Posted 2005-07-29 11:59 AM (#28687) Subject: Newbie here-Living Quarters questions???
Member
Posts: 12
Location: SE Indiana
WE have a Silver Star Starlite 3h with LQ. I'm fairly new to using the amenities of the living quarters. We have a shower with sink and toilet and when we go camping, we are running out of fresh water rather quickly. It goes empty after about 3 quick showers, normal water for brushing teeth in morning/night and normal toilet use. How can you conserve the fresh water tank from running out. Also, we have a Harmar interior. The monitor for the gray,fresh,black water tank levels are always WRONG. Meaning that when fresh water is full, the monitor shows it being empty and holding tank being 3/4 full when its empty! Can anyone help me out???
Posted 2005-07-29 1:19 PM (#28692 - in reply to #28687) Subject: RE: Newbie here-Living Quarters questions???
Member
Posts: 37 Location: Casco,Michigan
You don't say what size fresh water tank you have---mine is a 42 gallon. You say 3 "normal" showers and "normal" toilet use--what is normal ?? When living out of a trailer--learn three words--conserve,conserve,and conserve !!! Don't leave the water running when brushing teeth--wet down in the shower, turn the water off or down to a trickle while lathering up--turn the water back on and rinse !!! No singing in the shower or thinking about what the day will bring---or it will bring an empty holding tank quickly !!!! You will learn to conserve water. I can go 6 or 7 days on my supply--if careful. I carry extra water for drinking or coffee making. In regards to your monitor panel---sounds like some sensors are bad. Be aware--use only R.V. type toilet paper in your trailer--regular stuff can clog around the sensors in your tanks and give false readings also. Hope this helps, Zane.
Posted 2005-07-29 4:37 PM (#28700 - in reply to #28687) Subject: RE: Newbie here-Living Quarters questions???
Elite Veteran
Posts: 736 Location: Western WA
Like the previous poster said, it really depends on the size of your freshwater tank. We lived in a 5th wheel over a year and a half while building a house, 3 months of which we had no power or water hookup, so relied on solar panels and a generator, and hauled water. We have an 80 gallon freshwater tank on the 5th wheel, and we hauled 50 gallons every 2-3 days. Now, we were doing laundry as well, but only I was using the sink and toilet during the day as I work from home and my husband was away. We both tried to time our workouts so we showered at the gym rather than in the 5th wheel.
Good advice from the previous poster, showers must be an absolute minimum time, and definitely use the feature that allows you to turn the water off while you are lathering up and shampooing. I am guessing even at that, showers use 6-8 gallons of water, as we had a 6 gallon hot water heater and I never had a shower where I didn't run out of hot water. So if you have a smaller freshwater tank, 30-40 gallons, you could use half your water in three showers.
We used bottled water for all cooking, drinking, and toothbrushing too, to conserve the holding tank water for showers and toilet.
You might do what we did in hauling water. At Home Depot you can buy those 10 gallon water jugs you use for water coolers. Buy several full, and just keep reusing them. We ended up with 7-8 or so. Fill them up with water from home, put them in the back of your pickup or horse trailer, and when you get low on water use a really big funnel and just fill up your freshwater tank again.
FWIW, the tank gauge in our 5th wheel never worked right either. If you bought a new trailer it should be under warranty.
Newbie here-Living Quarters questions???
