power fill fresh water tank.

[Pressure_welder]

Hey guys, cant seem to find this anywhere in the manual, and the placard on the water center dosent explain much either.

Getting ready for our annual 1 month trip to the lake, and this will be the first time with our 2018 305RL which dosent have a gravity fill port. we are able to fill the fresh water/hot water tank before we head up, but the rest of the time we haul 6 - 5.5 gallon jugs roughly every 3-5 days depending on useage and fill that way, which we've done for years. I think my salesmen was mis-informed or we had a miscommunication when I asked about filling the fresh water tank via the city water connection.

Not sure if this is true or not? but he said I could hook up the provided hose to the city water connection, put the one end in my water jug, and then flip the valve from "normal flow" to " fill " and with the pump on it would suck the contents from the jug into the fresh water tank? ive tried this and definatly does not work unless I am doing something wrong. Ive tried the winterize system, with the "fill" option selected and still nothing, it dose suck... not very well, and incredibly slowly but it seems like it will prime the whole system and ONLY suck out of that jug not into the fresh water tank.

Short of filling via the fresh water tank vent which seems stupid to me I may have to revert back to the idea of putting in another diaphragm pump beside the water center, hook it up to the city water fitting, put the other end in the jug and fill water tank this way.

Some days I miss the simplicity of our 2013 Laredo with the simple old gravity fill ! I could have all 6 jugs poured out in about 5 minutes.

am I missing something fellow montana owners?!

[kc8lvy]

I have heard of people doing it with there built in pump but I bought a small $30 12 volt water pump from Harbor Freight and a couple of small hoses. One going into the fresh water fill and the other to go from fresh water cans. It fills it fast. I use the RV battery for power or my jump pack.

[team bradfield]

there is a fresh water tank vent in the rear of your unit, it has a flat cap over it, you can remove the cap and screen and pour, i bought a flexible funnel with a narrow outlet, it works well.

i tried the winterize valve method and i could not get it to work. if dumping the 6 gallon gets to be a PITA i will as kc8ivy just mentioned and use a 12 volt pump.

[kc8lvy]

Here is a similar pump that I bought. You can catch them on sale for about $30 or look on Amazon or similar places and I am sure you will find one.
When done I put a very small amount of Olive oil or something similar in the pump to keep it lubricated. I always pump out about a gallon of water on the ground before i use it the next time.

https://www.harborfreight.com/12-vol...ump-63324.html

[Pressure_welder]

Excellent thanks for the info fellas. I think I will stop by and grab a pump tomorrow. Kind of aggravating but I guess it will make getting water an easier chore. I think I'll wire it directly to the battery with a simple switch and maybe a battery disconnect for safety.

[dieselguy]

Hook your hose from the outside shower to your fresh water inlet. Open the cold water valve on the outside shower. Set fresh water inlet to gravity fill. Stick the supplied hose from your winterizing port in one of your fresh water jugs and set those valves to winterize. Turn on your onboard pump ... it will suck water out of your jugs and pump it into the fresh water tank.

[Carl n Susan]

I gave up on lifting jugs a long time ago. I use a 40 gallon bladder and the HF pump mentioned previously. It is the only way to go IMHO.

But if you really want to use jugs, here are the steps to get it done. This was posted by Starmaster a while ago Original Post (Post #9). Do a Search for "filling fresh water tank" to uncover more discussions on this topic.

================ Starmaster's Post ===================
Here's another option to put water in your fresh water tank when boondocking. This works but is a little slow, I can fill about 3 gals/minute doing this: (at least for our 3160 setup)

Connect water container with short hose to winterizing input
Flip winterizing valve to winterize
Connect outside shower hose to city water input
Flip city water valve to fill tank
Turn on water pump
Turn on cold water at outside shower
Pump until container is empty
Repeat as needed
disconnect all hoses
return all valves to normal position

If you put a bleach solution in the water container, this method can also be used to pump bleach/disinfectant into the fresh water tank.

[Pressure_welder]

It would be my opinion that maybe it would be stressful on the onboard pump to constantly run while pumping out a relatively consistent 50 gallons of fresh water at 3gpm by doing it via hooking shower hose upto city water and using the provides hose for winterizijt system ? I am definatly leaning towards buying a separate 12v pump rated at say 5gpm.

[dieselguy]

Like many of us, if you seldom have need to add water via the onboard setup that's been described ... no worries ... the onboard pump handles it in stride. I just wanted to point this option out as you don't spend any money and you don't have something else to drag around that's used twice a year. If for some odd reason your RV lifestyle requires frequently pumping 40 - 50 gallons of water into your fresh water tank every few days ... I'd go with an external pump as well.

[Mel B.]

I've had a 40 gallon plastic food grade barrel for many years, It is easy to tie in the front corner of my long bed pickup, with 5th wheel attached it's no problem. A short bed may not work. But mine has threaded caps on top that with a few pipe bushings my harbor frieght pump is screwed on the top with a 3/4" pvc pipe runs from pump to bottom of the barrel. When we boondock I never take the barrel out of my truck. Anytime it gets low, I simply pull in anywhere with water and fill it up.