filling water tanks

[forestwalker]

Do any of you fill your water tank using a pump while dry camping ? Are 12 volt water pumps available ? Who sells them ? How much do they weigh ? Are they a strong drain on batteries ? Does anyone have pictures of their "system" set up,at work ?

[Diplomat]

I did a mod very similar to leafpeepers, it allows you to draw water from a water container as if it is from the water tank.  For a Coleman/Fleetwood you will need to use 3/8" pex tubing.  The 1/2" is too big for the pump to draw water from efficiently.  The nice thing about this system is that there is no lifting involved, I just leave the water container on the ground with the siphon hose running from the valve to the water container.

[MtnCamper]

I took the old pump from my camper and mounted it onto a wagon, that DW pulls with her electric scooter, It works just as it did in the camper. Except it's powered by her scooter now. There are some pictures of it on my website.
 
Also I have used a Bilge pump similar to one of these. They work well, moves a lot of water, with little effort. 6 strokes to a gallon, Just keep a plastic bag over the end of it, and it stores in the camper.

Hand Bilge Pump

[oldmoose]

I guess I'm different. I have a 5 gallon container with a threaded opening that allows a hose to be put in the middle. I'll have to take a picture of it. I fill the container, screw on the cap and lift and pour with the hose in the fill opening. After an short period, it's empty and we do it again as needed. I figured we use about 5 gallons pershower, so I have my extra containers ready to refill the tank.
Moose

[mike4947]

We've been using a bilge pump for about 20 years to refill the fresh water tank. An electric pump runs about 3-4 gpm so the full tank seems to take forever. Along with a fold up luggage cart to haul the cans and the bilge pump I have a no effort system that takes about 6 minutes to fill the entire tank. Did I mention no lifting.

[Old Goat]

I use the same system as Oldmoose when dry camping.... I have a six gal. plastic container for extra water that has a removable long spout. It takes about a minute to empty it into the popups tank and it is easy to refill at a fresh water source.........

Old Goat

Camping since 1940

[tlhdoc]

I use 6 gallon water totes to refill my water tank.  If we are only going for a weekend we don't need to refill the tank.  If we go on longer trips I fill the totes and then when we have filled a grey water tote, I know it is time to pour fresh water into the holding tank.