Thistle
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When building my first van I needed to decide what to use as a toilet.
Like many we started our first van experience pondering whether to buy commercial conversion or diy.
We visited various Motorhome dealers looking for idea and comparing prices.
One thing that seemed prevalent across many was a rather weird but familiar smell especially in vans that had been closed up on the forecourt for some time, I believe it was the chemical smell from the toilets but it could have been something else.
We decided to go the DIY route for our van(s), as it turned out, my chosen layout meant I did have sufficient width or depth in my shower room for a cassette toilet so a dry toilet it was.
I was quite shocked at the commercial prices of these essential extremely simple things so I made a DIY one using the comparatively excellent value Separett Privy 500 diverter, a 20L Jerry can, an old pc fan, some pvc waste pipe and some spare 18mm UPVC board as shown in the link below.
Three years later it's still doing the job perfectly.
It does not smell, it has not caused us any problems emptying it, the urine tank can last for a couple of weeks but we do tend to empty the solids bin every few days just to keep the bulk (mostly scoops of sawdust) down, I suspect we could get away with a week if necessary.
We bag and dispose of the used toilet paper more frequently though often with the dogs waste.
I can dismantle it fully and remove it from the van to clean it.
Dry toilets have a few issues to be aware of:
1, Water ingress into any form of fixed dry toilet is a really bad thing, so we have learnt when showering to avoid getting water near the seat, usually a well paced towel will suffice.
2. Flies! a standard bog seat is a no no! it needs to be a close fitting unit so prevent the little buggers laying eggs on the drying medium!
3. Men need to sit down every time to reduce splashing
4. Ladies need a much large diverter area to aim at than Men...
Later when planning my second van I revisited using a cassette simply because using one (if not the subsequent emptying exercise) is a lot more convenient.
My previous experience of cassette toilets is limited, I used to do the odd few electrical jobs on narrow boats, rentals etc, a common fault was the switch or pumps failing in the flush mechanisms. whilst doing so I noticed that similar pervasive weird smell was always present.
On one occasion I removed a few, albeit very well used toilets from some rental boats being refurbished.
I brought one home to evaluate mainly from a size, and could I convert it in to a dry toilet perspective to use in van number two.
It was a truly disgusting thing! I had never looked at one closely before the ability to trap stuff below the seat out of sight in various crevices is staggering!
It was pretty obvious the cassettes had either overflowed or leaked or even exploded multiple times, the underside of the unit was plastered in filth probably accumulated over many years!
The underside was a mix of hidden cavities and plastic reinforcements making conventional cleaning let alone access very difficult, newer units my be vastly improved but this one was very poorly designed from a hygiene perspective imho.
It struck me at that time that if only these toilets were easily removable they could be taken out and pressure washed but instead being a permanently fixed item it meant good hygiene can't be easy to maintain at all. I had to blast the living daylights out of it several times to get it clean of the caked on detritus!
That inability to clean them easily if/when accidents happen has rather put me off cassette based toilets so for van number two I decided on another dry toilet. however this time I bought a commercial unit for one simple reason, I weighed up the cost in my time to do another diy one versus the cost of purchase and an added benefit of portability.
I bought a Blue Diamond toilet, (overview in link below) it fully portable, I am using the standard containers at the moment but might adapt it for a separate urine tank one day as long as I can retain the portability. it has a design flaw, the rim of the diverter is too flat so urine does not completely drain away but the capillary action from adding a stainless steel mesh screen solves that.
There are pros and cons with both toilet types but a dry toilet works adequately for us.
The following two videos are my diy unit and my observation on the Thetford mentioned above and first look at the blue diamond unit
Like many we started our first van experience pondering whether to buy commercial conversion or diy.
We visited various Motorhome dealers looking for idea and comparing prices.
One thing that seemed prevalent across many was a rather weird but familiar smell especially in vans that had been closed up on the forecourt for some time, I believe it was the chemical smell from the toilets but it could have been something else.
We decided to go the DIY route for our van(s), as it turned out, my chosen layout meant I did have sufficient width or depth in my shower room for a cassette toilet so a dry toilet it was.
I was quite shocked at the commercial prices of these essential extremely simple things so I made a DIY one using the comparatively excellent value Separett Privy 500 diverter, a 20L Jerry can, an old pc fan, some pvc waste pipe and some spare 18mm UPVC board as shown in the link below.
Three years later it's still doing the job perfectly.
It does not smell, it has not caused us any problems emptying it, the urine tank can last for a couple of weeks but we do tend to empty the solids bin every few days just to keep the bulk (mostly scoops of sawdust) down, I suspect we could get away with a week if necessary.
We bag and dispose of the used toilet paper more frequently though often with the dogs waste.
I can dismantle it fully and remove it from the van to clean it.
Dry toilets have a few issues to be aware of:
1, Water ingress into any form of fixed dry toilet is a really bad thing, so we have learnt when showering to avoid getting water near the seat, usually a well paced towel will suffice.
2. Flies! a standard bog seat is a no no! it needs to be a close fitting unit so prevent the little buggers laying eggs on the drying medium!
3. Men need to sit down every time to reduce splashing
4. Ladies need a much large diverter area to aim at than Men...
Later when planning my second van I revisited using a cassette simply because using one (if not the subsequent emptying exercise) is a lot more convenient.
My previous experience of cassette toilets is limited, I used to do the odd few electrical jobs on narrow boats, rentals etc, a common fault was the switch or pumps failing in the flush mechanisms. whilst doing so I noticed that similar pervasive weird smell was always present.
On one occasion I removed a few, albeit very well used toilets from some rental boats being refurbished.
I brought one home to evaluate mainly from a size, and could I convert it in to a dry toilet perspective to use in van number two.
It was a truly disgusting thing! I had never looked at one closely before the ability to trap stuff below the seat out of sight in various crevices is staggering!
It was pretty obvious the cassettes had either overflowed or leaked or even exploded multiple times, the underside of the unit was plastered in filth probably accumulated over many years!
The underside was a mix of hidden cavities and plastic reinforcements making conventional cleaning let alone access very difficult, newer units my be vastly improved but this one was very poorly designed from a hygiene perspective imho.
It struck me at that time that if only these toilets were easily removable they could be taken out and pressure washed but instead being a permanently fixed item it meant good hygiene can't be easy to maintain at all. I had to blast the living daylights out of it several times to get it clean of the caked on detritus!
That inability to clean them easily if/when accidents happen has rather put me off cassette based toilets so for van number two I decided on another dry toilet. however this time I bought a commercial unit for one simple reason, I weighed up the cost in my time to do another diy one versus the cost of purchase and an added benefit of portability.
I bought a Blue Diamond toilet, (overview in link below) it fully portable, I am using the standard containers at the moment but might adapt it for a separate urine tank one day as long as I can retain the portability. it has a design flaw, the rim of the diverter is too flat so urine does not completely drain away but the capillary action from adding a stainless steel mesh screen solves that.
There are pros and cons with both toilet types but a dry toilet works adequately for us.
The following two videos are my diy unit and my observation on the Thetford mentioned above and first look at the blue diamond unit
