Putting Water Into a Trailer In a Forest Service Campground
 

Janet and I like to camp in National Parks or Forest Service campgrounds. These generally do not have "hookups" so you need to rely on your batteries (we have a Honda 1000W generator to keep them charged), propane and, some means of getting water. The places we camp generally have potable water close by - the worst case so far was a one mile trip.

Now, I don't like to tow with the freshwater tank full. It's 300 added pounds near the trailer hitch and that puts more load on the truck than I like. So, how to get water from the source to the trailer?

I carry two 5-gallon plastic containers that live in the trailer. These are easily taken to the water source (in the back of my truck if it's a mile away or I have a neat little folding hand cart that I can use if it's closer, but still too far to carry.)

Cool, now, I have 10 gallons at the trailer - how to get it in the tank? I bought one of these little 12V pumps: https://shop.harborfreight.com/catal...?q=marine+pump at Harbor Freight. I've seen similar ones in other places too. I think I got the cheaper one, which is on backorder now, but either would work. also bought the shortest length drinking water hose available and cut it in half and added a female connector to the half that needed it so that I could attach both hoses to the pump.

One hose goes in the plastic water jug, The other goes in the freshwater tank opening. Attach the battery cable to the battery and presto - water is pumped into the tank!

This could actually be "hardwired" to the battery with an ON/OFF switch if you have a "sheltered" place to mount the pump. I don't, so I just keep it in one of the storage bins.

This is a whole lot nicer than trying to pour water though a funnel into the tank!

Even if you tow with full water tanks, I think you'll find you can run out of water pretty quickly, so this makes refilling easy.

- Jack

Good post! might be renting a trailer this summer so ill keep that in mind! :D

Good idea :2thumbs:

We went on a camping trip and used a bilge pump with a pressure switch and just connected to a shower head. The pump and switch were hard wired to a small battery. When you used water the pump would automatically turn on then off when you were done. We were also just dumping water into a 5 gallon bucket because we were camping in a livestock trailer, but it would work on the trailer if you put a water hose fitting instead of shower head. That way you wont even be using the RV tank and pump.