welded into each one. They are all rectangular/square section to minimize wasted space, sitting on support frames that hang from the frame rails and body longerons.

After I installed the water tanks I filled them and took the bus for a test-drive - I couldn't feel any difference to its steering or braking at all, and it rode slightly smoother because of the extra ton of weight behind the front axle. So far, so good.

John

This is it!
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I’ve arrived!





Can you share pictures of the result or link to your build post?

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by FamilyCircus

Im using 4 55 gallon food grade barrels connected in a manifold type valve setup so I can eliminate holding capacity if I dont need it and it also prevents the whole water water shifting from side to side or front to back.
The 4 barrels are under the queen size bed in the back moved forward to get close to the axle center line to prevent or minimize polar movement of the weight.

Family of 6 so we need water capacity for boondocking.

Interesting, there's a RepurposedMaterials place where I live that is selling a bunch of those 55 gallon food grade barrels way cheap and I was wondering if they could be reasonably used for water storage in my bus. I guess the only downside is that they take up a lot more internal space per gallon than a rectangular tank would.

[mikeypj]

Im installing 2-55 gallon barrels under the bed. I plan on spreading the weight evenly across rear width of the bus..

[gs1949]

I've come onto this thread late, so excuse me for butting in, but I noticed something in the posts above that concerns me. I have some experience with tank trucks, from driving fire tankers for the Yukon Forest Service back in my youth.

Most tank trucks have baffles inside the tanks to prevent sloshing back and forth as the vehicle moves sideways. When I worked for the YFS in the mid-70s they had a 61 International 10 ton that had been converted to a 4X4, which had a 1000 Imperial gallon unbaffled tank. Imperial gallons of water are 20 percent bigger than US gallons and weigh 10 pounds per gallon.
So even half of that was a lot of weight sloshing around, enough to flip the truck over quite easily. So we had a rule that we only drove that truck with the tank full or empty, never part full.
What I saw above that concerned me was someone saying they wanted a wide tank that was only 6 inches high. The danger from unbaffled tanks comes mostly from side to side motion, such as going around a corner or driving over something with only one or two wheels.
From my perspective an ideal sized tank would be square in cross section, no more than about 16 to 18 inches, and 12 inches might be better. Length could be quite long as long as there were several square baffles to restrict movement lengthwise. The baffles are just walls that would close the tank into sections. The baffles have small holes in them to limit the water in the tank from sloshing around under acceleration or braking. Under hard braking a long tank that's half full would be hit by a lot of force when all that water sloshed into the front wall of the tank.

I have no idea how hard it is to find baffled tanks, but I intend to find out.

[o1marc]

Originally Posted by gs1949

I have no idea how hard it is to find baffled tanks, but I intend to find out.

They are out there, expect to pay about 3x's what an unbaffled tank runs.

[Sleddgracer]

Originally Posted by gs1949

I've come onto this thread late, so excuse me for butting in, but I noticed something in the posts above that concerns me. I have some experience with tank trucks, from driving fire tankers for the Yukon Forest Service back in my youth.

Most tank trucks have baffles inside the tanks to prevent sloshing back and forth as the vehicle moves sideways. When I worked for the YFS in the mid-70s they had a 61 International 10 ton that had been converted to a 4X4, which had a 1000 Imperial gallon unbaffled tank. Imperial gallons of water are 20 percent bigger than US gallons and weigh 10 pounds per gallon.
So even half of that was a lot of weight sloshing around, enough to flip the truck over quite easily. So we had a rule that we only drove that truck with the tank full or empty, never part full.
What I saw above that concerned me was someone saying they wanted a wide tank that was only 6 inches high. The danger from unbaffled tanks comes mostly from side to side motion, such as going around a corner or driving over something with only one or two wheels.
From my perspective an ideal sized tank would be square in cross section, no more than about 16 to 18 inches, and 12 inches might be better. Length could be quite long as long as there were several square baffles to restrict movement lengthwise. The baffles are just walls that would close the tank into sections. The baffles have small holes in them to limit the water in the tank from sloshing around under acceleration or braking. Under hard braking a long tank that's half full would be hit by a lot of force when all that water sloshed into the front wall of the tank.

I have no idea how hard it is to find baffled tanks, but I intend to find out.

a tanker, driven by a father/son team, was going too quickly through a "S" corner 3 km from town - the tank had no baffles, and the truck rolled in the corner and off the road landing on the median in front of an auto wreckers - fortunately there were no other buildings near by, because when the truck exploded the detonation rattled windows in town and a transformer was destroyed - lights for 20+ miles in every direction went out - there were warning signs at the corner, but I guess the driver wasn't paying attention to them - the police said they might not have rolled the truck if the tank had of had baffles in the tank

[TJones]

The surge from a couple hundred gallons spilt into at least 2 tanks wouldn't be noticable in a full size bus. Making sure the tanks are well secured so that they can't move during a surge is important.

Ted