Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I know lots of you have a toilet of some sort either in you trailer or a pop up tent or a side curtain But how many of you actually use them I was thinking of putting on in my little trailer that I have started but they take up serious space and no matter how I do it it seems like it just gets in the way ..to close to the bed to close to where food is prepared to close to the door(don't want strangers staring) so if you use it where do you keep it and what kind do you use as I was thinking of making a sawdust toilet but then my friend tonight brought up a good point so your going to haul your "poop" around with you?...Now what do I do?

Unless your toilet is a shovel, you're going to be hauling your waste. In campers and boats, it's pretty common to have a portapotti inside of a designated locker. You pull it out, use it, and slide it back in. I am dedicating bathroom space in my build, but it's costing me 28" of floor space...
In campers, the closed locker forms the step up to the cabover bunk and in boats it's usually under the V-berth.
The portapotti that I've got splits into two sealed 'jerry cans': one for fresh water and one for waste.
There's an additive that goes into the waste tank that starts to break down the waste. After sloshing around a bit while driving, you just dump it into a toilet.

This is an improvement on my Mk I Poopenthrone, which collected the waste in bags with kitty litter.

It ain't porcelain and I wouldn't want to use it all the time, but it works.

I have a therford and a sears porta potty and they are just not heavy duty enough to suit me and set too damn low for old legs so I made Mr. Stinky out of a 7 gallon bucket (17" tall) with interchangable lids. I cut all the locks off of the one lid and cut out the center and screwed this ring of a lid to a standard wood toilet seat. (be sure and check your screw length )


On the second lid I left just 2 locks this becomes the "transport" lid. For use I lined it with two 18 gallon Kitchen bags and between innings tossed in copious amounts of saw dust to absorb the liquid and cover the solids.

I was very lucky and found a 4' x 4' easy up canopy and added two fancy fabric shower curtain for privacy. I am sorry but I can not imagine putting this potty in a small trailer. Mr. Stinky lived up to his name. Perhaps the portapotty treatment or some scented kitty litter would have helped but thats more to remember to pack and lug around.

Don't get me wrong I liked and appreciated our set up and it was very convenient and servicable but it did have an odor and I was glad it was 15 yards away from the trailer.

When leaving. if a vault toilet is available I dumped the contents into it and tie the empty bags shut to dispose of at a trash site or simply place in the bucket and seal with the "Transport" lid. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not toss the plastic bag in the vault toilets these are vaccumed out and the equipment can not handle the plastic bags.

BobHenry do you have the pictures of your slide out bathroom as I'd like to see more of how you did that one...Thank you

droid_ca wrote:BobHenry do you have the pictures of your slide out bathroom as I'd like to see more of how you did that one...Thank you

HuH ? You better reread the post ! The Bud tent in the background of pic two is the facilities

Afterthought...... are you talking camping or are you brain storming for your tiny house build?

bobhenry wrote:Afterthought...... are you talking camping or are you brain storming for your tiny house build?

I have 3 builds on the go at the moment that may seem why all my post are a little ERRATIC I saw the pictures of your slide out shower curtain made out of PVC pipe and thought that is a good idea for the gypsy wagon that I want to live in an outside shower might be nice as for the main build I'm doing at the moment its going to be a sink and a wash tub my third build no showers needed it is for 2-3 days only and that is just going to be me and it's for winter time only (cant get very clean when your having a 3-dog night)..Sorry about the confusion

droid_ca wrote:BobHenry do you have the pictures of your slide out bathroom as I'd like to see more of how you did that one...Thank you

Took me awhile to locate the thread I am closer to the bottom with the pull out curtain.

http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=32772&p=587423&hilit=SHOWER+CURTAIN#p587423

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Mine is a middle-of-the-night potty, a Luggable Loo. It uses "Double Doodie" waste bags and gets emptied every morning. (The waste bags have biodegradable gel in their double sacks and it is legal to simply dump the zip-closed sacks and their contents in the trash. During the day, I use the campground facilities and the empty Loo hides under the lower part of the counter.

Here, you see the Loo:



Here, you don’t see it:



Interesting point, though.....Even though I know it is clean, I can't bring myself to prepare food on that lower counter. I think it's psychological. I will set things on it, though; and, it comes in handy in that way. I added a removable counter on the other side, next to the sink and use that for food preparation, instead. Here's a pic of that, in use as a breakfast table.:

That's a veryere the nice set up, I like the layout, and where the toilet is set up, only problem is the single type beds, there isn't enoungh room for recreational activities with co-pilot. I'm sure there is a good fix for that somehow!

Bikerman: The benches make into two cots, a full+, or an almost queen. Check your pm. (Click on new messages, above.)
...More pics in my gallery.

After using vacuum flush toilets on both boats and RVs, I'm seriously looking at spending the dough on a remote cassette type one. I'll put it's remote vacuum tank in a heated locker in the basement. To use them you do need a pressurized water system, and 12VDC at a couple amps for a few minutes per flush.

Operation is simple. Put water in toilet, do your duty, flush. Most have lights for the status of the tank vacuum. That governs when they can be flushed. Also some are cassette based, and will have a light for cassette removed. For dumping the cassette ones, take the tank to a regular toilet, vault toilet or dump station and dump it in. Some actually have a black water holding tank. Those are dumped like a regular RV or boat black water tank would be. The vacuum flush system takes care of pumping the waste from the vacuum tank to the black water tank.

Before choosing which one to get I'd have to look at how they have advanced in the past decade or so.

We put a casset toilet in our camper and I have to say that I love it. I've only camped twice in the trailer but so far this is one of my favorite additions. On this last trip I took my GD along. She has balance problems from past brain surgery. Having the toilet gave me peace of mind because I didnt have to worry about her tripping on the way to the potty. As a woman traveling alone, it was easy for me to dump and fill. I can't say enough about this thang and yes, we do use it...Not #2...just pee.

I bought one of those seat/lids that snaps onto a 5 gallon bucket, some small trash bags with a couple of handfulls of wood pellets to absorb fluids, and keep the smell down. in a pinch kitty litter would also work but doesn't seem to work against smells as well.
We only use this for the midnight calls of nature, it sits inside my wife's side tent (the ones in my sig)

bobhenry wrote:Ya gotta be real brave to cut a couple 3" holes in the side of your trailer but this installation take about 90 seconds to yank out and slip on 2 fancy cloth shower panels.









The black 2" schedule 80 pvc slides snuggly inand out of the 2 1/2" schedule 40 pvc pipe that is installed inside the tear. I left 1 outside joint unglued to break the u shaped outer rail and slip on the privacy curtain. The clips are rings of 2 1/2" pipe that have not quite 1/4 cut away this makes a clip that were drilled for a 3/8 joining nut attached to a 1/2" 3/8 bolt This make a pocket for the fiberglass survey stakes ( 1.65 at most farm stores) A tarp or nylon cover slipped over these roof ribs completes the "tent"

This is what Bob Henry has done and I think I might need to incorporate it into my trailer design I'm thinking I could get 2 metal rods and put them in the shower curtain and on the inside wall of the trailer have a couple of rare earth magnets so the rod stays in place..been thinking about an emergency exit lately so I could put it on that door, Having to go can be an emergency but I would also like to have a door on the outside of it as well for when your sitting around the fire , then there is no need for others to have to go inside the trailer to borrow the facilites...Thanks for sharing that with me Bob

I use a sawdust toilet. I found it to be the least offensive of my options. I have a 4 gallon bucket that fits under the camper when not needed and when I need it depending on where I am I either bring it into the camper or use it outside if no one else is around. With the sawdust toilet the ONLY time it smells is when you are using it as soon as you cover up your "deposit" with sawdust it doesn't smell. With any type of toilet that uses water you have black water to deal with, with the chemical toilets you have the blue portapottie smell, which I find almost as bad as the smell it is trying to cover up. And if you use a toilet that flushes with water it adds lots of weight to you camper since you need to have enough water to flush the toilet and then have a tank to store the black water. The only issue with the sawdust toilet is trying not to spill and sawdust when you use it inside (I am trying to figure out how to build one that "flushes" the sawdust in a self contained unit)