Friends, I have never researched toilets so much in my life. There were so many options and possible set-ups for these toilets, my head is still spinning!
For the longest time, we thought that a composting toilet was going to be our choice, even despite my wariness. We had read about people using these and having minimal smell and very little dumping fees or even a need to dump. That sounded extremely appealing to us. We also have our airstream on Brandon’s grandmother’s farm right now, and some extra compost sounded promising, as Gram is an avid gardener. Still though, dumping my own crap on vegetables I was going to eat? Yeahhh, I still wasn’t sure.
From researching, we found that Nature’s Head (https://natureshead.net/) toilets were best, but also extremely expensive. The first time we saw the price, our jaws fell to the floor. Buying a toilet, for $1,000? Yikes. Still, we held in there, determined to make it work. If we eventually did turn our airstream into some sort of AirBNB on Gram’s farm, we wouldn’t have to take the airstream out and find a place to dump it. It would solve that problem. However, our confidence began to wary when Brandon found out that the urine collection bucket sat in the front of the toilet. After reading horror stories of this urine bucket overflowing (!!!), leaking, and the smell some people reported, we were no longer sold. AirBNB guests wouldn’t like this either.
Ultimately, it came down to cost for us. Even though it is clearly more earth-friendly, efficient, and may cost us less in the long run, it just was not a good fit for us. I wanted so badly to make it work, but after looking at alternative options and their cost, we could no longer justify the price.
Our Choice
I thought I had THE toilet about 6 times during this process. Some review or detail about the toilet always kept from buying. Out of the six, we picked one! Finally, after about 4 days of researching. Now, I am not saying we made the very best choice, by any means. I’m not saying I am going to LOOOVVEEE this toilet. But hey, it’s a toilet. It will get the job done.
We picked a Dometic 320. It was a bit pricier than other options, at $217.45, but from my research, I picked it for a few reasons. First, it was a standard height toilet, meaning it wasn’t low like some RV toilets. Many people wrote, with other toilets, that they were low and were difficult to get up/down from. Not a big deal for us, as younger people, but it would be a normal sized toilet. Second, this ceramic bowl was easy to clean and was deeper than most. For a while, I had my heart set on another type of toilet, but read about its shallow bowl, making it difficult for men to use and caused a huge mess, making it a quick no. Third, it uses a lot less water, only using .5 liter per flush. This was a concern of mine when we are boondocking, as I didn’t want to use up too much water. We are definitely going to have to conserve our water on these boondocking trips, for sure! Fourth, the reviews were pretty good. Of course, with anything, there are reviews that are not so good. But, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that we didn’t make a dumb choice.
With this choice comes a need for a black water tank, which we purchased for $119.73. We got a Class A customs 30 Gallon RV Waste Black Water Holding tank WT-3000. Our old black tank was not in good shape and we determined that it would be a better choice to just buy a new, and for sure, leak-free product that we could start “fresh” with. 🙂 We are going to need to purchase some plumbing pieces, obviously, so that will be an extra cost to come!
Much love,
Lauren
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