Water Siphon through Winterize Port

[NH_Bulldog]

Fair enough!

I am no spring chicken, but hauling and hoisting that 6 gallon jug is still doable for me (plus, my gravity fill port is 30 ft from my wet bay) and is located in an otherwise obstruction free area on the rear wall of my camper.

 

[essarebee]

Yes, there are lots of factors going into the hows and whys of what we all do! My exterior wet compartment is tiny, and it's almost impossible to hold a jug in place. Then, there isn't room above the jug to raise it up to empty it. I did try a few makeshift funnels that were long and could make a 90 degree turn.

 

[JOontheGO]

Just picked up my 2025 Keystone Cougar 28BHS yesterday. Came from a Jayfeather 24BHS. I spent most of my day today trying to understand the differences in systems and I'm feeling stuck on the fresh water situation. Once I realized there wasn't a traditional gravity fed port, I quickly started trying to figure out how I could get water into the system from a jerry can for the longer trips where there isn't a water hookup (most state parks in Michigan).

I've found a thread discussing an idea of using the siphon and then pushing water through the shower port into the city water port. While the logic seems solid, it doesn't look like anyone actually tested that.

I kept digging and realized the panel behind the water service station is a door so I opened it up and snapped a couple of pictures of the plumbing. To me it appears that if the Winterize port is attached to a hose going into a jerry can, and the winterize valve is set to ON. The pump will pressurize that fluid onto the main water branch. From the main water branch, the Tank Fill valve can be set to Tank Fill. When looking at the plumbing from the back, it appears this would dump water into the fresh tank.

Thoughts?

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I have a 2019 Fuzion 419 and I can confirm that while winterizing one year I had left my fresh water tank dump open and the valve on the wet panel set to tank fill and antifreeze was pumped from the jug through the winterize port and was coming out of the dump for the fresh water tank so your theory will work, however I would be worried about running that pump constantly long enough to put a large amount of water into the tank. To me it's not made to run for that long of a period of time, even during a shower you are usually not running it constantly for a long period of time.

I had a buddy who had a small fresh tank in his camper and would constantly run out of water on long weekends. He found a small pump on Amazon he could connect to his cordless drill and it would transfer 25 gallons from a soft bladder in about 4-5 minutes and required no external wiring.

Amazon.com

 

[Blackrock]

I have a 60+ gallon tank (Rocky Mountain Plastics) that I have in the back of my truck which when full I run a water hose from this tank to the winterize port which drafts water directly into the trailers water system. I have not used it to try to fill the onboard fresh water tank. I can also draft water from Those large square totes.

 

[scarbouc]

This might not help anyone, and is somewhat off-topic, but I want to post what I do. I have an outdoor shower hose adjacent to the gravity fill port. I set my valve to "winterize" to draw water (suction) from a container on the outside of the RV (I permanently ran a length of hose from the winterizing valve on the inside to the exterior). I place the shower hose into the gravity feed port and pump away to fill my fresh water tank. It's very easy for me.

I have a 2025 Cougar with the same setup as OP and was thinking along the same line as @essarebee but with our setup for 2025 I could plug the shower to the city fill port. (For some reason Keystone doesn't give you a showerhead but a hose fitting on a coiled hose). I was going to put one switch on winterize and one switch on fill. It seems logical I could draw water from a bladder into the water system and out through the shower ... which I recall is a short path since I think the plumbing path is direct. I will let y'all know how it goes. I do share concerns of wear and tear on the pump pulling 30 gallons (the size of my bladder) so I will also need to check if there are limitations on pump use also.

 

[scarbouc]

Does anyone have a diagram that explains this water panel? My head hurts trying to follow, but it looks like my idea won't work since when I'm in winterize mode it cuts off the water supply and only draws water from the winterize port ... Duh. But I think that also cuts off the path of water going in the city water port to fast fill the tank

I guess I just need to test my theory over 4th of July

 

[scarbouc]

I confirmed this works. I used a bucket filled with water. Hose in bucket connected to winterization port. Shower hose connected to city fill (my shower hose has a normal hose connector). Shower on cold. Switches set to winterize on and power fill on fill. With the pump on and fresh water tank valve open ...water flowed out of the tank indicating the tank was being filled

Bottom line...I can use this method to fill my fresh water tank from a bladder or bucket easily