Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Topic: Best practices for the direct fill solution. (Read 1031 times) previous topic - next topic

Best practices for the direct fill solution.

May 22, 2017, 11:43:57 am

Yes, I'm going to put another hole in my fresh water tank. Faster fill and DW or myself could shower while tank is filling.

Would be nice to see some pics of how that's been done, what fittings to use, and the most important caulk ( that can be used for drinking water ).

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #1 – May 22, 2017, 11:55:03 am

I have another solution. I plumbed into (temporary, until I have time to do full finish piping) the water tank drain and I fill through that. It's much faster, and no new holes in the tank.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #2 – May 22, 2017, 12:08:37 pm

You'll get some great ideas on your question. I just went for the simple route. Just use a hole saw on a drill motor for the hole. The tank material will stick in the saw so you don't have to worry about it dropping into the tank. Then I just picked up a water fill fitting from an RV store, used a little silicone as sealer and screwed the fitting onto the tank with stainless screws. Easy peasy.
jor

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #3 – May 22, 2017, 12:10:21 pm

I think I paid $20 to have a new half inch female nipple outlet spun welded with a router after grinding down the old one that had cracked in the threads. You could have the same done near top of the of tank if you have access. My repair was 100%, Foretravel's recommendation was to buy a new tank for $1600.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #4 – May 22, 2017, 12:12:53 pm

I've thought long and hard about the filling through the drain line solution. My problem is,, when I removed the water heater to deal with a leak, I changed the routing for the drain. I was able to find a good spot directly below the drain outlet for the drain pipe. Now the pipe goes down through the floor of the bay directly below the drain outlet. Not realy any room for additional plumbing now.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #5 – May 22, 2017, 12:16:41 pm

Bob.

See ...
Recent third dump valve installations (split from another topic)

If you have a white(ish) fresh tank then almost nothing (including silicone) will stick to it. There are spin weld fittings that can be glued to the white plastic tank with a 3M adhesive for this purpose. Whatever you use for a fill fitting should have a check valve in it to prevent backflow and it should be higher than the fill point on the tank to make sure it drains into the tank. the tank fills much faster this way.

No matter how you fill your tank you should have an effective particulate filter first to prevent any and all crud from getting into your water system.

Water manifold/pump bay re-plumb help

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #6 – May 22, 2017, 12:43:32 pm

Here is how we did ours....one valve for direct fill, the other to use shore water.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #7 – May 22, 2017, 12:57:24 pm

Bob,

Along with Doug's thoughts here is an option for you. We have done the same repair as he talks about with a router. It is a simple process. There are several "You tube" how to videos available . These people have all kinds of bosses and the arbors needed. I don't have any $ involved in this company they are just who I have bought stuff from, there are several suppliers around if you don't like this one. Spin Weld Fittings

One other thought is for small fittings use a Roto-zip rather than a standard router.

Pamela & Mike

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #8 – May 22, 2017, 12:59:27 pm

I chose to use the blind bulkhead fitting that is available here:

USI-RV Bulkhead Blind Tank Fittings

It wasn't cheap but is well made and is designed for exactly this purpose. No sealants required.

Added new Reelcraft reels

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #9 – May 23, 2017, 03:01:18 am

Bdale.
I notice that the website mentions " not for potable water" do they offer some that are for potable water or do we just ignore that

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #10 – May 23, 2017, 09:06:23 am

I'm not aware of a version that has been approved for potable water. For me, it wasn't a big concern. The only part that might be an issue is the rubber gasket. The entire fitting is above the high water line and rarely in contact with it. I was, and am, completely ok with it.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #11 – May 23, 2017, 09:30:26 am

Thanks for the spin weld link. The fresh water tank in our 2001 tapers up to a 4-5" vertical section at the end where I bonded in a spin weld fitting with the 3M adhesive. There was not enough room for a conventional router although a small trim router might work.

The point of a direct fill (for me anyway) was to fill the tank from the top and not have to go through the coach plumbing to fill the tank from the bottom where you are working against the water already in the tank. Normally we would just hook up a fill hose to the port and fill it up. When we are in a site with no water we use a water jug that we can fill with water, connect a very short hose to the jug and the direct fill port and let gravity empty the jug into the tank. Beats having to take the coach to the water.

When you cut a hole in the fresch tank younwant to minimize any shavings that might get in to the tank. You will not get them out until,they clog up something else down the line. Use a vacuum to suck up any shavings as you drill. A router or RotoZip would make a mess. A hole saw with the starter bit extended will help catch the cutout.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #12 – May 23, 2017, 10:06:25 am

Quote from: Roger & Susan in Home2 – May 23, 2017, 09:30:26 am

The point of a direct fill (for me anyway) was to fill the tank from the top and not have to go through the coach plumbing to fill the tank from the bottom where you are working against the water already in the tank. Normally we would just hook up a fill hose to the port and fill it up. When we are in a site with no water we use a water jug that we can fill with water, connect a very short hose to the jug and the direct fill port and let gravity empty the jug into the tank. .

I thought of this issue too. Filling from the bottom of the tank using the the tank drain will work as long as the funnel is kept above the level of the tank. Since any gravity bung I would install would be at the top of the tank, this means that there really is no difference in the required height of the jug.

Another option: I installed the winterizing "Tee" on the inlet of my fresh water pump to suck antifreeze. I can hook the hose up to that and suck out of a jug and fill the tank. It's more involved, but that would make sense if sucking from a large 55gallon drum of water.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #13 – May 23, 2017, 10:12:41 am

Quote from: Roger & Susan in Home2 – May 23, 2017, 09:30:26 am

The point of a direct fill (for me anyway) was to fill the tank from the top and not have to go through the coach plumbing to fill the tank from the bottom where you are working against the water already in the tank.

I'm not an engineer or an expert on this but I'm pretty sure that, given the same pipe sizes and lengths, filling from the bottom would actually be faster than filling from the top. It is not the size of the tank or the amount of water in it that matters, only the height of the water column and it's head pressure. The head pressure of a 2' vertical section of 5/8" hose is the same as a 2' high tank full of water. Filling from the top results in the most possible head pressure because the water always has to be pumped to its highest level. Filling from the bottom would result in less head pressure for most of the fill time, which starts low & increases as the water level rises. The differences in head pressure for the heights involved in our application are pretty negligible so bottom fill wouldn't result in a meaningful improvement over top fill, and is not worth the extra risks. The benefits of direct fill come more from the elimination of extra pipe. The benefit of direct filling from the top is the elimination of a potential leak by keeping the new hole above the water line. That's my theory anyway.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #14 – May 23, 2017, 10:43:27 am

Me, being a bit of a dumbass, wanted to be able to supplement the water in our fresh tank when we started running low, but not have to drive to a fresh water fill station.
SO--I put a Tee in the overflow up front, under the "hood" where the overflow exits the dash wall and ran the overflow tube off one leg and clear milk house hose off the other leg. Bolted inside the hood is a 12V water pump from Harbor Freight, an on/off switch, and more milk house hose I can pull out The open end and insert in 6 gallon water jugs. The pump will empty the jug in less than a minute and I don't have to lift it out of the Saturn Vue. 6 gallons x 8#/gallon = 48# I would normally have to hold up for emptying. No more!
I did add a vent tube so air could escape from the fresh water tank while I was filling. (old cheap rubber handheld shower head and hose) I got tired of having to "burp" the tank several times per jug. Otherwise the "burp" would dump water all over me from the overflow hose.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #15 – May 25, 2017, 12:18:19 pm

Just as I suspected the Foretravel Forum members came up with some great advise, examples and links to helpfull fittings.

There's lots of solutions out there that I wouldn't have thought of. Thanks guys.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #16 – May 25, 2017, 01:11:27 pm

Bdale,

It is not just the water in the tank but the hose on the reel, the hose reel fittings, the fill solenoid and several other fittings (none of which have the 1/2" diameter of PEX tubing. Trying to fill the tank from a five gallon jug using gravity through all of this is almost impossible. Filling through a direct fill port has very little resistance no matter the source. My own actual experience is that filling through the coach plumbing compared to the direct fill reduces the time by about 1/3 or more.

My primary reason for adding this port was adding water to the fresh water tank when a water source in not in range.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #17 – May 25, 2017, 03:29:37 pm

I agree with every bit of that. I was just clarifying the part specifically about the speed of filling from bottom vs top, with all other factors being the same.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #18 – May 25, 2017, 07:20:36 pm

Our direct fresh water fill was installed so we can easily pour in a small amount of diluted bleach to have a chlorinated tank of water.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #19 – May 25, 2017, 09:12:58 pm

A direct fill system could incorporate a pressure pump.

I have a 300gph harbor freight pump with 12 volt clip ones on it and hose fittings on the pump head.

Sure is easier to pump water out of a five gallon jug

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #20 – May 25, 2017, 09:39:43 pm

We carried water in two 5 gallon jugs on a "LiL Red Wagon" that belonged to the boys when they were small, did that for more years than I care to count. Gravity fed into a inlet on the side of our HR travel trailer. Oldest son would hold the funnel over his head while I poured the water. Campground spigot water (always in N.C. in the middle of October) was very cold. He was not happy with me when I would "accidentally" let the funnel overflow.

Now I think we will try the 12v pump method if pressurized water hose is not available.

Re: Best practices for the direct fill solution.

Reply #21 – May 26, 2017, 12:34:45 am

We use an old Shurflo 5.7 water pump, bypassing the electronics that have failed, to pump water when we use our 5 gallon pails. BTW, those popular, but problematic Shurflo 5.7 water pumps work just fine if the 12v is wired directly to the motor.

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