The Toilet

Under Construction

Urine Diverting Dehydration Toilet (UDDT)

  • Urine reservoir (standard 2.5 gal water dispenser)
  • 3/8″ hole drilled for hose
  • Pin-hole in handle for vent
  • Standard 5 gallon bucket
  • Simplehuman Type H??? trash bags as bucket liner to reduce folds
  • Vent hole in bucket
  • Separett Privy Kit 500

Much to my chagrin, I’m a very big guy, as in morbidly obese and I can’t stand the minuscule cabinets that most RVs try to pass off as bathrooms. So, I designed a large soft-sided bathroom for our van. Our bathroom is composed of two taught para-cord lines near the ceiling and two shower curtain liners partially threaded on to the taught lines. This creates a four sided 26″ x 41″ enclosure. The curtains are quickly and easily deployed around our toilet. The enclosure is large enough that it also serves as a changing room as well as a shower. When not in use the curtains are pushed back against a wall of the van and the toilet becomes a seat. Laura found a square patio furniture cushion that we keep on top of the toilet to hide the real purpose of the seat.

Having experienced black water management in our previous RVs, we did not want to deal with black water. We knew about “composting toilets” and that they had been successfully used in many environments. What we opted for is a Urine Diverting Dehydration Toilet (UDDT). IMG_3116Some people call these composting toilets, and I guess a minute amount of composting does occur. This toilet is much more like a cat-box. First, the urine is diverted into a re-purposed standard 2.5 gallon drinking water dispenser. We have to empty the urine every three to four days when dry camping with no other toilet options. On the #2 side we have been using coco-coir to cover our business in between uses.IMG_4288 We can go close to a week before we have to seal the liner bag and throw it in a dumpster. Before some of you freak out about poop in a dumpster please realize that this is no different than the diapers, depends, dog and cat poop in there with it and as far as I have been able to ascertain, legal in all fifty states. We line the 5 gallon bucket with a plastic bag. I found a bag made by Simplehuman (code H) that fits the 5 gallon bucket better, resulting in less gathers, which helps keep the chute clean so to speak. I have learned to stretch the neck of the bags just a little bit to make it easier to get the rather tight fitting bags on and off of the bucket lip.

IMG_3118

  • One of the under-bed drawers for coco-coir
  • Small under-bed drawer for toilet paper, etc.
  • We bought a large supply of bags and coco-coir as part of our disaster preparedness efforts.
  • The entire van project contributes greatly to  our disaster preparedness efforts. During a recent prolonged power outage we ran our long extension cord into the house and ran our refrigerator off of our battery bank through one of our inverters.
  • Prefer to empty in vault toilets