Your Portable potti choices

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Your Portable potti choices

Postby john » Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:18 pm

I have been looking at two different types of portable potties.

The first is the kind that can be flushed. I have no experience with these. They appear to have a reservoir of fresh water and a second for waste that can be carried to the dump station.

The second is the luggable loo. It is little more than a toilet seat on a bucket.


At first blush the flushable kind seems preferable but after thinking about it it seems to me tossing a bag of used kitty litter in the trash is more appealing.


What is your experience and which would prefer?
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Postby Nitetimes » Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:24 pm

I generally just use the bushes. 8) 8) :lol:
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Postby john » Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:27 pm

Same here but my wife and daughter........ :shock:
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Postby Nitetimes » Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:31 pm

john wrote:Same here but my wife and daughter........ :shock:


Yeah, they're kinda funny like that.
Personally I'd just use the bucket idea, inexpensive and functional, I just don't see a downside to it. ;) :lol:
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Postby Arne » Thu Jan 01, 2009 1:05 pm

I've not found the perfect toilet for camping. I do have pett toilet, and it works fine, but requires space and setup... but once, I pulled off the side of a country road, at an angle, opened the front van door, and set the pett up in about a minute.....

It came in very handy in that 'desperate' moment. I prefer it, I think, to a portapoti because it has 3 legs and can be put pretty much anywhere, including my cabela shower tent... set up is about a minute, once you have it out. and the bag contains a material that turns into a gel and is odorless in the few times I've used it.
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Postby jollymon1375 » Thu Jan 01, 2009 1:11 pm

I've got to admit the bucket with a seat and the gel is by far the easiest way to go. We used one for the Buffet show this year in the parking lot with one of those little privacy tents and it was a perfect solution! :thumbsup:
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Postby S. Heisley » Thu Jan 01, 2009 1:30 pm

Both types have avoidable hazards.

If you go with the dump 'n' toss set-up, be certain to get the seat with legs that is used over the bucket. Once, I tried using just a plastic bucket with the bag inside it. Everything was going fine until almost the end (excuse the puns), when the bucket broke! :shock: :oops:

My sis had a problem with the flushable kind, when a visitor had a digestive upset and over-filled it because it was almost full already. Emptying it was a mess. It spilled all over the place. My solution to that is: 1) Don't wait until it's nearly full to empty it. 2) Don't fill the water reservoir all the way full. That way, when you run out of flushing water, you'll know it's time to empty the holding tank as well as refill the flushing water reservoir.
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Postby Miriam C. » Thu Jan 01, 2009 1:33 pm

:thumbsup: We have a Sanipottie. It sits on a tall tank so is about 18 inchses off the floor. Good size.

You can get gel packs for the Lugg-a-loo or any bucket set up. The gel turns waste into a harmless mass that is safe to throw in a trash container. If you can find a short bucket the same radius as a 5 gal. bucket you can get seats for it.

Oh yeah if the top is too full when transporting it might tip. :roll:
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Postby dmb90260 » Thu Jan 01, 2009 3:19 pm

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PETT with home made booster for taller folk. Very handy when the plumber had the water shut off. Set up in my trailer, turned on the satellite TV and made an event out of it. :lol: (Fantastic fan came in very handy too.)
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Postby steve wolverton » Thu Jan 01, 2009 3:49 pm

Miriam C. wrote:Oh yeah if the top is too full when transporting it might tip.


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Postby Siobhra » Thu Jan 01, 2009 7:25 pm

I use a flushable and love it. I have had the bucket type in the past and it was OK. What I like about the flushable is that it is odorless. No replacement bags or gel needed as well. Yes it is a little extra work to clean it but not that much. I dump it in the camp porta potty and at the end of the camping trip I stop at the car wash to clean the inside with the pressure washer.
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Postby mikeschn » Thu Jan 01, 2009 7:48 pm

No one seems to have mentioned how easy it is to dump.

The thetford I just bought is so easy to dump, that so far it takes first place!

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Postby Dee Bee » Thu Jan 01, 2009 8:06 pm

I have been thinking and reading alot about the waste of pottable water we use for flushing toilets. It doesn't make any sense to me that we use drinking water to liquify human waste. We send it to expensive municiple plpants where they use ineffective processes to remove the water that we added. All this because 1) we don't want to deal with our own waste, or 2) the government doesn't trust people to handle waste in a safe way, or 3) municiple codes a written that it is illegal for a person to use a simple, safe method of waste disposal.

As an experiemtn and as a mild form of secret - social protest and I have made a modfied sawdust toilet with a urine separator. I used the basic ideas of a sawdust toilet from the jenkins website. But also read that mixing urine and faces is what causes that aweful odor found in repulsive outhouses. Separate the urine and most of the odor is gone. Cover the faeces after each use with sawdust, ashes, dry leaves, newspaper, hand paper towels, peat most, almost anything, and there is no offensive odor.

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Nature's Head manufactures a toilet like this for campers and boats for $850. It is a very nice urine separating compost toilet. But expensive.

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I made mine out of scraps been using it for 6 months in my work shop. Cost $0.oo Very pleased so far. I use a funnel to divert urine into a container. Faeces are covered after each use. People visit me in my wood shop, sit down to rest on what looks like a seat or box. They don't know they are sitting on a composting toilet or what it contians. There is no odor, no plumbling, no utility. I may be twisted but I enjoy the irony of the whole situation.

I have a composting worm bin for kitchen scraps that eventualy end up on the garden. I have added a few red worms to the toilet so they can help speed up the composting of the faeces. Urine from a healthy person contains no pathogens after 30 hours. If diluted with water it is a marvelous source of nitrogen and minerals to non eddible plants.

After the first container from the toilet is full I will add more worms to it. Keep it in a plastic bucket for a year then spread it on ornamental flower beds.

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Postby john » Thu Jan 01, 2009 8:36 pm

How do the others work?

No one seems to have mentioned how easy it is to dump.

The thetford I just bought is so easy to dump, that so far it takes first place!
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Postby Oasis Maker » Thu Jan 01, 2009 8:36 pm

Funny, I have both. I started off with the Thetford and then opted for the Luggable Loo. I just like to keep it simple. I get the Wag Bags and add a little additional Fresh Step Kitty Litter to the powder that's already in there (just to build it up a little and ensure no splash backs) :oops: hey, we're all family here. :lol:

I'm a big guy, so you do have to be aware that the bucket method is not as stable as a Thetford. But just sit softly and carry a big stick... :thinking: (that's not right is it?)

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