Our Friend, the Toilet
My husband and I didn’t contemplate our decision to move into a bus for more than a day. We knew why we wanted to become house-free, and so we never questioned whether it was a good idea or not. We never made a pro and con list, and we never sat down and had a family meeting. We did it for the same reasons that most families hit the road: cheap living, freedom, adventure, and getting closer to each other. It just seemed like such a no-brainer. Get bus. Move in. Freedom!
We did, however, spend an entire year thinking about the toilet. Motorhome toilets scared us. The idea of carrying around our blackwater seemed so inefficient, and archaic. The toilet is just so central to our family’s life – someone is on it every hour of the day and if it fails our whole world falls apart.
We couldn’t actually afford an RV when we wanted to take on this new life, but rather than save for a couple of years, we chose to do things the difficult way. We bought a bus shell, parked it at a farm, and camped in it as we built our home from the inside out. We had access to a bathroom 100 yards away, and so we procrastinated the toilet decision, especially after watching a popular movie starring Robin Williams.
We looked at composting toilets that are specifically made for motorhomes, such as those built by Sun Mar and Envirolet, but we discovered one serious flaw. They don’t have the capacity for two adults full time, let alone a large teenager and three children. The way these work is that the liquids and solids pool together and a heating element evaporates the liquids, but because the tray and heater are so small you can only use them sometimes on the weekend. Then it has to sit and digest for at least a month before it can be used again.
The Adventures of the Family That Names Their Appliances
Note: If this post is too long and boring, at least go to the end and find out how to support organic farms and our trip. You want to have cheap organic food, right?
We named our space heater Heaty. Toasty (our previous space heater), died after keeping us warm on some very chilly nights, and was replaced by an oil radiator which is doing an even better job I think. It’s not a furnace, but if we keep the door shut to the bunkroom we are very comfortable.
The furnace isn’t hooked up yet because we still need to have the gas man out, which is dependent on getting all the electrical and plumbing finally finished. We don’t have running water yet, and so it is still pretty similar to camping except that our beloved toilet is now fully functional.
In which we get our Separett composting toilet in the mail, and we show the difference between that and a regular RV toilet. You can also see all the progress going on at a feverish pace in the bus.
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Our composting toilet, the Separett. It has a trap door! It doesn’t smell! And best of all… it’s pretty. :)
The Separett Waterless Composting Toilet
For the last year (at least), we were trying to decide what kind of toilet to put in The Albatross. Choosing a toilet is not an easy decision for many people. It’s kind of like choosing a car… you have to sit on it many times a day, and you need it to just work, without any problems because if it does have problems they are usually the very. worst. kind.
I also hated the idea of a regular RV blackwater tank. The way those work is that all of your toilet waste plus water for flushing makes its way to a tank underneath where it swirls around until you pump it out. They are prone to problems… like ‘clumping’. Any problem related to toilets described by that word sounds bad to me.
But, there’s also… this:
