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Water Tanks Water Tank Level Meter
- Thread starter BobB
- Start date
It came out a few months after we got our trailer, so we don't have it. I wonder if it's an easy retrofit? Betsey - can you ask Craig about that? I figure it must either use a sensor in each tank, or if it has some way of measuring water usage to deduct what is in the tanks. I'm interested to know more about this too.
I asked Craig about a retrofit & here is his response:
"The sensors in the tank are the easy part. It requires dropping one of the tanks and the receiver hitch, (if you have it). You would drill holes in the tanks for each sensor, then thread them in. You then have to route wires up to the control board.
"The problem is where to put the control board. We had to rearrange the electric outlets in the kitchen cabinets in order to accommodate it. The control panel is about the same size as the AC outlet cover.
"As far as retrofitting a "standard" kitchen cabinet, if your teardrop was built prior to January 2010, there isn't room for it on the cabinet face. We would have to make a box for it up on top of the right cabinet somewhere. If you have a "standard" kitchen cabinet on a teardrop built after 2010, the control box could be retrofitted onto the cabinet face.
"Evan, with all the goodies we added to your kitchen cabinet, I'm not sure where we would have put it."
Craig said if you are serious about a retrofit, let him or me know. He will think about it and see if he can come up with a reasonable solution. He did say installing a retrofit would probably take him a couple of hours (at the shop with the kit already made up), so it would most likely be longer for someone else to install.
In answer to the question of whether or not it is worth it, we have lived without one for 10 years...of course, both of our teardrops having been the prototype (#0) & #3, we have lived without a lot of the updates, including on board fresh & gray water tanks for the sink (which, as of last summer, we now have. ) However, if we had the tank level meter option, I wouldn't have unknowingly overflowed our gray water tank at our Camp-Inn Camp-Outt last fall. We had just returned from another trip & I had topped off the fresh water before I left home, planning on emptying the gray water once I got to the campground. But I forgot, so it didn't occur to me (in all of the craziness of the weekend) that I had a full tank of fresh water and a half tank of gray water until quite a bit of gray water had drained out of the overflow. A bit embarrassing, I must admit. :blush: I do think it would be nice to know the fresh water level and not having to guess how much we have left or forgetting to top it off and then run out (which has also happened.
So, there's the very long answer to a very short question...be careful what you ask!
Betsey
"The sensors in the tank are the easy part. It requires dropping one of the tanks and the receiver hitch, (if you have it). You would drill holes in the tanks for each sensor, then thread them in. You then have to route wires up to the control board.
"The problem is where to put the control board. We had to rearrange the electric outlets in the kitchen cabinets in order to accommodate it. The control panel is about the same size as the AC outlet cover.
"As far as retrofitting a "standard" kitchen cabinet, if your teardrop was built prior to January 2010, there isn't room for it on the cabinet face. We would have to make a box for it up on top of the right cabinet somewhere. If you have a "standard" kitchen cabinet on a teardrop built after 2010, the control box could be retrofitted onto the cabinet face.
"Evan, with all the goodies we added to your kitchen cabinet, I'm not sure where we would have put it."
Craig said if you are serious about a retrofit, let him or me know. He will think about it and see if he can come up with a reasonable solution. He did say installing a retrofit would probably take him a couple of hours (at the shop with the kit already made up), so it would most likely be longer for someone else to install.
In answer to the question of whether or not it is worth it, we have lived without one for 10 years...of course, both of our teardrops having been the prototype (#0) & #3, we have lived without a lot of the updates, including on board fresh & gray water tanks for the sink (which, as of last summer, we now have.
) However, if we had the tank level meter option, I wouldn't have unknowingly overflowed our gray water tank at our Camp-Inn Camp-Outt last fall. We had just returned from another trip & I had topped off the fresh water before I left home, planning on emptying the gray water once I got to the campground. But I forgot, so it didn't occur to me (in all of the craziness of the weekend) that I had a full tank of fresh water and a half tank of gray water until quite a bit of gray water had drained out of the overflow. A bit embarrassing, I must admit. :blush: I do think it would be nice to know the fresh water level and not having to guess how much we have left or forgetting to top it off and then run out (which has also happened. So, there's the very long answer to a very short question...be careful what you ask!
Betsey
"Evan, with all the goodies we added to your kitchen cabinet, I'm not sure where we would have put it."
I was afraid Craig would say that! - haha
I think we will probably live without it - at least until we have a huge catastrophe. Of course, thanks to the tip we got from either Craig or Cary (can't remember), we never have to worry about the gray water tank (not sure if it's kosher to post that tip publicly).
If we were buying new again, I would certainly get it though - can't help myself, just have to add everything...
Thanks for the post Betsey & Craig - this is what you call customer service (and off hours!).
Evan
BobB
Novice
Thanks Betsey and Evan,
So in the end we opted not to get the meter. Two big factors in the decision: the tip that Evan eluded to(I believe I'm thinking of the same tip)and also the knowledge that running out of fresh water will not harm the water pump (unline the water pump we used to have in our coleman pop-up). So that's one of the few options we didn't get.
-Bob
So in the end we opted not to get the meter. Two big factors in the decision: the tip that Evan eluded to(I believe I'm thinking of the same tip)and also the knowledge that running out of fresh water will not harm the water pump (unline the water pump we used to have in our coleman pop-up). So that's one of the few options we didn't get.
-Bob