[Public-List] Head questions ...

[jkjhu]

Hi Everyone;

I am also using the Airhead composting toilet and really like the
simplicity of minimizing the usual water supply,  holding tank, hose
and thru hull items. Using it on a small boat so capacity hasn't been
an issue. I find that it needs a season to fully compost at which time
the emptying process is really easy.

I just enlisted recently to this site, have really enjoyed the
information and am actively looking for an Alberg 30. Unfortunately
being on the West Coast makes this difficult but.... If anyone hears
anything I'm interested.

Thanks.

On 3/10/11, Kris Coward <kris at melon.org> wrote:
> 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/
> GPG Fingerprint: 2BF3 957D 310A FEEC 4733  830E 21A4 05C7 1FEB 12B3
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