Thread: water tank breather

Looking at my water tank breather on my trailer (a hole!) and found below on from peter on 4wd action I put some sponge and a tin can over my tank as a interim solution. Water still came out and lots of dust got in. Running line back from my tanks hole to the water inlet as per his recomendation tommorrow. Funny My boat has a breather to the fuel inlet after water got in via the breather with supposedly water proof valves/design. this poor design for fuel breather line got me very stuck a long way off Kangeroo Island! DOH.

Re: breather hole on water tank If you have an open breather on your water tank, as you are driving along & the trailer is bouncing around even the little it does on road, the water in the tank will be sloshing around & some will splash out. Once you get off road, no matter how well the tank is baffled you'll find that the surge of water back & forth will actually work like a pump, & literally PUMP water out that hole & if it doesn't get caught & go back into the tank, it'll be lost.

Add to that the issue of all the dust/mud/any dirty water you drive thru getting into the tank that is supposedly carrying your drinking water thru that open breather hole, I'd suggest that it is ESSENTIAL to run your breather back into the filler neck or somewhere protected.

You might think both of those scenario's are pretty remote possibilities, but we've seen & experienced both with a number of camper trailers over the years; trust me, it happens even in relatively gentle driving. Breathers, any breather, on a 4WD vehicle or camper trailer/caravan that gets used shouldn't ever be just an open hole!!

My 1997 campomatic has a 50 litre HDPE tank , which is acommon tank used on older caravans.
It has provision for a breather in the middle of the top , but is unused because of teh mounting method leaving no space above the tank.

The camper manufacturer fitted a screw in brass nipple at the top of the RH side with a plastic hose that goes up to the filler , where there is a stub for the hose to fit.
If your camper has factory type filler it should have provision for a return hose.

So that is how to fix it.
Regards Philip A