View Single Post
Old 10-11-2012, 06:07 PM   #2
Ran D. St. Clair
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 212
Default

Good summary.

I have experience with the ECOJOHN which is an incinerating toilet that is propane fired, so it does not use a ton of electricity like the Incinolet. It works, but I would not design one into a project again. The cleaning aspect, while germ free is still a hassle. The smell of cooking poop is surprisingly not so bad. What is nasty and acrid is the smell of boiling pee. If everything is vented properly none of this is a problem for the folks on the inside though I sometimes worry about complaints from whoever might be downwind. You also have to be very careful with a vent fan. If you blow out through a ceiling vent it will back draft the chimney and fill the rig with smoke. If you suck in via the ceiling vent then you have to make sure that the ceiling vent is upwind of the chimney, otherwise the bad smells come in that way.

The fire box needs to be cleaned of ash, but it is not fluffy grey ash like from a BBQ. It is big gravely chunks that have to be scraped off the bottom of the fire box. I suspect the front loading tray of the Incinolet is a much superior design in that respect. The auger system used by the ECOJOHN is prone to be covered with sticky smeared brown stuff and looks disgusting. It doesn't actually hurt anything or even smell because it is quickly dried out, but it is not a pretty sight.

As for composting toilets, I have studied some that are quite advanced in design, and supposedly suitable even in a nice home. These are not "bag and dump" types but true composters with provisions for ariation. If the opportunity arrises, that will be my next approach to the problem.

I did try the 5 gallon bucket lid or "bag and dump" as an initial experement and fond it unsatesfactory in the simplest form. I think it could be made quite satesfactory if you just added a small exhaust fan. Basically you need to expell the fumes that are created during the act of taking a dump, not to mention any fumes that might arrize thereafter. This sort of a fan is usually a requirement for a composting toilet or even a dessicating toilet.

The dessicating toilet uses gentle heat to dry out the waste and once dry there is no smell to speak of, but it can take a while to dry. These sorts of toilets often have a means for separating or draining off the pee.

Surprisingly, it think urine might be the harder problem. If you can capture it in a sealed container then you can dump it. The total volume is fairly low, so it might not seem so difficult but we are back to dealing with messy things and it can stink worse than poop if given the chance. In small amounts, you can dump it in the weeds, but there are probably laws against that sort of thing, even if it seems silly because that's where all the rest of nature goes.

Part of the problem with designing a system to dispose of undiluted pee in small volumes is the tendency to form crystals and plug up drains. Now we are back to disgusting cleaning jobs that we would like to avoid. There are always water bottle solutions but they aren't very eligant.

Finally, there is leaving your rig to use some other facility. In some limited cases that may be the best solution of all. Of course, that's really inconvenient at 2:00 am...
Ran D. St. Clair is offline   Reply With Quote