Composting toilets

[GoinBush]

Does anyone have one in their bus?

[T1 Terry]

Does anyone have one in their bus?

Is that so you don't park near them? We had big plans to install one of these things in the big bus project, so we went to the place in a Brisbane suburb to check them out. The ones we were looking for had the tumbler remote from the bowl. We would have needed a much bigger bus to fit one of those is as these things are huge. The next was the bowl and tumbler all in one. It needed a step to climb on yet the actual throne is tiny but the rest was quite large.
We received a warning before we even visited that they had a smell all of their own..... they weren't kidding The next items we hadn't thought about was, where do you empty the fertiliser from the tumbler? It can't go in a dump point and I doubt anyone would thank you for dumping it on their garden, so?????
We bought a macerator toilet with normal house size porcelain bowl, made an extension for the bottom of the bowl to move the pump under the floor rather than in the back of the bowl and fitted a separate water valve rather than needing the vane pump in the macerator pump so it was much quieter on the flush. We modified a stainless car LPG tank to make the black tank and mounted that under the bus. Why did we move the pump? If it jams up I'd much prefer the contents of the pump emptying outside rather than having to remove the toilet bowl inside the bus bathroom and having the pump contents spill across the floor.... I can't imagine trying to get that smell out of the bathroom would be an easy job

[GoinBush]

You are a clever bugger Terry.

I was in town last night and had free wi-fi, so I was bingeing on You Tube. I watched a lot of converted bus tours and most had composting loos and the owners were very happy with them. We will be living in our bus/shed combo and developing a Permaculture property and need all the refuse we can get our hands on for the gardens, so it makes sense to have a composting loo.
When on the road I guess you would put the composted waste around the base of a tree while free camping...?? Also, doing the dump point thing just doesn't appeal

[Peter and Sandra]

From memory there was a warning to never use the compost for crops that were to be eaten, ie veges and fruit etc

[Vik351]

From memory there was a warning to never use the compost for crops that were to be eaten, ie veges and fruit etc

Dont know about the composting toilets but did know ya couldnt pump out your septic tank on to your crops...??? but that was years ago

vik...

[T1 Terry]

You are a clever bugger Terry.

I was in town last night and had free wi-fi, so I was bingeing on You Tube. I watched a lot of converted bus tours and most had composting loos and the owners were very happy with them. We will be living in our bus/shed combo and developing a Permaculture property and need all the refuse we can get our hands on for the gardens, so it makes sense to have a composting loo.
When on the road I guess you would put the composted waste around the base of a tree while free camping...?? Also, doing the dump point thing just doesn't appeal

You would be as popular as those that dump their black tank at a free camp. I suggest you try a few of the self composting road side toilets that have had a fan failure to get an idea of the smell you would be pumping out through the vent and the smell you would be leaving behind at a free camp.
I can imagine a tour bus that moved on constantly not being worried about the smell, it would be pumped out over their roof, maybe feed back from anyone camped near them would be a better indication of just how acceptable they are to the free camping community... you think generator owners get the cold shoulder

[Barboots]

When on the road I guess you would put the composted waste around the base of a tree while free camping...??

I hope that's a joke? [emoji15] [emoji15] [emoji15]

[native pepper]

Here's the perfect answer for a composting toilet on the road.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Deluxe-Porta ... Swux5YWxKg

[Busman]

Bit of a pain when you want a pee in the middle of the night though !

[native pepper]

Just a minor fault , at least it solves the inside smell.

In another life, we used to tow a mobile toilet for those on day and 3-5 day trail rides in the mountains of the far sth coast of NSW. Along with food it would meet us at strategic places accessibly by 4x4, this way we were able to travel in and out of national parks and not contaminate the places we stopped at. Always carried guitars etc in the support vehicle, so had some really entertaining nights under stars.

Wonderful trips those were, discovered some really cool places only accessible by horse and we had a special permit to take them into certain sections of the parks. In state forest, we were free to explore and gave a lot of people a real bush mountain experience.