Dump Airhead urine in galley sink?

[Megan]

Actually, fresh normal urine has urea, not ammonia, ammonia is produced by bacteria in old stale urine

[durundal]

Originally Posted by Megan

Actually, fresh normal urine has urea, not ammonia, ammonia is produced by bacteria in old stale urine

Yes, but for the case of dumping at anchor it could sit in the pipes to become old and stale...

Uh oh... there go our bronze thru-hull fittings!

No, it is a form of stress corrosion cracking, if the stress isn't there it doesn't occur. Cast bronze thru-hulls would not have significant residual stresses, but unrelieved drawn or forged copper pipes or fittings can carry significant internal stresses.

[TaoJones]

Originally Posted by virginia boy

I have an Airhead composting toilet which requires dumping the urine Container evry couple days or so. I want to come up with an easier way of disposing of the urine than carrying the urine up, out, and dumping overboard. Before the gnashing of teeth begins, let me say that I will NEVER regularly carry jugs of urine to a land toilet.

One solution I'm considering is to simply dump the urine down the galley sink (eliminated head sink) and flush with a little water.

The other solution would be to plumb the urine to a holding tank and pump it overboard which seems to defeat the whole point of a composting toilet huh?

All suggestions for a solution to this problem welcome!

Although I stopped reading this thread a few days ago, I do remember someone posting that the serious answers stopped on about page three. Nevertheless, I'd like to offer something I found on another sailing site for your consideration, VA Boy.

They were discussing the relative merits of AirHead vs. Nature's Head, and the fact that one or the other needs to be tilted backward to get to the urine bottle for dumping. Following that line of thought, this is what someone posted:

"The issue regarding tilting back the 'seat' to empty the liquid tank was easily mitigated by installing a pump out hose into the urine bottle. We just epoxied in a small through hull fitting for the hose (G-flex bonds well to this plastic) then ran it through a small whale hand pump, a vented loop, and finally to the head's through hull. Only took about an hour to install once the epoxy cured and it worked well. Instead of having to empty the bottle by dragging it on deck or to the marina bathroom, we just opened the through hull, pumped for about a minute, then closed the through hull. All when we were far enough offshore of course..."

Seems easy enough to put together something similar, IMO, and even eliminates the necessity of taking the urine container out of the apparatus.

TaoJones

[downunder]

"The issue regarding tilting back the 'seat' to empty the liquid tank was easily mitigated by installing a pump out hose into the urine bottle. We just epoxied in a small through hull fitting for the hose (G-flex bonds well to this plastic) then ran it through a small whale hand pump, a vented loop, and finally to the head's through hull. Only took about an hour to install once the epoxy cured and it worked well. Instead of having to empty the bottle by dragging it on deck or to the marina bathroom, we just opened the through hull, pumped for about a minute, then closed the through hull. All when we were far enough offshore of course..."

Seems easy enough to put together something similar, IMO, and even eliminates the necessity of taking the urine container out of the apparatus.

Might as well stick to a good brand of conventional head.

[virginia boy]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

Although I stopped reading this thread a few days ago, I do remember someone posting that the serious answers stopped on about page three. Nevertheless, I'd like to offer something I found on another sailing site for your consideration, VA Boy.

They were discussing the relative merits of AirHead vs. Nature's Head, and the fact that one or the other needs to be tilted backward to get to the urine bottle for dumping. Following that line of thought, this is what someone posted:

"The issue regarding tilting back the 'seat' to empty the liquid tank was easily mitigated by installing a pump out hose into the urine bottle. We just epoxied in a small through hull fitting for the hose (G-flex bonds well to this plastic) then ran it through a small whale hand pump, a vented loop, and finally to the head's through hull. Only took about an hour to install once the epoxy cured and it worked well. Instead of having to empty the bottle by dragging it on deck or to the marina bathroom, we just opened the through hull, pumped for about a minute, then closed the through hull. All when we were far enough offshore of course..."

Seems easy enough to put together something similar, IMO, and even eliminates the necessity of taking the urine container out of the apparatus.

TaoJones

Thanks, TJ. I suspect I will be doing a similar fix. Possibly just a hose straight to a through hull and skip the urine reservoir and hand pump.

[TaoJones]

Originally Posted by downunder

"The issue regarding tilting back the 'seat' to empty the liquid tank was easily mitigated by installing a pump out hose into the urine bottle. We just epoxied in a small through hull fitting for the hose (G-flex bonds well to this plastic) then ran it through a small whale hand pump, a vented loop, and finally to the head's through hull. Only took about an hour to install once the epoxy cured and it worked well. Instead of having to empty the bottle by dragging it on deck or to the marina bathroom, we just opened the through hull, pumped for about a minute, then closed the through hull. All when we were far enough offshore of course..."

Seems easy enough to put together something similar, IMO, and even eliminates the necessity of taking the urine container out of the apparatus.

Might as well stick to a good brand of conventional head.

Not really. Many people who opt to go the composting head route do so for their own good reasons, but they're not so foolish as to think that everyone feels the same way. For that reason, they choose to leave the conventional head plumbing in place so that they can convert back to some version of the usual method if that's what it will take to appeal to the largest possible pool of potential buyers.

Since the OP's question was about finding an alternate method of disposing of the contents of the composting head's urine container, connecting it directly to the vessel's existing thru-hull seems quite practical (assuming virginia boy hasn't removed the thru-hull and glassed over the penetration.)

TaoJones

[ElGatoGordo]

Originally Posted by virginia boy

Thanks, TJ. I suspect I will be doing a similar fix. Possibly just a hose straight to a through hull and skip the urine reservoir and hand pump.

I alluded to this before...I have a 3/4" Y valve that diverts the urine to a large (2.5Gal) container or overboard dirrect as the situation dictates. Remember that the compost toilet is a Class 3 MSD and as such cannot just dump overboard w/o an effort.

To put it annother way: if inspected, as in a CG boarding, they will be looking at this odd head they have only heard about, and may very well want to see details of how it's dealt with. I even have a 5 gal bucket labeled "Urine" in the case I should end up in a place like...oh I don't know...the Dry Tortugas? I've heard they are very particular, so I want to be able to show them just where I am dumping that urine bottle.

[Ram]

Im looking into Buying a composting head and thought some of you might want to know where some of the old time jargan came from~

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families
used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken &
Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive
you were "Piss Poor"

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't
even afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to
piss in" & were the lowest of the low

The next time you are washing your hands and complain
because the water temperature isn't just how you like it,
think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their
yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by
June.. However, since they were starting to smell . ...... .
Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting
Married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man
of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then
all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the
children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so
dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the
saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no
wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get
warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs)
lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and
sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof...
Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the
house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other
than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had
slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet,
so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their
footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping
outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.
Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big
kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit
the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly
vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the
stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew
had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence
the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas
porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could
obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When
visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show
off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home
the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests
and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt
bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests
got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination
would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running
out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins
and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the
grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins
were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they
realized they had been burying people alive... So they would
tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the
coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night
(the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone
could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

And that's the truth....

[catakate]

Long story short, was fun to see rails running below, thru the toilet hole in train cars when I was a child... strange to see people think God said "Let there be light!" and the bulb lit

[virginia boy]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

Not really. Many people who opt to go the composting head route do so for their own good reasons, but they're not so foolish as to think that everyone feels the same way. For that reason, they choose to leave the conventional head plumbing in place so that they can convert back to some version of the usual method if that's what it will take to appeal to the largest possible pool of potential buyers.

Since the OP's question was about finding an alternate method of disposing of the contents of the composting head's urine container, connecting it directly to the vessel's existing thru-hull seems quite practical (assuming virginia boy hasn't removed the thru-hull and glassed over the penetration.)

TaoJones

Unfortunately, I glassed in all three through hulls in the head last year

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by virginia boy

Unfortunately, I glassed in all three through hulls in the head last year

No biggie to drill them out if needed. I think Fat Cat has the right idea for urine storage in NDZs. I don't think the coasties are going to care for dissicating heads in the long term.

Megan's comment yesterday about "fresh normal urine" got me googling. People drink it! I really had no idea about worldwide pooping and peeing. I do now. It's pretty primitive outside the developed countries, and the worst case situation is where there is limited water available.

The way "we" use clean fresh water to flush poop away has got to change. A lot of the world reuses both pee and poop. Maybe I will carry pee ashore. I don't think I'll feel good about dumping my gallon size pee jug overboard.

[ElGatoGordo]

Let's see, first keep in mind that that through hull does not need to be below the waterline. My only through hull is for my grey water and urine and its well above the waterline.

And you are very right things will have to change. so many areas even in the United States are struggling to keep up with drinking water needs. Georgia and Tennessee are fighting over a lake as we speak, Atlanta has it grown too much too fast.

[catakate]

First thing first: pee and poo does not pollute! Yes, any organic matter will become ammonia which is toxic, but nature has it's ways of doing things: nitrifying bacteria. In the end all becomes food for plants. Else, mammals wouldn't got a chance to own the planet, not to mention monkeys wouldn't get a chance to get off the trees...

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by ElGatoGordo

Let's see, first keep in mind that that through hull does not need to be below the waterline. My only through hull is for my grey water and urine and its well above the waterline. Yeah, makes sense if you have outboard power and no saltwater intake rinse systems.

And you are very right things will have to change. so many areas even in the United States are struggling to keep up with drinking water needs. Georgia and Tennessee are fighting over a lake as we speak, Atlanta has it grown too much too fast.

Actually, much better examples are the relationships between No and So California, and CA and AZ.

Originally Posted by catakate

First thing first: pee and poo does not pollute! Yes, any organic matter will become ammonia which is toxic, but nature has it's ways of doing things: nitrifying bacteria. In the end all becomes food for plants. ...

Guess I have trouble with the idea of non-pollution
from the way knowledge continues to grow and change our thinking. Moreover, " in the end all becomes food for plants." We've now seen so many cases of aquatic plant overgrowth to suggest, to me at least, pee and poop pollute. Consider Chesapeake Bay.

[catakate]

Plant growth, even if undesired for us humans, means healthy ecosystems, ie. able to sustain life. Polluted means the exact opposite.