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Old 07-26-2007, 06:07 PM   #1
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Water Fillups

This is a pretty dumb question, but was wondering where you people refill your water tanks when on the road? All my trips to date have been only 3 or 4 days and I've made it on the 16 gallons I have. We're taking off on a month long trip up thru Idaho, Montana, British Coumbia, Washington and Oregon and will obviously need to fill up every few days. I know I can probably get some water at campgrounds, but we don't use 'em. From the little looking I've done, most gas stations, mini marts, etc. either don't have external water spigots or they are locked out. Ideas???

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Old 07-26-2007, 07:16 PM   #2
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Most State Forest campgrounds have only a few spigots where you can fill up, which means you don't really have to be in a campsite to fill. I'm sure there are better places, I haven't filled on the road yet either.

One other thing, I got this water buddy or water miser (forget what the guy called it) It's a rubber tube about 4" long that attaches to your fresh water hose so you can connect to non-threaded water sources.
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Old 07-26-2007, 07:16 PM   #3
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That thing
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Old 07-26-2007, 09:00 PM   #4
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I was told by my salesperson at SMB that the inside water tank can be refilled either through the external hose connection, or by filling it manually inside from another container. I will be using the jerry can space on the baja box to hold 5 gals of fresh H2O. I'll have to pour it into the inside tank sometime, so I hope that information is correct.
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Old 07-26-2007, 10:01 PM   #5
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Water fillup

You'd be surprised at how many places are friendly to a refill of water. Just be nice and tell them what you need. Many smaller fuel stations don't mind if you are buying fuel from them.

Also, I've occasionally gotten water from Wal-Mart, Home Dept and Lowes, by asking near the outdoor garden department.
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Old 07-27-2007, 07:59 AM   #6
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Well, that sure gives me some ideas. I'll look into the water thief thing Jage. I've seen lots of spigots in campgrounds where there are no threads just so self contained RVers couldn't make a permanent hookup. The water thief should solve that problem.
So I gotta be nice just to get water? What is this world coming to. Maybe I'll have my wife ask....
By the way, filling the SMB water tank from a seperate container does work. Ours came with a four foot hose that you hook up under the rear seat (RB50). We used it in Mexico to fill out of bottles. A longer hose would be better so you could stand outside so spills wouldn't end up on the van floor, but with a little practice it works. I ended up cutting off the male end of the hose and shoving a funnel into the end of the hose. That made the coupling water tight. Get a funnel that just barely fits into the hose so you have the largest opening you can. Otherwise it takes forever to get the water in the tank, and a five gallon (40 pounds) container gets pretty heavy. I might cut a hole in the top of my SMB tank and install a 4" waterproof fitting so I can just dump the water in. I'll have to see how often I need to fill this way.
Thanks for the info guys.
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Old 07-27-2007, 09:38 AM   #7
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You could try looking at http://www.sanidumps.com/sanidumps_usa.php?id=51. It is a web site that list trailer dumping locations by state. Most of these locations would also have fresh water available. Just be careful as they may also have some non potable hoses for aid in clean up. I would recommend some kind of water filter as water quality varies.
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Old 07-31-2007, 10:37 AM   #8
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inside water refill

Like scatter, we've done lots of inside water refills in Mexico. In most small towns, there are water refill stores (Mexicans drink lots of bottled water), where 5-gallon blue-tint plastic containers (like on top of an office water cooler) are brought to be refilled with drinking water. We hand them our 5-gallon coleman container, and for a few pesos they scrub and wash our container, then fill it with drinking water, which we then pour into our Sportsmobile's 10-gallon tank. Repeat once.

For the inside fill, I've created a funnel out of a cut two-liter bottle and some hardware store clear tubing of a diameter which just (with a little trimming) fits inside the water hose connection.



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Old 07-31-2007, 10:54 AM   #9
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Geoff, that's the idea. I want to find a fitting that will thread onto the filler outlet and attach a pipe or hose to that. If your hose slips out while filling, it ain't fun.
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Old 07-31-2007, 11:10 AM   #10
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True, but so far my hose fits in pretty securely. I had to whittle down the end a bit to make it fit at all, so it's a tight fit. Yeah, a short length of drinking water hose trimmed and attached to a bottle would be more secure.

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