Question on Drop Down Floors

[Postal_Dave]

I'm exploring the idea of a drop down floor for my camper design.
So the question is:

How much ground clearance should I have? Axle height? A few inches more than axle height? What do you say?

I'm doing this to accommodate an inside shower. Now I'm wondering how big of a tank I'll need for gray water?
It seems every time I come up with an solution for a design problem, I come up with another problem.

Thanks,
Dave

[Big Dan]

need more info. what will the drop down be for 1the tank 2the shower 3 the grey water tank? are you only camping in campgrounds or will you go off road?

[terryjones1]

Postal_Dave stated: "I'm exploring the idea of a drop down floor for my camper design.
So the question is:
How much ground clearance should I have? Axle height? A few inches more than axle height? What do you say?
I'm doing this to accommodate an inside shower. Now I'm wondering how big of a tank I'll need for gray water?
It seems every time I come up with an solution for a design problem, I come up with another problem."

My Response: I am building my TTT Standy with a drop floor. My clearance at the drop floor is going to be 8". The axle spindle height on my trailer is approximately 4" above the bottom of the drop floor (my tire/wheel radius is approximately 12"). Your height depends on the size of your tire/wheel and the clearance that you want. I am using a Flexiride axle, which is adjustable. I can adjust the height of the spindle to give me close to my 8" clearance.
A lot of builders here do not install a grey water tank. They just use a portable one if necessary.

[Woodbutcher]

My drop floor has the same ground clearance as the axle does. I'm using a Harbour Freight trailer with 12" wheels.

[Postal_Dave]

Thanks guys for the help. I do want to put a shower inside so I want to have it as a gray water tank holder.

I'm now going to need to post another question. I have a 5 X 8 Northern Tool Trailer and I need to put a 9 X 6'8" frame on top of that. I want to make this as safe and sturdy as I can so that it will hold together at highway speeds. I'm hoping that I can get some people to post some picture of their over sized frames and tell me what they made them out of.

Thanks,
Dave

[doug hodder]

Like mentioned...I'd think I'd do a portable gray water tank on a trailer that size. Much easier to deal with in terms of dumping it when camping, (unless you have a big one) and in the mean time you aren't hauling around a whole lot of weight that is just weight....not usable weight, and you gotta find an RV dump for it. You can just wheel one of the portables to the toilet and dump it. Kinda depends on how you want to camp. Tiny RV showers always remind me of Ricky in the Long Long Trailer and just seem to be more headache than benefit. Just my opinion. Doug

Dave, It might be an idea to post it in the form of a Poll in the polls section and ask how many people have them, how often do they use it, would you build one with a shower again, do you catch the water ....ETC.

[fromeo]

Dave,

As a point of reference, the wife and I can go three nights with a 25 gallon grey tank before it's almost full. That's being quite comfortable with 6 ("navy") showers, a little bit of dishwashing, hand washing, tooth brushing, etc - not going crazy over every last drop, but not being wasteful either. If we were really extra careful with the water usage in the shower I think we could make it 5 nights.

Another point of reference, we can run indefinately if I dump a 6 gallon jerry can of water into the fresh tank daily. I do of course have to haul away the grey water every 3-4 days. I use a 30 gallon plastic drum for that job.

On the trailer we're building right now, I put in a 23 gallon grey tank with the goal of it supporting a couple for a 3 day weekend trip.

Hope this helps a little in your decision.

- Frank

[Postal_Dave]

Frank,
The gray water tank is going to be near the front of the trailer, so when it's full, it will be too much weight for the tongue weight of the trailer hitch. Is you tank removable? Also, do most camp sites offer a place to dump gray water?
Thanks,
Dave

[fromeo]

Frank,
The gray water tank is going to be near the front of the trailer, so when it's full, it will be too much weight for the tongue weight of the trailer hitch. Is you tank removable? Also, do most camp sites offer a place to dump gray water?
Thanks,
Dave

Dave,

My tanks are not removable. The floor plan in the build was worked up to allow for the grey water tank to be placed directly above the axle, see pic here:



On my 24' commercial trailer, the grey tank is also permanent and mounted just slightly aft of the axles. If I need to dump grey, I pump it into a 30 gallon plastic drum in the back of the pickup and drive over to the dump station to get rid of it. Another popular option for people is to use one of the portable tanks (like Doug mentioned) to tote the water from the camper to the dump station.

If your floor plan dictates the tank up front then a permanent mount tank is going to be a bit of a problem. I think your best bet would be to consider one of those portable tanks that you can slide under the trailer (again as mentioned prior) and connect via hose. Then if you need to dump grey you can pull it out and pull it to the dump station. The Barker line of totes is very popular and has a great reputation http://www.barkermfg.com/tanks.html

As far as places to dump grey water.. we frequent state parks mostly in NJ and PA. The parks we have been to all have dump stations somewhere near the camping loops. There are a few (but not many) that I have seen that do not have dump stations on site, there is usually a recommendation in the campground literature for a nearby place to dump.

This past summer we camped in some Ohio state parks. In addition to the normal dump station near the camp entrance, those parks had grey water dumps located in the middle of each camp loop - a nice feature I wish more places had.

If you are in a private "rv park" (not really my cup of tea), those places generally have at least some sites with "full hookups" meaning water, electric and sewer on site.

Watering the local bushes is subject to local regulations and has been prohibited in every campground I've personally been to. It is also the subject of many heated debates on RV forums.

- Frank