Dr. Cornwallis
Adventurer
Thanks Herbie. Is the ABS different than polyethylene?
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Onboard Water
- Thread starter Dr. Cornwallis
- Start date
This may be overkill for what you need, but I had a tank built by Adventure Trailers that fit perfectly in the front end of the bed of my Tundra. This was part of a significant storage buildout of the bed area. http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/136352-Custom-Tundra-Bed-Storage-Phase-1
Depending on where you place the tank, AT can build this to your exact specifications, putting fill, vent and flow holes where they will work best. I used spray-adhesive to attach 3/4" foam on the tank to reduce freezing risk.
On a related topic, having sailed high latitudes on small sailboats, very few, if any, serious offshore sailors have ever had success with flexible tanks. I don't know what goes into fighter jets or how the flexible tanks are secured, but nothing I have ever seen securely or safely holds large volumes of water in a flexible tank on a blue water boat. I would be extremely cautious about hauling more than a few gallons this way.
Depending on where you place the tank, AT can build this to your exact specifications, putting fill, vent and flow holes where they will work best. I used spray-adhesive to attach 3/4" foam on the tank to reduce freezing risk.
On a related topic, having sailed high latitudes on small sailboats, very few, if any, serious offshore sailors have ever had success with flexible tanks. I don't know what goes into fighter jets or how the flexible tanks are secured, but nothing I have ever seen securely or safely holds large volumes of water in a flexible tank on a blue water boat. I would be extremely cautious about hauling more than a few gallons this way.
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Herbie
Rendezvous Conspirator
It's a different material, sure, but I think it has a couple of advantages. Like food-grade PE, it won't impact flavor or odor to the water. Since it's opaque (and also due to the nature of the material), it's algae free also. The main difference on ABS vs. PE tanks will be in the construction method. The Valterra tanks are extruded to standardized sizes (Fixed Width/Height and then they have a variety of lengths). PE tanks are sold standard-sized, but also custom shaped. The custom shapes can be handy for maximizing volume of water in a volume of space, but are MUCH more expensive.
Dr. Cornwallis
Adventurer
I like this idea too as i could make the tank the EXACT dimensions I want. How much did your tank set you back?
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I understand you want it easily removable and don't want dual batts but here is mine. 2 gallon jugs behind seat and 7 gallon tank with shower in bed. I added a fuse block next to the tank and ran the power through a cable clam from the engine bay tapped off of my aux fuse block.
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The tank was expensive, but this is one of many examples of getting what you pay for.
The tank holds 38 gallons. It had two internal baffles (highly recommended on larger tanks) and different size threaded ports for water level gauge, vent, fill, cleaning and two exit ports. Since it was a one-off I did not get the cost benefit of a mass-produced tank. I got the benefit, however, of a hand built, custom perfect fit. It is made out of FDA approved material, adds no taste to the water, is black to avoid algae issues and very strong. The tank only takes 7" of bed space (it is 7" thick) and sits pretty much in the middle of the truck at the front of the bed to put the weight in the right place.
We like to travel to remote location for several weeks at a time so having a big tank was a requirement (not to mention that my wife is more easily convinced to do 2+ week trips when adequate showers are part of the package!) . We also really like to take the well water from our home outside Bend. It is from a 700 foot deep well and is fabulously pure. On shorter trips we just take what water we need to save weight. I have both an electric pump and gravity flow values plumbed to the rear of the bed.
Having said all this, the custom tank was about $750. This means that having a lot of water has to be a BIG priority.
