1st use of composting toilet. Not sure I'll keep it.

Avidmagnum12":16gp476o said:
What brand of composing toilet do you have? I do not know of any that do not have a way of turning the solids. I have an airhead but have also used a natures way and a c-head. They all work well and I’d never go back to using a holding tank toilet again. We’ve had our airhead for over 6 years now and have had no issues with it. There can be a learning curve with the main problem being too much moisture in the material where the solids collect.

I have not heard of anyone removing a Airhead……yet.
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Found the label today: Separett AB Model 7010. Its just a pee separating toilet. Poop in a bucket, pee overboard. Not a composing one. The PO had been putting coconut in it I guess. Not sure how he stired it though.
I'm going back to the factory holding tank head. 9 gallon, with macerator overboard discharge.

I exclussively boat in the ocean. Dumping 3 miles off shore is completely legal and at 25mph, just a few minutes out. Closer and easier than any dump station. I'll convert it to saltwater flush vice fresh and call it good.
It's about 1qt per flush, so I guess 3 times per day x 2 adults = 1.5 gallons per day + maybe 1.5 gallons a day of physical solids/pee. I'd go offshore every 3 days. I can easly deal with that. Besides, I have it. Buying a composting toilet is like $1,000 and this one only needs a missing macerator. All the plumbing and overboard ball valves, etc are in place.
 
I am not sure if you are going to convert the original head/tank to salt or raw water. I would strongly advise against this, because of potential corrosion issues. You would also have to have a thru hull intake, and pump. I am not sure if a raw water wash down system could be adopted--but most likely that is possible.
 
Yes I'll be tapping into the raw water system since it's already has a through hole and a screen and a pump for salt water. I'll simply tee into the line and run it into the bathroom as opposed to fresh water. I've had several Marine saltwater toilets.
 
Having had marine toilets that use salt water and the RV-type toilet in the CD-25, I would have to recommend against using salt water. The smell that typical marine heads get is due to the critters in the salt water dying in the lines. With the fresh water flush and use of RV holding tank solution, you don't get that smell. You can put a ball valve in the toilet fresh water feed line and greatly control your use of fresh water.

We found we could generally get 5 to 7 days between pump-outs when spending extended time on the boat.

As far as the airheads, I have never used one, but I have been "downwind" of a close dock neighbor who did. Maybe it didn't stink in his boat, but is sure drifted our way. I gave him a hand one day getting a dinghy down, which put me right at the vent... yep, that's where that smell is coming from. I'd take the RV type with fresh water rinse every time.
 
I've had several Marine saltwater toilets.
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. I have had more than "several" salt water heads--all except the C Dory Sea Land Traveler with the 9 gallon tank, have been salt water--electric or manual. Some boats had 2 marine heads, and these all are much different that the ones which come with the C Dorys.

As to Jame's comment---the composting head with a "odor" was not properly maintained or rigged. Unless a mistake is made there is no odor-a little urine mixed in or the base material too wet= smell. I looked into this very thoroughly before buying a boat with a composing head.
 
thataway":3g5zpt0g said:
I've had several Marine saltwater toilets.
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. I have had more than "several" salt water heads--all except the C Dory Sea Land Traveler with the 9 gallon tank, have been salt water--electric or manual. Some boats had 2 marine heads, and these all are much different that the ones which come with the C Dorys.

As to Jame's comment---the composting head with a "odor" was not properly maintained or rigged. Unless a mistake is made there is no odor-a little urine mixed in or the base material too wet= smell. I looked into this very thoroughly before buying a boat with a composing head.
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For my camper and CD22, I initially thought I would need to rig up a powered vent (described in the instructions) for my composting toilet. It turned out that this was not necessary. As long as urine was kept out, enough coconut fiber (or peat moss) was added, and it was turned, it didn’t smell much. As someone that studied this at scales from a few lbs to hundreds of tons, The key was always aeration. If the system is kept moist, but not too wet, and there are aerating pores that can allow oxygen to get to it, decomposition will be aerobic and can’t produce many really bad smells, at least not for very long. The smaller the pile of poop+coconut fiber, the higher the surface area to volume ratio, increasing aeration. In the case of hooking up a vent, particularly a powered one, removing air from the “tank” will necessarily require outside air and its oxygen to migrate in to replace it (equalize pressures), which will increase aeration. We actually would set up compressors and force air through vented flooring or pipes through piles in larger scales. Temperatures from the microbial decomposition could reach 180 decrees inside of those piles, and they would steam a lot.

Conclusion: If the system is smelling really bad, it is anaerobic, and the answer is adding more fiber and mixing to increase aeration. Too much waste over short periods of time could also overwhelm any composting system. On the scale of a million or so people’s waste, the City of Tacoma actually injects pure oxygen into its wastewater treatment system to keep it aerobic.
 
robhwa wrote "
Conclusion: If the system is smelling really bad, it is anaerobic, and the answer is adding more fiber and mixing to increase aeration."

That is our experience as well. It can be overwhelmed. More input needs more mixing. Don't let it get too wet in the tank as that precludes oxygen. We have not had complaints at our marina or at other docks. If it smells then something likely needs adjusted. If you put your nose at the vent you may get some slight odor but should not be offensive.

We have had an AirHead on a 25 for three seasons and it works very well for us.
 
Too bad about C-Head. We have one in the boat and one on our house construction site and they are great.

There's only 3 key elements to a composting toilet:
1) Separate the pee from the solids. A plastic jug works well. They key here is a urine diverter:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CHMV5J6/re ... CFbY8VP0YP

2) Use a good medium. The C-Head folks liked shredded aspen Gerbil bedding, available at Walmart, and it works well for us:

https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/aspen-pet-bedding

3) Stir it up after every use. The C-head came with a crank. Otherwise, you need to improvise.

These RV folks are offering free build-your-own plans:

https://timshannonltd.com/free-plans-fo ... ng-toilet/

I borrowed some from their plans and built a cockpit locker on the starboard side of our C-22 Cruiser that also has a super-insulated place for the cooler. It's also a great place to stretch out and have a beer. We get a week out of the ice and 2 weeks out of the C-head.
 
Key #4: Put the TP in a separate container. It's really not that hard to do. I found a tall thin plastic cereal container at Walmart, built a hinged lid over it, and it works great. The TP doesn't really interfere with the moisture absorption, it just wastes space. Line the container with a plastic shopping bag and toss when full. I bag of used TP isn't really as ugly as it sounds.
 
I reviewed the last link and several others related to it. These folks are not using an agitator, they are just putting more petemoss or or wood shavings etc on top of each poop. This is definitely not a composting toilet--it is cover up the poop toilet. When we were at a point of taking our "material" out of the airhead, especially after several trips before we disposed of the solid area content, it looked just like composted earth. Part of that I contend is due to the regular agitation and allowing oxygen to react and increased the composting process.

The gal said she "sealed" the plywood with a water based urethane varnish. I would be very uncomfortable with that type of "sealing"--I doubt that the end grain wood was really sealed. I would use epoxy, and perhaps even put a light fiberglass cloth over the wood. I can see down the line in the unit in the van, as being a real mess with the wood there.
 
Bob, Thanks for clarifying details that I skipped over. I just included their plans mostly for the dimensions and the general layout (the struts are a good idea also).

For our unit, I used C-Head guts with agitator (unfortunately no longer available). My construction used marine plywood with 2 layers of fiberglass cloth and lots of epoxy, painted with 2 coats of Petit EZPoxy paint (Hatteras off-white color for a close match to the C-Dory off-white) and primer. The "results" from the toilet are not completely compost-ready, but rather odor-free and easy to dispose of.
 
Thanks Paul. This looks like a good solution for the CD 22. It checks the boxes for having a liquids tank separate from the compost tank. The height is a bit too high to fit under the bed in the Vberth however. That would not be a problem for us as we typically use and carry it in the cockpit anyway. I do wonder about the effectiveness of the carbon filter to keep the odor down. It appears to be well engineered and supported in the US, (shipped from CA).

Seeing this advertisement coincides with our plans to replace the chemical toilet we have. Curious of others thoughts on this?
 
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