Fresh Water Tankage

I have a 3210 Cyclone, Serial No. 6066, build date of about 6 September 06, I believe, and purchase date of 16 March 07. Had my first outing last weekend, and was able to get only about 50 gallons into the fresh water tank(s) before having water come out of the two vent hoses beneath the trailer. The gauge in the systems information panel also indicated that the tank(s) was full. I have a pretty accurate water meter that I attach to the hose end, so I am fairly confident that the 50 gallons is correct.

The weight sticker in the trailer indicates the fresh water capacity is 110 gallons, the dealer told me the capacity was 110 gallons, and a call to the factory before I bought the trailer brought the same response, 110 gallons, is spite of all the literature and website information indicating fresh water capacity of 75 gallons.

Does the fresh water system consist of two - 50 gallon tanks? If so, I have one that is not filling. In any case, the trailer is back at the dealership to address the fresh water tankage issue, and the lack of warm air from the furnace, among other items.

I would appreciate any clarification from the factory on the fresh water tankage question.

The literature and web site are correct, the Cyclone 3210 has a 75 gallon fresh water tank. I am confident that the dealer, working with our service techs will figure out what is hindering your tank from taking that amount and remedy it. As for the sticker reading wrong, I just went out and checked the 3210's on line and their stickers all read 75 gallons, so obviously, if your sticker reads something different, there was a mistake on that label and we will need to replace it.
I will forward your information (VIN#) to our customer service dept. so that they can be made aware of your situtation and work quickly with the dealer to remedy it.
ST

That's ************ to have the plate on the rig have the wrong specs, I have requested a plate several times as mine specs E range tires @ 80#'s, any ways if it was advertised with 110 gals that is what you should get.............

This is a real issue for me. That was why I repeated asked the salesman, and called the factory to confirm what the salesman told me, and relied on what the weight sticker stated. I sold a Weekend Warrior that carried 110 gallons of water, and if I had known that the Cyclone 3210 would not carry at least 100 gallons of watre I would not have purchased the trailer. Heartland, "we have a problem"

I can't speak for the dealer, but obviously they were not up on their specifications. I would hope that Heartland sales personnel would know their specs, but, even they are not perfect. If would email me, and possibly provide me with the name of the person that you spoke with here, I can track that down. As for the unit sticker, the one's here are correct, but that doesn't mean that one could not have gotten printed incorrectly as witnessed by "UncleRog" and his tire brand changing but the sticker wasn't updated.
For the record "Uncle Rog", it was not "advertised" at 110 gal. As "Dirt1st" wrote in his initial post, "..all the literature and website information indicated fresh water capacity of 75 gallons."
I'll do my best for work with you on this. Send me an email when you get a chance.
ST

Just my 2 cents,
I would personally go off the unit sticker, The brochures and website have been known to be wrong, and the sales people will tell anything to get the sale. The unit sticker is supposed to match that particular trailer!
Good luck.

Fresh Water Tank Volume

The mystery (at least partof it) about the limited amount of water I was able to put in my Cyclone 3210 is solved. I asked the dealer to give me a call when the pulled the under covering of of my trailer so that I could see what it looked like.

As discussed above, the trailer comes with a75 gallon tank, not a 110 gallon tank as indicated on the weight calculation label inside one of the cabinets.

The 75 gallon tank is installed such that, when the trailer is level, the top (or bottom) front of the tank is 2 or more inches above the top (or bottom) of the rear of the tank. It is not installed level with the trailer. The front of the tank is where the water pump intake is located (on the side, near but not at the bottom of the tank), and the back of the tank, near the top is where the vents are located. The way the tank is installed, any water in the tank runs away from the pump intake and towards the vents.

The usable water capacity of my trailer is now approximately 50 gallons, about 2/3 of the capacity that is advertised by Heartland, and about 1/2 of the capacity that I though I was getting.

I would seem to me that if Heartland had wanted any owner to be able to maximize the ability to use all of the fresh water available (however much that was), they would have mounted the tank so that the pump intake would be at the low end, not the high end.

The tank was supported by a piece of 1/2 to 3/4 inch particle board, with a 1/2 or 3/4 inch square tube running from one frame rail to the other beneath the particle board. Thsi tube looks as though it was added as an afterthought.

While I am not an engineer, I have worked with engineers of all kinds for almost 40 years so I think a little of their mentality and though processes have rubbed off on me. What I saw beneath my 3210 Cyclone was not good engineering. In my opinion, the fresh water system in my trailer is poorly thought out, and even more poorly constructed.

Ah! You have discovered what a lot of us ole boon dockers have. The fresh water tank is an after thought. If you are a full hook up purchaser you have a dandy setup because it just wont make much difference. We also purchased ours because of the tank sizes ADVERTISED and are pretty much disappointed. The holding tanks and the drain pipes weren't much better designed in ours either. Water just wont flow up hill on it own.
Hopefully between my great dealer and I we have things all ironed out.

If these units spent a little more time at the factory to be assembled correctly it would save so much heartache. For heartland and the purchaser,. I can't imagine how many dollars are spent for warranty work and shipping parts all across the country,

mufflerman said:

If these units spent a little more time at the factory to be assembled correctly it would save so much heartache. For heartland and the purchaser,. I can't imagine how many dollars are spent for warranty work and shipping parts all across the country,

Click to expand...

This is such a true statement. Rushing them out the door to get on dealer lots is not a good idea. When the customer has an issue and realizes it should have been corrected at the factory it is bad news. Hence the Horrible satellite cable connection deal! Mine had the satellite connection where the antenna connection should have been, the antenna connection was hanging loose in the wall and the satellite connection at the entertainment center was not connected to anything! Base statement here "HELLO MCFLY" after the first few complaints the factory should have been ON THIS! If the floor worker is not confident in the connections either train him or get him off of it! There is no excuse in this to be an ongoing problem.

Wow. It feels like Monday morning with people "piling on" - beleiving everything they read as the gospel. Even though I knew how we do it, I just went out my door to the production line to speak with our chassis departments group leader who has been with us for all three of our years in existance to TRIPLE CHECK your claims and speak with both the guy who installs the tanks to the engineer who designed it.
You completely mispoke when you said: "The tank was supported by a piece of 1/2 to 3/4 inch particle board, with a 1/2 or 3/4 inch square tube running from one frame rail to the other beneath the particle board. Thsi tube looks as though it was added as an afterthought."
The FACT is, EVERY frame that we get comes with two angle irons for either end of the fresh water tank. Between these two angle irons goes a 1/2" to 5/8" thick oriented strand board (not particle board) which also supports the tank. Beneath all of this, Heartland installs a "removeable" one inch square steel tube (not 1/2" as you claim, nor an "afterthought") that is bolted, not welded, into place - so that the tank can be removed if necessary down the road. Some of you are calling this poor engineering. I say you're wrong.
That being said - if the tank really is two inches higher on one end than the other, the only way this could happen is if the frame manufacturer would have welded one of the angle irons out of place. Possible? Absolutely. Should we have caught it at the factory? Yes. Especically if it really was 2". But like the guys said, they think they would have noticed 2" just by looking at it. With some of the other exagerated "dimensions" and "descriptions" of how tanks are supported by Heartland, I am going to say that I want to get the dealer on the phone and talk to him and get some measurements and photos and we will make sure that we get any issues fixed.
If the tank supports were welded out of alignment, it is fairly easy to lift the other end up slightly to make it level.
ST

Scott, you are correct to some extent, I neglected to mention that the tank is supported at both the front and back by angle iron welded to the frame rails. The difference between "oriented strand" board and "particle" board is lost on me. I assume, based on your reaction that oriented strand board is stronger. I did not use the term particle board to intimate that, in thes case, Heartland was using an inferior material. I also only eyballed the piece of square tube from a distance of several feet, and did not measure the size of the tube. I, in no way intended to say that the material used was inadequate to support the tank. My issue was with the way the supports are installed.

The angle iron support for the rear of the tank appears to be installed so that the bottom edge of the tank, or the bottom of the oriented strand board the tank is sitting on, is approximately even with the bottom of the frame rail (plus or minus the thickness of the steel in the frame). The square tube sits on the frame rail, so the top of the square tube, which supports the oriented strand board beneath the tank is 1 inch higher than the rear tank support. In order for the tank to be supported at three places, the rear, the middle (by the square tube) and the front, with out trying to bend the tank, the front support was installed above the frame rail at a point where there is a straight line from the rear of the tank, across the top of the 1 inch square tube, to the position of the front tank angle iron support.

In any case, using a ruler and a straight edge to construct a scaled down version of the tank support system installed in my trailer, and using the bottom of the frame rail as the reference plane, you can demonstrate that a straight line drawn from a point (the location of the rear tank support) and passing over the top of a 1 inch high point approximately at the middle of the length of that line (the length of the tank) would have to be 2 inches high at the front end of the tank, it is high school geometry.

In order to mount the tank level with the frame rails, the 1 inch square tube would have to be mounted below the bottom edge of the frame rail, not on top of it, or the rear tank support would have to be moved up to the same distance from the bottom of the frame rail as the front tank support.

As I said in my previous post, in order to maximize the ability to use all of the water carried in the trailer, and to facilitate draining the tank, the tanks should be mounted with the front slightly lower than the rear. Water in the tank would then run toward the pump intake and drain connections and away from the tank vents.

The service technician at the dealership did say that he would take pictures of the existing tank installation and submit them to Heartland.

I regret that you are perceiving this thread as a sort of "feeding frenzy" on the part of some unhappy Heartland owners.

Thanks for some clarification. If the tank is slightly angled now, it is towards the drains to help empty it completely because just as people want every drop they can get, they are also very upset when they can't empty it as much as possibly when not in use.
The OSB vs. particle board comment is this: particle board is just as it sounds, basically particles of sawdust, pressed together. When this gets wet, it expands about 200% and falls apart. The OSB that we use now has a limited 25 Year Warranty on it and is basically pieces of wood that are oriented in different ways to increase the overall strength and glued together with a marine-grade adhesive. Is it impervious to water? NO, no wood product is. But it is an expensive single sheet of wood that we use on our floors as well.
I am CONFIDENT that without too much labor, our Customer Service guys will be able and willing to help your dealer rectify andy unevenness to your tank.
Thanks for your patience.
ST