Just posted this over in the 6.0 forum cause that's where I live... Then realized I might get more feedback here. Sorry, mods, for double posting...

Ok. A little background. I run a lodge in the Rocky Mountains. Water is a huge issue for us. Three wells don't give us what we need, so we get about 150,000 gallons trucked in to us each year at a premium. We are looking at the possibility of hauling our own water to save on costs. We have an '03 f350 crew cab 4x4 drw and an '06 f250 crew cab 4x4 SRW. Per Ford, the f350 can bumper pull or fifth wheel pull 12,400#. My f250 can bumper pull 12,500# and fifth wheel pull 15,500#. The f250 is my personal truck, so it would be the backup and not the primary. That means we have to base our trailer off the capacity of the f350. Now I know these trucks are capable of pulling way more than the legal rating, but the legal rating is what I'm going off of here.

If I put a 1200 gallon tank on a trailer I'm looking at 9600 pounds of water, leaving me 2800 pounds for trailer and poly tank. Every gooseneck I've looked at runs 6000 pounds and up, but I've found equipment haulers at 2500 pounds rated to carry 14,000 pounds. Seems to me it would fit the bill perfectly.

My boss is concerned that a conventional trailer with 9600 pounds on it would be too squirrely to pull safely. My thought is that if they are rated to pull up to 15,000 pounds, they should be safe at that weight. He'd like to get some more input and experiences from folks who have pulled that much weight on a conventional hitch.

He wants to go with a gooseneck, which will either limit our hauling capacity to 500 gallons or will require us to go way over the legal weight limit. Thoughts?

 

atleast look for a tank with baffles in it that much free movement of any lequid is not fun.

have a great t-day al

 

Tanks with Baffles is a must. You can bumper pull just fine. Use a weight distribution hitch. Make sure the trailer has brakes. Landscapers do it all the time.

Also water comes in at 8.35Lb per gallon.

 

Rather than try to mate a tank to a trailer, why not get a tank trailer that is built specifically for the job you have in mind? For example, the 1,000 gallon trailer in this link comes in at 10,338# fully loaded which would be easily towable by either truck with a decent safety margin of capacity.

Here's a link to just one manufacturer that I found with a google search:

Potable Water Trailers By Kiser - Potable Water Wagons, Trailer, Wagon - ABI Attachments

 

What others have already said: baffles, baffles, baffles!

There's a big difference between 10,000# firmly secured on a trailer, and 10,000# of weight sloshing back and forth, side to side.

 

Thanks, guys! Yeah, I used to drive fire trucks... Very familiar with baffles and the necessity of driving all the way full or all the way empty!

 

The biggest thing with bumper pulls is getting the weight balance right, you want 10-15% of the total weight on the hitch, to little and it gets tail happy. That said so long as its properly baffled so you dont have water sloshing all over (and thus the weight moving) and a good weight distrubting hitch youll be fine with a bumper pull. My 24' 8k lb trailer was towed most of last race seasson by a 2010 F150 short bed with minimal sway issues (only passing semis) on the flip side before this trailer I had a 14' open trailer where the car would hang an inch or 2 off each side of the deck, I could tell how much fuel I had left in the race car based on how much sway the trailer had due to the change in hitch weight.

 

I'll second the tank trailer.

Putting a tank on a utility trailer is a waste of weight, and size, and all around inefficient.

 

Interesting that Steve came up with this link. We have a cabin up in the mountains in a little community that is centered around an old ghost town. We are about 15 miles from the nearest fire station, and that is all up hill from about 7800' to 9500', and the fire response is slow. So the community purchased 2 500 gal. off road setups from Kiser with pumps that can be towed by a side-by-side ATV or Jeep so we have a way to attack a fire before the fire department gets there. Anyhow, the quality is simply just excellent. Therefore I am going to second (or third) the idea of a water tank trailer (especially from that company) as being a very good choice for what you want to accomplish.

Edit: And, sorry, but every time I see "Pagosa Springs" all I can hear in my head is "Wolf Creek Pass" by C.W. McCall.

 

Thanks for the feedback :-)

Not familiar with that song. I'll have to look it up.

I priced the water wagons from Kiser and a 2000 wagon would run us around $15,000. Putting an OTR/DOT compliant potable water tank on a gooseneck will run us around $9,000, and we'll have the flexibility of removing the tank when we need the trailer for transporting our tractor or any of our other equipment, so we've decided not to go with the custom built water trailers.

 

Last verse lyrics:

 

Hahaha, I'll definitely have to find that song now!

 

Found it

 

Chalkie, That has been one of my favorite songs for longer than I can remember! My favorite part is the math he used to calculate the speed of the truck. I think he may have been exaggerating a bit though. At a spacing of 250 feet apart, 22,000 telephone poles per hour would be just over 1000 mph!! --- " A couple of ***** with a thousand cubes " is pretty funny too!

 

have you considered an older water truck. I have a friend who has an older unit he picked up and is looking to resell. it runs but she is old does not have a lot of miles on it.