When we first decided to purchase a Nature’s Head Composting Toilet we knew right away that we wanted to divert the urine to our existing black tank. This is not a typical installation for this toilet, so today I am sharing what we did so others can do the same.
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Our first attempt at installing our composting toilet was not that successful. It included a plug on our sewer inlet (the inlet right under the existing toilet), a clear poly hose, a valve, and a bit more hose. We had some issues with leaking with that configuration so we gave up on that and headed to our local The Home Depot to see what else we could find.
First I’ll mention that we couldn’t find standard PVC fittings that fit our situation very well. We are not plumbers nor experienced DIYers so we were working with what we could find. While searching the aisles at Home Depot we came across this kit for a sump pump. The 1-1/4″ adapter fit perfectly over the urine diverter of our toilet and we only needed a few feet of the 24′ that came with the kit.
We emptied our blank tank before we got started. This was to ensure that odors were minimal while working with our black tank open to the inside. Beneath our toilet is a standard 3″ sewer opening, which we had initially plugged with a 3″ cleanout plug.
For our second attempt we opted not to plug that hole. We pushed the black hose from the sump pump kit as far as we could, then trimmed it to the appropriate length. We fit the 1-1/4″ adapter into the end of the hose and clamped it down with the included metal clamp.
The opening of the black tank is not flush with the floor, so before putting our toilet in place we built a small platform around it to so our toilet would be level. And since we were not plugging the opening to the black tank (we are still looking for a solution for that) we opted to cover it with an old washcloth and duct tape.
We measured the distance between the bracket spaces on the bottom of the toilet, marked that distance on the two side boards of our platform, and drilled the brackets in place. Finally, we placed our toilet in position and secured the brackets with the wing nuts included with our Nature’s Head Composting Toilet. I will note here that we did not sink our brackets into our platform (we’ll get around to that sometime this winter) so we have a few pieces of cardboard underneath our toilet to make up that difference in height. The cotton balls in the picture above are used to keep our bathroom smelling fresh. Each cotton ball has a couple drops of essential oils on them.
The next step was to figure out where we were going to vent our toilet to the outside. We did not want a vent on the side of our RV so we decided to go through the roof and install a solar vent. The advantage of having a solar vent was to eliminate the need to power the internal vent of the toilet. As long as there is enough sunshine to power the vent our toilet stays odor free.
We drilled a hole through the ceiling and roof over the bathroom and went up to the roof to install our vent. One person inside the bathroom pushed the venting hose (included with the toilet) through the hole in the roof while the person on the roof placed the vent over the hose and opening. To prevent any water seepage or leaking, we placed Dicor butyl seal tape around the bottom of the vent before securing the vent to the roof and applying clear caulking.
Overall this was an easy install for us, even though we haven’t had a lot of experience in doing things like this ourselves. Do you have any questions on specific parts of our installation? Please let us know in the comments. We look forward to hearing from you!
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