Before deciding which Adventure Pump fits your needs, you need to ask yourself the following question:
“How much additional containerised water can I safely and legally carry?”
If your answer is “I currently can’t safely or legally carry additional containerised water”, then you will need to work out how and if you can in fact carry additional water to help you Go Further, Stay Longer! (and save money).
To help you answer this question, we have used and can recommend the mobile caravan weighing specialists for all questions related to weights and the law when carrying additional water.
If the answer is “I can safely and legally carry additional containerised water” then the next step is to buy the appropriate type and quantity of containers and choose the right Adventure Pump for you.
Here’s how you do it…
The first step is to assessyour caravan plumbing set up, in particular, the drain line set up at the bottom of your water tanks if you have installed.
One inch drain line terminated with an ‘F Type’ camlock fitting = High Flow pump kit.
How you choose the best kit for you comes down to how the plumbing has been designed in your caravan or RV. If you have a caravan with a Jayco style tank drainage system featuring a one-inch (25mm) drain line terminated with an ‘F Type’ camlock fitting (see photo), then our ‘High-Flow Adventure Pump’ is the best option.
This is because our High-Flow pump kit comes fitted with a ‘B Type’ Camlock fitting that will connect straight onto your caravans ‘F Type’ Camlock allowing you to fill your tanks (as we did with our Jayco Journey Outback) via the drain line using the ‘bottom-up filling’ approach.
Note that the smaller half-inch (12mm) tank filling inlets above this connection is the usual ‘top-down approach’ to tank filling. Emptying a 20L water container into your caravan tank using the ‘bottom-up approach’ takes approximately one minute and five seconds. Now that’s fast!
If you don’t have the camlock fitting = Universal pump kit.
If you don’t have the Jayco one-inch drain-line set-up and you’re going to be filling the usual way i.e. using the ‘top-down’ method through the small tank filling inlets that are usually behind a plastic lockable door on your caravan, or for motorhomes via the large tank inlet secured by a lockable cap, then our Universal pump kit will get your water sorted.
It comes with our 18 litres per minute Adventure Pump which is fitted with a two-meter food-grade delivery hose and a ‘flow-control-capable’ filling adaptor and all fittings to connect.
Both kits also come with our rapid-filling water container kit for use at the other end of the water transfer process where you fill your containers to bring back to the caravan or RV. We use a larger diameter hose than is standard in caravanning to facilitate rapid filling to save you time at the water point.
Adventure Pump Fittings
Both our High-Flow and Universal pumps also come complete with the fittings required to attach your own potable water hose (these are usually 10 or 20 meters and ½ inch or 12mm internal diameter) to our pump discharge hose in case you want to leave containers fixed to the vehicle while pumping the water around to your on-board tanks.
Using our pump kits in this way can eliminate the lifting of heavy containers completely because you can fill them at the water point and empty them at the campsite without ever removing them from the vehicle.
Note that filling time is increased due to the longer hose required to reach your tanks using this method, but it will still be a matter of minutes.
Flow Control Capable Filling Adaptor (High Flow Kit Only)
The high-flow pump kit also comes complete with the ‘flow-control-capable’ filling adaptor so should you choose to transfer water from a vehicle or van/RV mounted container, you can fill your tanks using the usual ‘top-down method’ through the small half-inch (12mm) caravan tank filling inlets or lockable tank inlet in the case of many motorhomes.
The flow-control capable tank filling adaptor explained:
This customised adaptor features a blue plastic swivelling spigot with a flow control valve connected to the end of our pump discharge hose and your tank filling inlet.
The flow control valve is an important feature of this specialised adaptor because, with so many plumbing designs on caravans & RVs and the need to preserve water supply, especially in remote area travel situations, the flow control adaptor allows you to restrict water flow into your caravan/RV, avoiding any water splashback during filling.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please note that some motorhomes and caravans are fitted with USA-built tank flanges (Tank inlets) that have American NPT threads and gauze inserts so should you have this type of inlet our filling adaptor might not fit into your tank.
Always Test Your ‘Bottom Up’ (High-Flow Kit) Filling Method.
Due to the many and varied ways that caravan and motorhome plumbing is designed and installed should you choose to fill via a factory installed drain-line from your water tanks (as we did) then do a test transfer of water to check that only your water tank is filling, and water is not entering the van via the pump or other pipe networks.
The clever folks at Jayco have installed this drain system correctly on our own caravan and filling from the bottom up works perfectly well with no leakage whatsoever but we can’t speak for other brands. Simply test and be sure that it’s working fine before filling your tanks using this method.
Hi, I’m Alan. Founder of Adventure Pumps and creator of the original 12V water transfer and diesel transfer pump kit to help you Go Further, Stay Longer!TM
With a 20+ year career in the pump and irrigation industry, Adventure Pumps was created due to my family’s personal experiences and challenges living full-time on the road, travelling around Australia.
We knew that there was a better and faster way of managing our caravan water supply that required less effort and freed up more time to spend enjoying our trip.
The Adventure Pumps water transfer kits and accessories address the most important need on your trip – access to water and the ability to easily move it to where you need it.
So, whether you’re doing a full lap, or take regular shorter trips, you’ll be able to Go Further, Stay Longer!™ (and spend less) with Adventure Pumps.
Shop our products here, read up on our FAQs or be inspired on the Adventure Pumps travel journal.
