Bob52 Posted August 20, 2015 Report Share Posted August 20, 2015 My Truck Camper water tank is a 40 gallon and wondering what weight would this tank be? I also have a black and gray water tanks which is 30 gallons each, My camper weighes 2700 pounds dry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest THE TRAILERKING Posted August 20, 2015 Report Share Posted August 20, 2015 8.35 lbs per gallon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob52 Posted August 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2015 At 8.35 pounds per gallon my 40 gallon water tank would be 334 pounds. Then a dually would make a good truck to haul my camper with the water and other stuff I need to haul like plastic boxes that weigh 50 pounds or more each. I have five of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whatsnext Posted August 20, 2015 Report Share Posted August 20, 2015 You need to be a little more specific. Are you asking what the weight of 40 gallons of water? Or are you asking what the weight of your 40 gallon water tank is? It will render a different answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob52 Posted August 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2015 Water only. My water tank is plastic which shouldn't weigh much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk W Posted August 21, 2015 Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 Keep in mind that full waste tanks will weigh almost as much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rif Posted August 21, 2015 Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 For estimating purposes, the old saying "A pint's a pound, the world around" is close enough and easy to remember. This is another reason we should be on the metric system like the rest of the world. One liter of water weighs one kilogram. Nothing easier to remember than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docj Posted August 21, 2015 Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 Water only. My water tank is plastic which shouldn't weigh much. A typical 100 gal plastic fresh water tank weighs ~75 lbs. That's not "nothing" http://www.plastic-mart.com/product/11012/trionic-100gallon-rv-water-tank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob52 Posted August 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 My water tank is a 40 gallon and black tank is 30 gallons and gray tank is 30 gallon tank. That's why the past owner had all the tanks empty when he had the camper on the truck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RV_ Posted August 21, 2015 Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 Dry weight includes the weight of the empty tanks guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk W Posted August 21, 2015 Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 That's why the past owner had all the tanks empty when he had the camper on the truck. Which can work if you always stay in RV parks with full hookups. It is really no problem to always empty the gray water tank before travel but the black tank should be at least 1/3 to 1/2 full before you empty it in order to get the rush of fluid that will carry out anything not yet liquid. You can put water into the black tank in order to get it to that level, if needed. While traveling with less than a full fresh water tank is rather common, as there is really no need to buy fuel to haul water that you don't need, most of us do keep enough water in that tank to have an emergency supply if we should need it or even to spend a night in an emergency. With your tank, I would probably keep about 10 - 15 gallons in the tank while traveling and probably not empty the black tank more than every third or fourth day. If the 2700# that you are using is either a factory spec. weight or one from a scale, that should include all things except those which you will be adding to the RV such as food, water, clothing and personal items. It would be a good idea to get an actual weight to use at a truck scale because then you would be able to consider the GVWR of your truck against your starting weight in loading the RV. Once prepared for travel you then need to weigh it again. Also, pay attention to weight distribution as you load your things into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sehc Posted August 21, 2015 Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 hot water weighs less than cold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pappy Yokum Posted August 21, 2015 Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 For estimating purposes, the old saying "A pint's a pound, the world around" is close enough and easy to remember. This is another reason we should be on the metric system like the rest of the world. One liter of water weighs one kilogram. Nothing easier to remember than that. "A pint's a pound.....etc." Hmmmmmm..... is - "Black and White makes a light and green is ground the world around" - close enough?.. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tex Bigfoot Posted August 22, 2015 Report Share Posted August 22, 2015 Sir Kirk has covered most of this in his post and he his dead on for real world advice. To simply answer your question the wt. of water is 8.34 lbs. / gallon 40 gal X 8.34 = 333.6 or 334 lbs. rounded 30 gal X 8.34 = 250.2 or 250 lbs. rounded X 2 =500 lbs. total wt. of full tanks is 834 lbs. You will need to work the weight out so that with all your stuff and any water that you need to carry is not an overload on your truck . Setting in the campground does not count only when you pull out onto the road will you need to worry about weight. Also don't forget you can manipulate the axle weight somewhat by moving things forward or backward within the camper so that more or less weight is on the front or rear axle . Now a suggestion load your camper the way you would like to travel . Dive to a truck scale ( most good truck stops will have one )and weigh the front and rear. Then you will be able to play around with how much water and where things are at in the camper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sushidog Posted August 22, 2015 Report Share Posted August 22, 2015 I can't envision a scenario where one would need to have both waste and fresh tanks full. The most water weight would be if both 30 gallon waste tanks were completely full or 500 lbs. Chip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce t Posted August 22, 2015 Report Share Posted August 22, 2015 Just as an aside. One common mistake often made is to empty your black before you leave camp. If you know you are going to somewhere with a dump point then let the black stuff slosh around while you are on the road. Dump it as soon as you arrive. Solves many problems for folks who find they are having 'back up' problems. regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chirakawa Posted August 22, 2015 Report Share Posted August 22, 2015 Depending on the quality of the RV, some waste tanks are so poorly secured that the worst thing you can do is go down the road with product sloshing around inside them. Twenty gallons of liquid sloshing around puts a lot of stress on a plastic tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skp51443 Posted August 22, 2015 Report Share Posted August 22, 2015 We ended up with full holding and fresh tanks a couple times, not something we really wanted to do from a weight standpoint. We weren't so worried about the RV weight though, more that the holding tanks are fairly flimsy construction and the supports aren't so great either. Anyway, the reason was that we could fill up with good water where we were camped but they had no dump. The dump we were going to use was along our route and either had iffy water or no water and there was no water available at our destination. Our preferred travel mode was full fresh and empty holding tanks so we could stop anywhere and boondock for a couple weeks but we planned the rig to be safe with a full load. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarolfromTX Posted August 26, 2015 Report Share Posted August 26, 2015 I always use the mnemonic phrase "a pint's a pound the world around" to remember how much water weighs, but then I'm a retired school marm. That has a double meaning, by the way. Think beer in a British pub. Yes, it's approximate regarding the weight of water, but it's easy to remember. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sushidog Posted September 3, 2015 Report Share Posted September 3, 2015 hot water weighs less than cold. Yes. It (an everything else) also weighs less if you travel to higher altitudes. A 10,000 lb. trailer will lose about 1lb of weight for each 1,000 ft in altitude - a hardly significant, yet still measurable amount. Chip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXiceman Posted September 3, 2015 Report Share Posted September 3, 2015 I have always use 8.33 lb/ gallon. But if you want more accuracy, you can use: 8.328676 lb/gal at 70 degF. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barbaraok Posted September 3, 2015 Report Share Posted September 3, 2015 hot water weighs less than cold. No. The weight of a given mass of water is the same no matter what the temperature is. Weight = mass x gravity. You are talking about density and hydrogen bonding and you will find that the density is the greatest at 4C for liquid water. Obviously density is even less when water becomes a solid - which is why ice floats. A And yes, the 'weight' of water differs when one is looking at altitude because weight is a measure of the pull of gravity on a given mass. Barb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sushidog Posted September 4, 2015 Report Share Posted September 4, 2015 Here is a link of a chart showing water density by temp. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-density-specific-weight-d_595.html As seen on the chart, cold water at 40 degrees F weighs 8.3451 lbs/gal. For 180 degree water (say the 6-10 gallons in your water heater) it will only weigh 8.0969 lbs/gallon. This means that 10 gallon water heater filled with very hot water will weigh about a pound less than with very cold water. Chip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest THE TRAILERKING Posted September 4, 2015 Report Share Posted September 4, 2015 WOW................Way to much science..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dons118 Posted September 4, 2015 Report Share Posted September 4, 2015 Sounds like people have a lot of time on their hands Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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