Like Tar Trekka says - be very careful using pressure to fill your tanks. If you are having problems using either TarTrekka or my type of short hose, then there is a problem with your tank venting setup. Double check (and I mean double check) the vent pipe outlet of the tank. As you can see from the photo on my previous post, the tube was pinched between the floor and the hand pump line. Also caravan manufacturers have a habit of running the vent tube back to the filler unit by looping it over chassis and other convient points under the van. This results in a series of 'U' loops which fill up with water which do not drain as the tank water is used. Air bubbles back past the water in these loops and when you try to fill, they act as small pressure valves. Thats why TarTrekka's mod works well. I made sure that there were no loops in the vent tube for my tank and had no further problem with filling the tank.

Cheers

Errol

We've had trouble filling tanks too.
Took a while to come up with the tank filler hose bit, why dont they tell you when you buy the vans?
but we still had water coming out the infill. The vents were ok, not blocked or kinked.
It was the infill hose. The caravan builder managed to create a U shape in the hose in the cubboard and the water/airlock was occuring there. We have put a very long hose down the filler tube to get around the goose neck (not easy) with hose attachments at filler end so can leave them in place.

Good Afternoon All,

I had an experience when filling the water tanks in my van.

The hose I was using was a 300mm length of 1/2" OD food grade water hose with a click on end fitting.

Normally I feed the hose down inside the filler neck, you can feel the hose's progress by its end bumping on the inside of the corrugated filler pipe.

This time I did not feel any resistance when inserting the 1/2" hose, I thought I must have got the correct alignment inside the corrugated pipe first time.

To my surprise when I connect the hose from the tap, water started flowing inside the van.

After I soaked up the water, I noticed the end cap on the filler that the corrugated hose was connected to had come away from the filler neck body.

Since I returned home I have glued the filler assy back together & modified my filler pipe by inserting a short length of 1/2" OD plastic pipe as shown in some of the earlier responses.

Regards,

Mike L

Same here Mike - sorry I didnt post it, it may have saved some anguish, hopefully your post will.

Regards
Ray

What I have done is I bought a screw on cap tank filler cap drilled hole in end fitted a brass threaded pipe through cap fitted nut both sides of cap fitted a garden snap on fitting then just snap on my hose it fills very quickly works for me cheers.

The reason for having trouble filling water tanks is simply for design or installation by the manufacturer. One way to confirm if it is the breather causing problems is to, with the assistance of a bit of tube blow down the breather pipe to blow out the water. This will need to be repeated at each fill.

Neil

Be careful when using pressure to fill your tank, I used a trigger nozzle pressed into the filler and blew out the bungs that are in the top of the tank from the injection moulding process. They are only a press fit.
Did not realize this until we went down the Birdsville track and ended up with mud instead of water due to the pumping action of the water.

The two tanks on our van came from the factory with both tanks connected together with a balance pipe. There was only one filler and the breathers were also teed together. There was only one level gauge - theory being that both tanks should be at the same level.

Did not like that at all! If you damage one tank or pop a hose underneath, the whole lot is gone! So, I completely separated the tanks, added a second filler as well as a second level sensor and some simple change over valves inside adjacent to the pump. Now, when one tank does run out, I know for sure that I have one tank left.

Strangely, our water now seems to last heaps longer and I suspect that before the mod, either one tank was not filling correctly if at all.

Cheers
Gerry

And me .Cheers Neil

I also had issues 3 X 80 ltr tanks and had trouble filling,dealer fitted a pressure filler ,that was fine but continued to run out of water on the rear tank where the pump was fitted,I then had to wait for the tanks to balance with 12mm feeder pipe,I have since replaced with 19mm pipe and so far ok.