Quote:
Originally Posted by Ram
I would like to buy the used one for half price if its possable- - My boat is a charter boat so I have a lot of folks coming onboard who are not used to being onboard, nor are they used to marine heads, or composting heads
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Just some random comments from my experience.
Bought a boat with a NH. The PO's wife showed me the ropes.
First you put the brick of moss/what ever in a small bucket with a cup or two of
water and let it sit for a few hours. You will probably need a screwdriver to completely break it up and it is probably a good idea to do this a couple of times during the few hours you let it sit.
Get a garbage bag and with the NH you take off the top, put the garbage bag over the bottom and turn it upside down. I have a five gallon bucket I put the garbage bag with the compost in. Some folks clean the bottom container, others don't and the instructions say if you use anything but a
toilet like paper substance to clean the bottom (read some type of
cleaning solution) you may reduce the number of good organisms that help with composting.
In any case don't ever use something like a brush to clean the container. It is made of a slick surface plastic and a hard brush can put small scratches in the container that doo doo can get stuck in. You want the container as slick as possible.
I put a small plastic bag in the bucket where the new peat moss is soaking up
water. I put maybe half of it in the bottom of the container and place the bag with the rest in an old gallon butter container with a lid. The idea here is you are suppose add a little more (or less) peat moss every day or two or so depending on how wet or dry your doo doo is. As has been mentioned some folks will perhaps drink too much or get sea sick or what ever and vomit in the NH at which point you should almost definitely add more peat.
Much has been made of not standing up when peeing in a composting
head and I am in complete agreement with this. But keep in mind your aim when having a bowel movement or vomiting (especially for the first time) may not be as good as you think. The first few times I used the NH I used some blue tape to tape a coffee filter to the back as a precaution, something I would advise for first time users. Once my aim improved I discontinued this.
While I always sit down to pee once I am finished I have a spray bottle with a 5:1 mixture of water and MR. CLEAN I spray over the two holes. Urine can form crystals after a while and the MR. CLEAN is suppose to prevent this.
All
toilet paper goes in a container lined with a plastic grocery bag, something I learned in
Mexico where that is the common practice in several dive locations I frequent.
The NH uses a 30mm computer fan to pull air out of the lower container. A couple of months after I bought the boat mine went bad. I wound up trying a 40mm fan which was OK but soon the fuse in the hardwired line burned out. At that point I replaced the system with a 50mm fan that runs off a USB port in a cigarette lighter port next to the
head. I got a deluxe one with a small green light on the USB port when the
power is on. This makes it easy to confirm the fan is running and also functions as a night light if I have to use the head in the dark.
Looking back over this thread it seems like there is a big difference in how often folks empty the compost and urine. I am a
single hander but all the folks so far are emptying their composting heads far more often than I empty mine. I did buy some cedar cat litter as a precaution for bugs and to see how it would smell. I have every intention of trying it out as soon as the spirit moves me, but so far it does not seem worth the effort.
All in all I am very happy with composting heads in general and NH in particular. I can not comment on other brands but would point out there seem to be lots of happy owners of the various brands.
Another thing to keep in mind is that what ever type of head you have, even the one in your home on land, it is not self
cleaning. You still need to watch for waste build up problems and my experience has been to clean things up as soon as possible.
YMMV