[Public-List] Head questions ...

[Kris Coward]

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 02:36:03PM -0500, darcyhaldeman at cs.com wrote:
> Kris, could you post details about your switch to a composting toilet?  It's on my list of things to do.

Well the first thing I did was ask Richard and Margaret (on Into The
Blue) which toilet they'd gotten, and if they were still happy with
theirs (AirHead, and yes).

Installation involved drilling 2 small holes in the liner where the
toilet rests (Candy Cane is #583, so well into the liner era), and
widening the dorade vent hole to the diameter of the included fan (I
used a small piece of scrap plywood as a template to do this
widening--still used a hole saw, but the guide in the middle isn't
much use when there's already a hole).

With the head suitably prepared, installation consisted of screwing the
supports for the toilet into the holes in the liner, attaching the
provided fan to the widened dorade hole, connecting the fan to the
terminal block that was already in the head for the forward and mast
electrics, running the vent hose from the toilet to the fan, and tossing
in some peat moss. I'd estimate the job having taken no more than a
total of 5h (uncluding trips to the store for electrical connectors and
PVC cement).

I have had a problem with the toilet, in that some guests have
occasionally deposited their TP into the toilet in such a way that it
got pressed into the liquids collection area and clogged the spout down
to the liquids container. Because this overflowed into the solids
container, the fix was pretty much to keep adding peat moss to the
solids container and agitating until the solids were, well, solid again
(oh and to remove the clog from the spout, which was just a matter of
taking the bottle off, sticking a bunch of paper towel under the spout,
breaking off the encrusted TP with a piece of wire--actually I used a
broken bicycle spoke--and then reaching into the liquids collection area
and pulling the TP back to the solids container). That said, the
disgustingness of fixing this problem is a far cry from the problems
with flush toilets (though apparently it's still enough to make most
landlubbers squeamish).

The liquids bottle lasts for about 1 person-week before needing to be
emptied, and the solids container lasts about half a person-year, based
on full-time use. I typically have to travel on business at least once
every 3 months for a week or so, and after getting back, the material is
composted enough that I feel quite comfortable scooping it into a heavy
paper bag, and adding it to the municipal compost stream (which already
accepts diapers, so I don't have to worry about being personally
responsible for making the resulting compost vegetable-garden-unsafe).

I've left the holding tank and hoses in place (though I plan to remove
the hoses upon receipt of one of them round tuits), because the tank
looks to be integral to the liner, I don't have any immediate plans for
the space, and I'll gladly stick a flush toilet back in, hook it up, and
make off with the composting toilet if I end up selling the boat to some
damned fool who actually prefers to deal with clogged hoses, pumpouts,
holding tank chemicals, etc.

Cheers,
Kris

-- 
Kris Coward					http://unripe.melon.org/
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