NW Conversions 20 Gallon Galley Water Tank (Fresh or Grey)

A 16-inch square footprint that drops into a cabinet bay, a bench seat or a bed base. Fresh or grey, your choice.

This is not a wheel-well tank. It is a box — 16" square and 18" tall — designed to live inside cabinetry rather than around the van’s structure. That makes it the easy answer when your wheel wells are already spoken for, or when you want a second tank for grey water under the sink.

Sixteen pounds empty means one person can lift it into a cabinet bay. The intended plumbing is straight down: drain through the subfloor to a ball valve, or tie it into an undermount tank for more capacity.

Should you buy this tank, or a different one in the range?

• Buy the 20 gallon galley tank if you have a cabinet, bench or bed base with a 16" square bay and 18" of height.
• Buy the 10 gallon galley tank if you only have a 12" square bay.
• Buy a wheel-well tank instead if you would rather use the dead space around the arch and keep your cabinets for storage.
• Buy two — one fresh, one grey — if you are building a proper sink and shower system.

Confirmed fitment

Specifications

These tanks are not pressure vessels. They must be vented to atmosphere — a sealed tank will balloon on a hot day and collapse inward when the pump draws it down.

What ships to you

• (1) 20 gallon galley tank with pre-installed NPT fittings
• Hose, valves and mounting hardware sold separately

Installing it: what actually happens

The failure mode with a cabinet-mounted tank is always the same. Someone builds a tight bay, drops the tank in, and never bolts it down because it “cannot go anywhere”. Then the van hits a frost heave, 183 lb of water leaves the bay by a quarter inch, and the plumbing shears at the fitting.

Strap it. A pair of webbing straps across the top into the cabinet carcass takes ten minutes and is the difference between a water system and a flood.

• Strap or bracket the tank into the cabinet — a tight bay is not restraint.
• Drain straight down through the subfloor to a ball valve, or into an undermount tank.
• Leave the top fitting accessible for the vent and for a level sender.
• Build the bay a quarter inch oversize so the tank is not clamped by the cabinet walls.

Questions we get asked about this part

Does the tank need a vent?

Yes. It is designed to run unpressurized. Run a vent line from the top 1.5" port up above the maximum fill level and out through the floor or a body vent. Skip it and the tank will deform on a hot day, then pull its walls in when the pump runs.

How much weight am I adding to the van?

Water weighs roughly 8.34 lb per gallon, so 20 gallons is about 167 lb of payload once full, on top of the dry weight of the tank. Put that number in your build budget before you order rather than after — it is the most commonly forgotten figure in a van conversion.

Can I drink out of it?

The vessel itself is BPA-free food-grade polyethylene, so the tank is potable-rated. What actually determines whether your water is safe to drink is everything downstream of it: the fill port, the hose, the pump and the filtration. We plumb potable systems with NSF-61 rated hose and a carbon block at the tap.

Can I use it for grey water?

Yes — it is sold for either. If you use it for grey, plumb the drain at the lowest point and give yourself an outside dump valve you can reach without crawling under the van.

Will it fit under a bench seat?

It needs 18" of vertical clearance, which is taller than most bench seats. Under a bed platform or in a full-height galley cabinet is the usual home. Measure the height first — that is the dimension that catches people out, not the footprint.

Pairs well with

• Van water tanks and plumbing — the rest of the NW Conversions range

Sold and shipped by Campervan Parts R Us, the parts counter of Noke Van Co. — a working van conversion shop in Roanoke, Virginia. If you are unsure whether this fits your van, email us the year, model and wheelbase and we will check it against a build sheet before you order.