Potty Talk

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Greetings all. I would like to put a question to the group. I will be travelling to where the Scamp elves build the 16' trailer I am ordering, and am trying to make up my mind about having a toilet in the trailer, after never having lived with one.. I am bothered by the notion that my preferred layout for the trailer has the toilet and shower and blackwater tank in an enclosure that is very small. (akin to the head in a small sailboat).

I wonder if using a portable potty along with one of those smallish blue portable tanks for blackwater would allow me to avoid the lines (and flushing hassles) when other campers are lined up waiting their turn at the dumping station.

My thought was that operating in that manner would allow someone to place the portable toilet outside of the shower for ease of showering/inside the shower to privately use the toilet. For short weekends, I thought we could just dump the portable into the pit toilets at the state campgrounds.. for long weekends or maybe even some boondocking, I thought we could empty the portable toilet into the blue portable holding tank. Heck at most state campgrounds we don't mind using the pit toilets all day, anyways.

I should mention that I want to keep the trailer a LONG time, so resale value matters NOT to me. What matters is being able to camp in the the Least Complicated fashion, usually off the grid. Am I crazy for thinking dumping stations are a hassle I can avoid using the above system?

My trailer, if equipped with a blackwater holding tank would only hold eight gallons, anyways... I am thinking that means there will be perhaps too many times I'll have to deal with the hassle of having the trailer stop at a dumping station and wrestle with the big anaconda sewer hose, the flushing, etc. Since I have no experience in this area, I have an open mind if someone thinks this is just as much hassle as using a permanent RV toilet. THANKS, and sorry for being so dang long-winded. Rob

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Hi Rob
I myself like the toilet and black holding tank. Reason being, is for use at night. During day time we use campground toilet if there is one.Next thing to possibly think about, is when you get older, it sure is a nice convience.I think resale value would be higher when you go to sell.:wave

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Rob, we have a 2002 Casita SD and have the full bathroom and we we love it.
We had a camper van with a port a potty and it was ok but you had to emty it
every morning and it was more truble that draining the black tank at the dump
site.After you use the dump site a time or two you will find that is easy and
quick, never had to wait very long for my turn in fact we only have had to wait
one time out of the seven times that we have been out.
Order the trailer with the full bath and if you decided to sell it it would sell
faster and you would get more money for it. Jay

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Having a toilet on-board undoubtedly increases resale, but I have my doubts that it would increase resale as much as the toilet would actually cost. What good is it to raise your resale $500 at a cost of $1000?

Certainly if you're only concerned with late-night potty breaks - I would think that a portable would be sufficient.

That's more-or-less the way we were using our portable. The campground's toilets were used during the day - the portable took the heat at night. I think it would have taken us a couple of weeks to fill the thing at the rate we were using it.

There's some obvious advantages to having a toilet - but I think there are some major downsides as well. There's the obvious one: You've got to empty the tank (limited locations - and, well... ick!) :sick The one I haven't really seen mentioned however is the space in our little trailers that has to be perminantly devoted to the device. The portables can be stowed when not in use. Makes them especially well suited to our diminutive trailers I think.

When I brought this topic up with my wife before we bought something, I was suprised to hear her say she did NOT want a camper with a toilet. (She was mostly concerned with dumping and possible odors). Such an attitude is pretty easy when you're coming off of tent camping however.

Mike
Watters

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Thanks for starting this topic. I've been debating this myself and have more questions.
Rob you talked about putting the potty in or out of the shower? where is the shower? if you do use a blue tank, where would you dump it? Seems like everywhere I turn, there is a dumping problem. Those portables when full are not light. I think it would be easier to roll something to the dump whether it be trailer or blue tank. But let's say you are at a place with no dump and no public bath. AND you can not dump on the grounds. then what do you do? roll the blue tank into the trailer. I'm not sure I would like that. I'm just brain storming here, so if something doesn't sound right let me know.

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Just to add a little info here. There is are two lists that I use a lot for finding free dump stations. They are:

1. http://www.fulltiming-america.com/rvdump/

2. http://www.caravansforhire.com/dumpsites.htm

I have found that having indoor facilities makes camping for me a real bleesing. The holding tank is no big deal to deal with. We aften camp where there is no dump station and then use one of the free dump stations on the way home. I try to always buy gas from the place offering free dumping, even if a couple cents higher, for the benefit of the service.

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We have a 13 foot Casita. One of the main reasons we purchased it was the bathroom. I backpacked, motorcycle camped, an truck camped for years so I realized how valuable your own bathroom is.

Some of my most memorable moments have been carrying out certain functions in sleet and and cold rain not to mention snow. After you have walked a quarter of a mile in sleet to get to the restroom a couple of times you really appreciate the bathroom. You may have the best raingear in the world but you still have to store it somewhere after you get back into your shelter

We use the camper fairly often and with the proper holding tank treatment you can go quite a while with no odor problems. Many times we dump when we arrive at the campground if there is no line.

After you have dumped a few times you will find it is really simple and doesn't take much time.

Get Michael or Charles to tell you about the marathon dump they preformed in Colorado.

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Hi Rob ... No problem using a porta-potty, provided you don't mind making more frequent trips to dump the portable holding tank.

In Europe, most caravans (trailers) come with an external trap door for the porta-potty ... and every morning, you see everyone pull the tank out of the side and making a dump run.

Not exactly sure you are going to want to handle the dirty stuff twice ... however, so I'd veto the dump the porta-potty into the blue tank and then when the blue tank is full, making a trip to the dump station. Things would get messy quickly if you some how spilled some stuff while trying to transfer it from one tank to the blue tank. (Those of us with black water holding tanks use a hose to transfer from black tank to blue tank ... you'd be pouring, like trying to pour liquid from one bottle to another ... not as easy as it sounds!)

You would also have to have some mechanism to secure the porta-potty enroute ... particularly if you were traveling with some liquid in it.

Now, late night potty runs aside, to me, the biggest advantage of having a built-in toilet is that my wife has not had to use a public toilet for more years than I can count.

Some of those gas station and highway rest area bathrooms can be dangerous and dirty places for a woman to use.

When we pull into somewhere, while enroute, I walk the dog while my wife jumps into the trailer ... then I let the dog into the trailer to get a drink while I walk into the public facilities ... which from a man's perspective, are acceptible.

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Thanks everyone for the thoughtful answers. A couple people asked for further elaboration, and I will try to remember the questions. Regarding my idea of a 2nd, (and larger) portable tank to go with the portable potty related to the fact that I think we will try some remote, unplugged camping.. I thought that one of those blue tanks with the wheels would allow us an extended "boondocks" stay using the smallest type of portable toilet. (I thought a small portable would be easiest to manage on a daily basis where we would typically use it only as an occassional tinkle tank late at night when we are at the State Parks we frequent.)

The shower/permanent toilet location for the layout of my trailer means a person would have to be perched on the permanent toilet while showering, the way it is done on small sailboats.. such a bathroom strikes me as difficult to keep nice and clean after a shower, whereas a portable toilet could be placed outside until someone is finished showering.

I agree with those in the group who claim I would quickly get used to managing my trailer if it had a permanent toilet, but I also think that the fact that we are satisfied with the State Parks pit toilets most of the time would possibly mean that there could be times we would have trips where we did not use any sort of toilet in our own camper.. that being the case, I lean towards portable.

I wonder if someone could comment on how many days me and my two daughters could camp with a Permanent scamp toilet (8 gallon holding tank) if MOST of the time we used campground toilets.. I guess I would be less concerned about a permanent, if I could know that I'd have ample time to locate a dumping station if we used the toilet VERY conservatively. Thanks again for everyone's help.. it is really helping me to make an informed decision. Rob

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Rob:

ohhhhhhh.........you and two daughters??:o

Get a full bath, it'll work out!:wave

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That's just what I was thinking Don, 2 daughter? depends on the age, but my grndkids can fill a 20 gallon tank in a weekend. I remember someone talking about how they empty their gray into the black tank because they fill the gray first. not with my grandkids. Course this is with no public toliets or only furnished portables that stink in one day. so the kids used the MH. caught the little one just flushing and flushing watching it run down the drain. that year we also ran out of water. 40 gal tank. She was doing the same thing at the sink. washing hands every 5 min. we have since changed the arrangement.
This discussion has clearned up my thinking, even if it hasn't yours, Ron. I'm going with the built-in everything. I do not like luging thinks around.

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Hey, the nice thing about a porta-potti is that there is no powered water involved except the little push-pump.

Also, even when full, it's a convenient load to carry over to the pit toilet and dump. If you need more room in the trailer, you can store it under the trailer, in the truck, on the roof, whatever. Try that with a bolted-down throne...

Pete and Rats

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For one glorious year we had a trailer with a built in toilet. What luxury. It was much easier and cleaner to dump than than the porta-potty. I'm assuming that the pit toilets are out-houses, if so where do you get the water to rinse out that porta-potty properly. We always dump the port-potty at the dumping station anyways to make sure it is well rinsed.

We have two girls and found that we could easily camp a weekend without dumping. Even the weekend that it poured rain, half snow, and we all used it there wasn't a problem. Just watch how long you flush.

Just cuz its there doesn't mean you have to use it you can still walk to the pits.
Nancy

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Thanks again everyone. Yesterday, I talked with my sales rep at Scamp about the bathroom, and he has me more pointed in the direction of a permanent toilet: he told me that if I delete the toilet, that due to my height, I will still not be able to stand when using the shower, as I had hoped. Furthermore, he has taken it to heart when I swear this is the last trailer I'll own, and he indicated that should I ever someday wish to add a toilet to the finished trailer, it is infinitely more difficult to accomplish because of having to cut into the swoopy shower floor, and because of welding normally done when the trailer is still a raw frame. (He said, "Sure, we'll take your money down the road if you should want to add a toilet, but nobody in the repair dept. is going to be smiling when they do the modifications.")

Lastly, something he reminded me of (as I migrate from my tiny pop-up with no greywater tank)... he said consider that I'll be at that dumping station anyways with my large greywater tank- dumping one additional tank will be a minimal increase in work.

Aw shucks, I think "convenience" is developing into a better argument:)
Thanks again, people!

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Rob-

If the following applied to me:

1. I lived in an anchored home and used my Egg for outings.

2. I was buying a new Egg,

then I would order the fixed throne, for the salesperson's reasons and also for the "don't have to use it" reason coupled with resale (despite what your 'druthers are now, you may find yourself wanting something smaller or larger or different for reasons you haven't yet encountered).

If the throne got in my way, I'd simply cap the water line, remove the throne (store it in my attic or whatever) and put a plastic or metal plate, with gasket, over the hole.

Actually, even if I didn't have a place to store it, I might just discard it and get a replacement later if I ever wanted one (new, RV junkyard, whatever) or let the new owner do it.

You can always treat the black tank, with some modifications, as an extension of your gray tank if you don't use the toilet much. If you are dumping your gray tank, it's only a couple of valve cycles more to do the black first. You have to clean up after the gray water dump anyway, because it is unsanitary (altho not as unsan as the black stuf of course).

Pete and Rats who just use the bottom of their cage and let Pete handle the rest

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(Pete - you were joking, right? You'd really just pitch it?!?!?)

well.. if that the case, and you're ordering a new trailer... then you might as well order the trailer ''prepped'' for the toilet. Have all the plumbing and tanks there.. but just cap it off as Pete says. Easy enough for the next owner to just add the toilet later.

Not sure about the Casita folks, but the Scamp people don't mind adding or subtracting items from the order.

I ditto what Pete says about resale... the boards are full of trailers that are for sale because of numerous different personal reasons.

Also.. someone indicated that it wouldn't be worth having a $1,000 optoin to recoup $500 at resale time. I don't think that quite rings true... the difference between having a bathroom or not could be the determining factor of whether you sell quickly or not. Many people won't even consider a unit that doesn't have a john.

JMO

Sally

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Umm, Sally, if you're a FullTimer and something is in your way, it's gotta go somewhere -- I've pitched a non-working reefer (replaced it with a cooler), a non-working water heater (gave the tank to a guy who had a leaky tank), a working roof a/c (nobody wanted it in my RV park; replaced it with a more useful roof vent) and two working converters (replaced with good battery charger) in the course of owning two used trailers.

Life's not long enuf to collect stuf you need, much less stuf you don't need, esp when you have to cart it along with you.

How much would someone pay for an RV throne when you can find them at an RV wrecking yard? How much *less* would they pay for a used one!?!

I guess a throne on the roof would be a conversation piece, but I find my Egg itself sparks a lot of questions.

As far as resale, Marketing 101 teaches that losing money on product A might still bring in buyers for product B; lack of a bath can be a real deal killer.

Pete and Rats

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If you are camping really out in the boondocks, as we sometimes do on BLM land, there aren't any pit toilets nor any kind of dump facilities within many miles. We don't even worry about where to dump for a few days. That's why we like the built-in bath.

Even with conservative use, the grey water tank seems to fill more quickly than the black, but you can always transfer some grey to the black. Of course by that time, your fresh water tank is probably empty anyway! Carry a few extra bottles of drinking water.

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It's sort of a given that, without refilling, your gray and black tanks will only accumulate what your fresh tank holds (plus maybe reefer drinks).

Using a hand pump will cut down tremendously on water use, and even more cutback can be had by using a former dish detergent squeeze bottle of water to do rinsing, plus paper plates or eating out of the pot.

Some boondockers catch gray water in a bucket and use it for toilet flushing to conserve fresh.

I use a former laundry detergent bottle as my gray tank, carrying it on the tongue when not in use.

Pete and Rats

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A new trailer!!!!!

LOL

Seriously. I have a '69 Boler that I bought originally to turn into a dog grooming trailer. I got it in August. I'm having a terrible time justifying a comical paint job on it and taking away from it's original "uniqueness" that only an old Boler can bring.

I do want to get out and about with it next summer.. and now ya all got me thinking that I'd be a whole lot happier with a unit with a toilet!!! And that side dinette Casita is downright interesting...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Me thinks this Boler is destined to turn into the grooming rig again.

Gives me all winter to score a good deal on a Casita and get a larger tow vehicle. (eye is currently on a Toyota Highlander - that would pull a 16' nicely)