Refilling our fresh tank with a water bladder and pump

We usually stay at full-hookup campgrounds, as we enjoy our creature comforts. But occasionally we stay at more rustic campgrounds or rallies where there isn’t a water faucet in our site. If a week or less, we just avoid doing laundry, long showers, and using our rear toilet (as that is a macerating one that uses more water on each flush), and can cope without difficulties.

But if we’re staying longer, we have the ability to refill our fresh water tank via a water bladder and pump.

I bought an Aquatank II water bladder from Amazon, a drinking-water-safe flexible water container with a 60 gallon capacity. It folds up really small for when we don’t need it, and fits in the bed of our truck when in use.

Our fresh tank is 90 gallons, so it takes two loads if totally empty, though I usually do one load when it’s about halfway.

Here it is empty, spread out in the bed of our truck. It has an upper hose fitting for adding water, and a lower hose fitting underneath for draining:

Water bladder

I drive the truck to the potable water supply at the campground, and use a hose to connect it to the water bladder:

Hose from potable water supply

I use a water meter to track how much I’ve added:

Water meter

The water bladder mostly full:

Mostly full water bladder

50 gallons:

Water bladder

I then drive back to our campsite, and use an electric pump to get the water into our coach, via the usual filters and water softener as I use for campsite hookups:

Pump

(I also got a drill pump as an emergency backup.)

The electric pump is about 16 PSI:

Gauges

The water bladder during draining:

Water bladder

It takes about an hour to do the full fill and empty cycle, depending on the water pressure at the campground. Definitely not as convenient as a faucet at our site, but when we don’t have one, this solution lets us stay longer without having to worry as much about water usage.