No Sloshing

Water is obviously important to the grooming.  It poses some challenges for the vehicle design, since it takes up space and is relatively heavy.  We were not satisfied with water tanks in available grooming vehicles.  They were either insufficient in capacity or poorly mounted.  In the unpleasant likelihood of an accident, the energy represented by 100 gallons of water is immense, and potentially devastating.

The Fresh water tank(s) are made from Schedule 35 PVC sewer pipe.  There aren't a lot of sources for these in the 10" diameter used.  Ours came from Atlas Plumbing Supply in St. Louis.  My original intent was to use four 12" cylinders, however to conserve a couple inches depth in the equipment space we went with six 10" cylinders.

Schedule 35 PVC pipe is green and normally used for sewer lines.  It is not lightweight, but it is a little lighter, and less expensive than the beige Schedule 40 material used for supply lines.  Since there is no pressure in these tanks, the lighter material was chosen.  The pipe comes in 13' lengths and has a flared end so one piece may be inserted into another.  The flared end will be removed.  The original design called for six cylinders 60" long, holding about 150 gallons.  After finalizing the ducting for the furnace and the gray water holding tank, there are only two "long" tanks and four smaller ones with a combined capacity of about 98 gallons.

The ends of the tubes are sealed with PVC endcaps.  Picture them as heavy mixing bowls.  The caps are glued using standard PVC glue.  A sensor will stop supply water before it reaches the top of the tubes.  Below is a picture of an endcap, after it has been drilled and tapped to accept a standard 1/2" pipe thread fitting.  As the detail of the hole shows, the material is thick enough to allow four full threads, which should be adequate for sealing and mechanical purposes.  Standard thread tape is used on the fittings in these openings.

Insert picture of installed tanks