Expanding our range to dry camping and figured we'd need to dump before our trip is over.  So we got a  rhino 28 gallon (slightly below the black tank capacity of the rpod, but our rationale was we'd dump when halfway full with some headroom in the receptacle so as not to overflow...versus getting the full size of the black tank, which is a lot to carry around) as it was highly rated and seemed to have all the accessories...and then took it out and noticed the height of the bottom lip of the intake hole of the tank in the resting position is right at the top of the top lip of the exit valve from the trailer...which is to say, gravity doesn't seem like it will be helpful here.

Am I missing something?  I guess I can put the trailer up on extra blocks when we park it so as to get height above the receptacle intake, but was wondering if other folks have used this tank and there's something I'm just not getting.  Or, I'm "SOL" haha and we should have bought a different unit.  So many things....sigh.... 

Even 3/4 full, trust me, it's a handful to drag around and lift in and out of the back of the pickup. I can't imagine attempting to handle one that was holding close to 30 gallons...wow.

We will have access to water from a fill station (which is another problem I need to post on separately...we bought a drill pump to be able to cart water over (fill up a carrier, bring it back and use the pump to get it into the fresh water tank) based on a recommendation elsewhere on this forum, only to find out the drill pump we bought expressly does not recommend use for potable water, so now we're wondering if we just use the water to wash dishes and bring separate bottled water to drink, or we skip the drill pump and find a big funnel...but I digress), and I guess maybe we are pretty generous with rinsing the toilet and doing dishes washing hands and taking showers, but we have found in full hookup camping that we do fill up the tanks after a few days.  (Notably, there is a LOT MORE HANDWASHING these days....sigh)  And we find attaching and moving the trailer and going through the exercise of backing it up and reparking it and releveling it and all the rest to be a giant project we really want to avoid (and one that continues to test our relationship, haha).  I'd rather just cart a tote trunk once on the trip to get us cleaned out.  

But...overall it looks like I just dropped $100+ on a useless and large piece of plastic.  :(  The only other thing I can think of is to bring an extra set of leveling blocks and put the trailer up a bit higher than usual.  Which will make getting in and out of it more annoying but maybe we can deal with that.

It wont take long to transfer 5 or 10 gallons that way. I've done it, and it works well. It's obvious that you need to charge up the battery now and then, but it will certainly work long enough to get you thru a week or two of camping, maybe longer, before requiring a recharge. 

I also should have mentioned that there is a regular dump station we could pull the trailer over to, but the "fill station" is basically a sink.  So no way to pull the trailer over and just use a hose to fill.  In fact now I'm worried the water carrier might not fit in the sink or on the counter.  But I think the water bandit plus the intake hose valve should get enough clearance to hold it off to the side if we need to.    

I think we're going to give a shot with what we have.  Put the trailer on blocks for the poop chute, and use the drill pump to get water into the fresh tank and only use for washing and showers.  Keep bottled water on the sink for cooking and drinking.  I'm guessing the warning about the drill pump may have something to do with petroleum, like lubrication on the drill or what's in the hose?  In which case putting it in the tanks for a couple days for non-potable usage, and then next time using city water should be enough to clean out whatever residual bits are around I would think.  

Bailiff, whack his peepee!

you don't necessarily need a drill pump to move water.  We use a 4.5 gallon water container and funnel to refill the fresh water tank.  When full, the 4.5 gallons of water weighs about 36# and easily handled by me as Laura holds the funnel in place. We use a short(6') drinking water hose, a filter and water bandit if necessary to refill the container while it sits on the ground.  We usually keep the container full and in the tow vehicle just in case the next campsite has no water or the water is bad.

Vann

Guess we are "ultra" simple with the KISS principle.  Easily go 10 days boondocking w/o worry of filled gray or black tank.  Yes, we do carry a pair of 5 gallon water containers with us but also use the FW tank for drinking . . . have done so for 10 years w/o any problems.  The amazing thing was that we went 5 years without sanitizing our FW tank - hey, I didn't know about doing that!  We were at a ERU and Furpod was telling us about yearly sanitizing FW tanks when I told him I had never done that.  He set me straight on that so now once a year in April we do that.  Guess our bodies have some good microbes in them.

We also use the water for consumption.  I sanitize it several times a year with bleach, followed by white vinegar and baking soda.  Takes about 30 minutes and all is clean.  Been doing this for over 10 years with no problems.

Generally, we will put 4-5 gallons in the tank from home when we start a trip.  this will get us where we are going and good for the first night if necessary.  We carry a full 5 gallon container in the truck for emergencies and also use it to refill the tank .  Once we get to the site, we will fill the tank from the local source.  30 gallons will last us for at least a week, usually longer. We try to be very conservative with water.  We usually catch most of the gray water in a 2 gallon tub that sits in the sink.  We put most of the gray water into the toilet as the black tank is usually the last to fill.

Vann