Compost Head Owners: Would you do it again?

[roverhi]

Have a CHead but haven't used it enough to have valid input as to its suitability. Have a 28' boat and the PO's installed holding tank wiped out valuable storage that I couldn't live without. The CHead was an easy one step solution that has so far worked but I'm not cruising or using it regularly.

When we were cruising, we spent most of our time anchored out in remote areas. With a composting toilet, would want to have some experience with how much composting media was actually needed. Restocking for us would have meant a 600 mile sail, at the minimum, in areas we spent the most time in with no guarantee that Coconut coir or any other suitable composting material would have been available after we sailed that distance to find it.

If I was serious about cruising would go with direct discharge or an ElectroScan
https://raritaneng.com/raritan-produ...t/electroscan/ We had the predecessor LectroSan and it worked fine for us.

Once you leave the US, pump out facilities are very rare and virtually no one requires a holding tank. Salt water renders waste harmless after a very short immersion and the environment that can handle marine mammals isn't even going to notice your addition to the food chain. We had an ElectroSan when out cruising and it worked well but we were the oddity with any kind of waste control.

Personally hate holding tanks, they stink. They are also a PITA to empty IF PUMP OUT FACILITIES ARE AVAILABLE AND WORK even in the US. Once you head south, better be able to pump overboard or you'll have a mess on your hands.

[Mr O]

Last winter I installed an Airhead after removing all the old plumbing, tank and head. Very easy installation. I used an existing vent in the head to connect the exhaust fan. It has worked great for us and I don’t miss the pump outs, smell or joker valve replacement! More room for storage where the tank once lived. There were 4 of us aboard for 5 weeks and the solids tank was emptied half way thru the trip and again at the end, although it was not completely full. Liquids over the side or into the toilet at marinas once per day. The small fan uses so little energy that its not an issue at all. Crew had no problem using the composting head since there are no valves, pumps or anything confusing to deal with. Ignore the comment from the broker as to resale. A stinking holding tank can always be reinstalled. Of course I would never do that as long as I own the boat!

[jewt]

Had a Nature Head on our previous boat for 8-10 years which included spending 3-5 months every other winter in the Bahamas full time and we loved it! No more smell, no worries about the southern Florida "Head Nazi's" or other states pump out logs

Last December bought a "new to us" '89 Morgan 44 CP sloop with one electric and one manual head and two very small holding tanks (and lots of smell). I am currently replacing them both with new Nature Heads. By removing all the old plumbing I hope to have all the smell gone before we head South this winter

Jewt
S/V Bifrost
New Bern, NC

[chriswheat]

One more quick note from someone who would never go back. I love my C head. No ick factor, no smell, no bugs, even without a fan.. My previous boat always smelled even after cleaning the tank and replacing the hoses with the best available.

[Seighlor]

Installed a Nature's Head four or five years ago. Never a problem. No stink. No hoses to replace. No flushing situations to resolve... truly a yuk factor. And, as mentioned, the composted residue is much like potting soil. No stink and no mess.

[RickG]

We liveaboard full-time and love our C-Head. We also kept one wet head for when that would work. The C-Head is off the cabin we sleep in and it is odor free. We use coir and empty once per week; I'd like to try compressed sawdust. If we do not have a good place to dump the medium it goes in the dumpster with our trash.

Cheers, RickG

[boatman1]

If holding tanks were not required, then then the option of a composting head would most likely not be seriously considered. For U.S. boats these abominations are necessary, so the composting method has merit. I’d choose the electrasan route myself. Actually, since it’s been quite awhile since I’ve had a female of the species onboard, I’d go with a bucket.

[Copacabana]

Originally Posted by boatman1

If holding tanks were not required, then then the option of a composting head would most likely not be seriously considered. For U.S. boats these abominations are necessary, so the composting method has merit. I’d choose the electrasan route myself. Actually, since it’s been quite awhile since I’ve had a female of the species onboard, I’d go with a bucket.

You should read what composting toilet users say (above) about the reasons they prefer composters. It has nothing to do with requirements for holding tanks.

[alansmith]

Btw...female urine is not sterile. It is contaminated with vaginal flora. Not that it matters. They are not pathogenic bacteria. Just so u know.

[boatman1]

Well gee whiz, this poor dummy could have sworn that the storage volume occupied by a holding tank was a commonly expressed factor in favor of an alternative. Silly me

[newhaul]

Here is my $2 bucks worth .
Built my own use coir its cheap easy and available just about everywhere there is a garden supply .
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ad-172196.html

Coir is cheap bricks take up little space
Here is a two year supply for my boat .

https://gardenartisans.com/products/...IaApzPEALw_wcB

[Chotu]

1. Liveaboards - how is it working for full-time use? As your only head?

our composting toilet is homemade. And I didn’t make it pretty the first time because I didn’t know if it was going to work or not. But what I did know is I didn’t want to have another 30 years of joker valves breaking, hoses leaking, hoses permeating smell, holding tanks stinking, having to take apart plumbing and having gallons of Poo shoot out at out you.

i’ve been on the water a long time. And I’ve been a live aboard cruiser for decades. Without fail, every marine head breaks. The plumbing, the joker valve, the pump, whatever. Something will break. It is one of the worst Rube Goldberg inventions I can even imagine. Design to pump excrement uphill. Brilliant.

My composting head, in a basic case, consists of a 5 gallon bucket, a funnel, and a pee jug. Total cost, including the toilet seat and enclosure? Probably about $80. It also has an exhaust fan to pull air into the enclosing case, and push it out through a dryer hose pipe exhaust to a deck cowl vent.

I use 2 tall kitchen garbage bags in the 5 gallon bucket. These are much taller than the bucket. However, they provide a double layer, and also provide a big collar around the bucket. When you are emptying it, you grab the collar all of that extra garbage bag. And you twist it and then tie it off before you even lift it out. This makes for easy handling.

The pee jug is small in my homemade unit, so it gets emptied daily. A slightly bigger one would be an improvement.

We use Peat Moss. I spent $3.64 on a bag of it. We have been using this thing for about five or six months now. We have gone through 1/4 of the Pete moss. Pretty sure it would last almost a year. For $3.64.

We have emptied it about three times now I think? That’s with two people using it full-time. Very simple. Tie it off, pull it out, and never have to touch any excrement at all. Unlike the standard marine head, where every year or two you are up to your neck or elbows in poo. At the bare minimum, changing a joker valve, you get it on your hands. Gross. I wanted something clean where I didn’t have to deal with sewage anymore.

2. Tropics/Warm weather - still a good choice?

Temperature doesn’t really matter. Although I have not used it in freezing temperatures. Warm air doesn’t really change anything.

3. When cruising outside US, any issues in replenishing coir/peet?

Given that a $3.64 container of PeatMoss lasts over a year, you should be OK.

4. What do you like most about it? Least?

What I like most is never having to deal with sewage directly again. I also don’t miss the smell that every marine head has. People say theirs doesn’t smell. Right. They just get used to the stink. When you finally switch to a composting head, you finally realize what is like to not have a smell in the head. It’s like a bathroom on land in a house. No smell. Just the smell of PeatMoss which takes some getting used to. But I bet if we kept that in a closed container, it would be zero smell. The fresh Peat moss is wide open in our head.

We also have a small vinegar bottle nearby and we spray down the urine diverter with that after each use. Just to make sure there is no residual urine left. I think that’s an important part of keeping smell away.

One huge benefit is the amount of freshwater we are no longer wasting flushing down the toilet. I think half of our water went down the toilet. We have so much now we don’t even know what to do with it. 350 gallons. LOL

I’m really trying to think of something I don’t like about it. Maybe just having to empty the urine jug. Because that’s somewhat more frequent. Other than that, it exceeds a marine head in every way possible. I just feel liberated to not have to touch any more sewage. It’s so much more clean.


5. Compared to a higher-grade marine toilet (Raritan Elegance, etc.), would you still chose your Compost Head?


I can make a direct comparison. I had a Raritan elegance in the head before this. When it broke, I decided never to use marine heads again. I was just done dealing with sewage on my hands. Completely done. 30 years of it. No more.

PS: Sorry she’s not prettier. This was just an experiment. I wanted to use cheap materials this time. I am going to rebuild that case at some point.

[captlloyd]

It seems about 20% of all comments on this forum deal with problems with conventional heads. That should give you some input into which direction to proceed with onboard sanitation devices. The only thing more simple than a composting head is a bucket.

[Paul Howard]

We lived onboard for 8 months and done local sailing for two summers with a C-Head on our catamaran. My wife would prefer a wet toilet and holding tank because it seems more like home. I did all the repairs and emptying on the wet flush heads we had during 15years of living onboard.
I love the simplicity, no smell, no drips, no clogs, more storage, less weight, no calcium build-up in smelly hoses, etc.
Composting heads forever.
As an aside, they are legal in the Great Lakes of Canada as long as they are permanently attached to the boat, meaning you would need a tool to remove the head. A few screws and 90degree brackets seem to do the trick.

[mvweebles]

I wanted to thank all the composting head owners who commented. All were really helpful, and have given me confidence to take the plunge, though full disclosure: I'll have a back-up plan just in case.

I also trolled TrawlerForum for comments (many were small boats upgrading from a porta-potty, so not really apples/apples). Overall, I found one negative comment from someone who hated it and went back to whatever he had before; two neutral comments; and about 40 positive comments.

Thanks again!

Peter