Water tank full part full or empty

I was wondering how much fresh water you travel with in your van in the on board tank

Varies depending on how much payload I have. As we carry a mobility scooter sometimes which Weighs about the same as a full tank of water.

Always brim full leaving either home or a site, or indeed any source of fresh water.
Always drained fully on arrival home
Rarely use sites.

Any one of several of those choices depending on circumstances.

For the first leg out or back: always empty, unless it's a short distance. I carry 4 or 5 litres inside the van for stops en route, and fill the tank at the first campsite.

Once I'm away:

If travelling between commercial campsites where access to water will be easy, typically half full (or whatever happens to be in it).

If travelling to or between wild stops, I'll fill the tank.

I should add though that I only fill the tank because it's small on this van (~35L). If I had a typical 60L tank, I would never bother to fill it more than half full, as I simply don't use that much water!

I don’t think a full tank on our Rienza makes a lot of difference to our payload. Being typical Autosleeper the tanks aren’t as big as I would like.
Getting to our stop over might not always be a site so it’s easier to run with the tanks full. On the odd occasion we have not filled the tank coming straight home just leaving enough for a brew on route. 
We needed water in the tank with our Duetto for toilet flushing so it was easier to keep the tank full when we were away.

I voted full, but as my tank holds 140 litres, I would only fill between a quarter and half at a weekend early or late in the season. Long trips full and top up as season goes on.
I am with modelman on this.

Davy

Once again those poll results are interesting. Most run full. I thought most would run empty. You live and learn

67Kg in my case. Weighed weight full, ready to go, 3 week trip 3020Kg (3200 max in my case).
Water weight then 2.2% of total.
No effect on performance, no effect on fuel consumption, as long as it doesn't tip onto overweight, in which case you have very low or already used payload, then see no practical reason not to travel full.
Also, we rarely use sites, and even if we did, no guarantee you'd get in for lots of reasons......but then still, at least have water.
In that 3020Kg, btw that includes 7 x 2 ltr bottles of drinking water!! (14Kg!)

We don't wild camp e.g. stay overnight in carparks, lay-bys or the side of the road and when travelling we keep our rear axle mass as low as we can and always within its legal limit noting that we often have bikes on the back.  We start and finish all our trips at home with completely empty tanks including the hot water tank.  On arrival at our first site we fill the fresh water tank with sufficient water for our stay, which may be a full tank, and then we fill the hot water tank.  If we take the van off-site for the day, which we don't do very often, or travel to another site, there shouldn't be much water left in the fresh water tank.  If there is, we drain most of it out.  If there is a risk of freezing we drain all of it out.  We drain all of the grey water and empty the toilette cassette.  We only drain the hot water tank if we are on our way home.  If the fresh water tank is empty and we need water en-route e.g. for a brew, we carry it in a small container in the van.

As the last few posts illustrate, the answer really depends on how we use our vans.
I'm the opposite of Caraman and use my van much as IanH does, not often using sites.
Due to rarely booking anything in advance, therefore having little idea where we'll spend the following night, we never leave home without a full tank, and take any convenient opportunity en route to keep it that way.
Al.

It depends on where we are going, for how long and what time of year.
During the winter months as it is normally only a one or two night trip then normally nothing in the tank, just bottled water inside.
For the rest of the year, again depending on trip duration then half to full plus bottled drinking water.
As most of our trips are brief then we rarely fill on site.....having seen some rather dubious tap practices (think refilling toilet cassette!) on some sites we try to avoid that. Having said that we would hope that the well organised and monitored sites don't have that problem.

I always travel with my fresh water tank empty.
Can't see the point in carrying extra weight.
I use Pre booked sites....So can fill up upon arrival

Wrong end of stick

SENTINEL wrote:It depends on where we are going, for how long and what time of year.
During the winter months as it is normally only a one or two night trip then normally nothing in the tank, just bottled water inside.
For the rest of the year, again depending on trip duration then half to full plus bottled drinking water.
As most of our trips are brief then we rarely fill on site.....having seen some rather dubious tap practices (think refilling toilet cassette!) on some sites we try to avoid that. Having said that we would hope that the well organised and monitored sites don't have that problem.

Always best to carry and use your own hose pipe