Let’s talk about toilets.
This is a question we get a lot. How do you go to the bathroom? Can you go number 2 in your van? Where can you hide your toilet ? For the ones that are wondering all the bathroom details and if your building a van i’m going to give you some different options.
Now before I show you 3 options all these prices may change depending on when you're reading this blog post so keep that in mind. Also there are so so many options for toilets not just these 3. When Logan and I rented a van in Colorado that van just had a 5 gallon bucket with RV bathroom bags made for going to the bathroom and we put some kind of gel powder to absorb the waste and it really did work. So you don’t necessarily need something fancy like this to do the job. Just wanted to give you some options if you do want to have a cool toilet in your rig.
This first toilet you see is the one we decided to go with. Our first plan while building the van out was to do a composting toilet but we ended up going with this one you see above. This is a Yitahome portable toilet. We bought it on amazon for at the time $119. Now I know it’s the only toilet we have had so this option might not be as relevant but we love it. It has a holder for your toilet paper and it even flushes. No batteries. No power needed. It’s great for just over $100 bucks. As you can see the top part is the clean water you use to flush it with and the bottom is where the waste is. Now I will say. We really try to only go number 1 is this to reduce the smell. Because when you mix number 1& 2 that’s why you have a smell. I will say we bought these little pods that you put right in the bottom with the waste and it dissolves and you can’t smell anything. We have has this toilet for over a year now and we love it.
The next option for a toilet is a dry flush option. This is battery powered so you don’t have to hook it up to any power source in your van. This option looks so cool because it just looks like it vacuum seals your waste. It also come with some pee powder that you put in before you go pee and it turns it into pebbles almost. Now when you get this toilet each refill comes with 15 flushes per refill. So with that in mind you have to kinda watch how much you go or that can be expensive. This toilet is right now $979.
For the last and most expensive option and in van life is the most popular is the Natures head composting toilet. This toilet is on amazon right now for $1098. Ya very pricey for basically a fancy bin to poop in. The pros about this is it has 2 different compartments. One is for your pee you see in the photo the little white jug in front with the black handle. And the 2nd part is the compost for your poop. In the photo this is what it looks like inside where you go number 2. You will see that it doesn't even look like poop. I know crazy right. With compost it literally turns your number 2 into kinda like dirt. This makes it very easy to clean. Another pro is all you do is empty the compost into a garbage bag and throw it in any garbage and the pee part can be dumped in any toilet. Ok so now to the Cons. This toilet does require you to have power. You will need to run a while to your toilet for the fan to your house batteries. Basically what this does is this toilet has a tiny fan that will blow outside of your van so if there is a smell it goes outside. So that leads me to the other con. You will have to drill a hole inside your bathroom or where ever you are holding your toilet going outside of your van. For almost everyone thats not a big issue but if you can’t drill a hole for the hose or just don’t want to or don’t have the extra power ( this uses a very small amount of power ) then this toilet might not be the best bet for you.
