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Toilets, the big discussion


dominicebs

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5 hours ago, Norm55 said:

Looking at old threads and found this.  What is the size of normal waste tank ?  I have gone for pump out on my new boat, in build,  as it is a holiday boat and cost of £16 or so every 10 days cruising is fine with me.  This is based on frequency I had on last boat, though am unsure of that ones capacity.  

The new boat has, I think 210 litres.  How long should this last 2 of us ?  At 5 litres per flush, ( am thinking domestic loos here ) that's 40 flushes or so.   

Our waste tank is 432 litres. We can do a week with three of us and it get to half full.....

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 15/08/2012 at 21:27, Caprifool said:

Nope, there are electric ones for houses with mains electricity. And ther come in gas versions ignited by 12 volt. A 13 kg gas tube last for 103 "flushes" and the waste per person is a tea cup of ashes per month. Pricey, but they gave gone down in price lately as more and more discover their advantages.

Umm. so you sit on top of a potential explosive gas bottle that might leak into the bilges, and then get blasted into orbit when the dump switch creates a tiny arc!

 

Nah, doing a no 1 or 2 does not harm the water, in fact it's fairly good fish food, BUT you should not allow any toilet paper to enter the water, as it takes a long time to rot away. If you want to spend money, whilst spending a penny, the Germans and Ricans, make fully Bio degradable go green rapid rot toilet paper, If not just bag it up and add some bleach before dumping in an animal poop bin used by doggy lovers. 

  I have seen a few, "Bucket and chuck it", boats, (Mostly French flagged), but prefer to use the nearest Lavac in town.

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On 19/08/2012 at 15:04, gary955 said:

I just dont understand. Please explain.

So many people, especially livaboards, prefer cassette toilets......they must have a point, but as a livaboard who has had both, I simply cant see the advantage.

The only arguments for a cassette that I can see are cost and the often quoted argument for still being able to empty your toilet when the canal is frozen. That one seems to have been effectively countered by someone pointing out that if the canal is frozen then it's likely that the elsan station will be frozen too. A good point well made, and anyway a spare porta-potti stored on the boat would seem to offer a solution in the unlikely event of the canal being frozen for months at a time.

So what are the advantages of a cassette?.......for the benefit of the OP

 

One advantage not so far mentioned is the fun to be had when one's other half uses the toilet while one is away emptying the cassette. 

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On 19/08/2012 at 15:47, Ange said:

 

Ah but in that case you miss out on that wonderful, smug feeling when you walk into McDonalds, make a smell in their loo then walk out without buying anything :D

That is known as having “a McSh*t” and if you do it without purchasing anything in the shop it’s known as “a McSh*t with Lies”

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22 hours ago, TNLI said:

 

Nah, doing a no 1 or 2 does not harm the water, in fact it's fairly good fish food, BUT you should not allow any toilet paper to enter the water, as it takes a long time to rot away. 

On holiday in Crete a few years ago,  the toilets had a bin next to the WC for the paper. We were told that the pan was only for things that had been through our body first.  

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8 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

On holiday in Crete a few years ago,  the toilets had a bin next to the WC for the paper. We were told that the pan was only for things that had been through our body first.  

Yep, toilet paper bins are also common in Spain and the Cannery Islands. The sport fishing boats in the islands have a small bin and notice for, "Poo paper". In Blighty I would use the doggy bins that are fairly common these days, although I've not been along a canal towpath for some years. It does help if you have a macerator fitted to your Lavac, (Still the best flushable marine head), dump hose. That saves any misguided go green landlubbers shouting out, "WTF are you doing". although an inline macerator is not required after a Vindaloo.

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23 hours ago, Hudds Lad said:

That is known as having “a McSh*t” and if you do it without purchasing anything in the shop it’s known as “a McSh*t with Lies”

 

I am not going to claim to have invented the phrase universally, but a girlfriend and I certainly invented it for ourselves when cruising on the Thames in a little Shetland in the early nineties. We made it a policy only to stop in towns with a McDonalds for that very reason - for us the phrase rapidly morphed into "a big McEartha" -- mockney rhyming slang with the American singer... (and came into common usage even off the boat)

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9 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

On holiday in Crete a few years ago,  the toilets had a bin next to the WC for the paper. We were told that the pan was only for things that had been through our body first.  

 

Bins for toilet paper are common in many countries around the world. I have one on my boat too. My toilet can handle a bit of toilet paper but from personal experience on a previous boat which was blocked by a visitor I'd rather have the bin there than unblock a pipe after someone has used far too much toilet paper. Some people might say a bin for toilet paper is disgusting, but in my experience unblocking a blocked toilet pipe or fitting is far more disgusting. 

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On 09/11/2021 at 00:54, TNLI said:

Umm. so you sit on top of a potential explosive gas bottle that might leak into the bilges, and then get blasted into orbit when the dump switch creates a tiny arc!

 

Nah, doing a no 1 or 2 does not harm the water, in fact it's fairly good fish food, BUT you should not allow any toilet paper to enter the water, as it takes a long time to rot away. If you want to spend money, whilst spending a penny, the Germans and Ricans, make fully Bio degradable go green rapid rot toilet paper, If not just bag it up and add some bleach before dumping in an animal poop bin used by doggy lovers. 

  I have seen a few, "Bucket and chuck it", boats, (Mostly French flagged), but prefer to use the nearest Lavac in town.

Now what was the cause of the Cholera outbreaks and spread in the UK before modern sanity arrangements 

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According to the book  "Clean and Decent: the history of the bathroom and the W.C."  by Lawrence Wright ISBN 0-7100-4665-0  it was things such as the poor state of drains that ran under houses, defective seals in sewer pipes and defective WC traps that allowed sewer gases and rats to enter dwellings. 

 

' The new sewers, the public baths, and the general awakening to the effects of bad plumbing did not bring quick results. The last cholera wave in 1866 was by no means the end of trouble. Enteric fever and typhoid went on, and worse still, began to show a puzzling disrespect for high-class plumbing and high-class persons. Death seemed unwilling to bless the squire and his relations, and keep us in our proper stations. An outbreak of enteric fever at Worthing almost exclusively attacked the well-to-do houses on the higher levels, where the water closits were indoors, and spared the poorer quarters. Typhoid ignored the nearby village schools when it decimated te young gentlemen of Bramham College. A worse breach of propriety was to follow In 1871 the Prince of Wales,  afterwards King Edward VII, stayed at Londesborough Lodge near Scarborough . Soon after his return to Sandringham he went down with typhoid. As the Earl of Chesterfield, who had been of the party, and the Prince's groom, both died, it was obvious that this house was the source. Now national feeling was really aroused: the heir to the throne had nearly paid the penaty for the Countess of Londesborough's drains.' 

 [page 210].

 

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17 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

According to the book  "Clean and Decent: the history of the bathroom and the W.C."  by Lawrence Wright ISBN 0-7100-4665-0  it was things such as the poor state of drains that ran under houses, defective seals in sewer pipes and defective WC traps that allowed sewer gases and rats to enter dwellings. 

 

' The new sewers, the public baths, and the general awakening to the effects of bad plumbing did not bring quick results. The last cholera wave in 1866 was by no means the end of trouble. Enteric fever and typhoid went on, and worse still, began to show a puzzling disrespect for high-class plumbing and high-class persons. Death seemed unwilling to bless the squire and his relations, and keep us in our proper stations. An outbreak of enteric fever at Worthing almost exclusively attacked the well-to-do houses on the higher levels, where the water closits were indoors, and spared the poorer quarters. Typhoid ignored the nearby village schools when it decimated te young gentlemen of Bramham College. A worse breach of propriety was to follow In 1871 the Prince of Wales,  afterwards King Edward VII, stayed at Londesborough Lodge near Scarborough . Soon after his return to Sandringham he went down with typhoid. As the Earl of Chesterfield, who had been of the party, and the Prince's groom, both died, it was obvious that this house was the source. Now national feeling was really aroused: the heir to the throne had nearly paid the penaty for the Countess of Londesborough's drains.' 

 [page 210].

 

I was in North East Brazil about 15 years ago when they had a fairly big Cholera and Typhoid outbreak. They shut all of the public toilets in Recife because of a fear that they might be leaking into the water supply. The tea drinking Brits did not catch it, and we were all in good health until the summer, when the local river water fever eventually nailed everyone at anchor, although no one finished up in hospital.

  Canals are lined with clay, so any pollution tends to stay in the canal unless it drains into a river. The good thing about salt water is that it can't support a virus or bacteria, although you can get Typhoid from shell fish in tidal areas. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
23 hours ago, robtheplod said:

This is interesting...

 

 

A few fictions, though. If the manure goes to landfill. it is basically lost to the environment, so surely better to re-cycle as compost, either via bins or sewage system. The arse to mouth route, which is mentioned several times, is a bit more likely than he says it is, due to the number of times hands contact mouth. Urine may be sterile, but crap certainly has more hazards than Gastro Enteritis, which is why our Victorian forebears invested so much in sewage systems.

 

The blog looks and sounds like someone who has bought a separating loo in the expectation that disposal can be made cheaply (i.e. free) at waste disposal sites and is now caught out by a change in operating conditions. It isn't CaRT who is displaying a lack of logic.

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On 29/11/2021 at 18:49, Iain_S said:

A few fictions, though. If the manure goes to landfill. it is basically lost to the environment, so surely better to re-cycle as compost, either via bins or sewage system. The arse to mouth route, which is mentioned several times, is a bit more likely than he says it is, due to the number of times hands contact mouth. Urine may be sterile, but crap certainly has more hazards than Gastro Enteritis, which is why our Victorian forebears invested so much in sewage systems.

 

The blog looks and sounds like someone who has bought a separating loo in the expectation that disposal can be made cheaply (i.e. free) at waste disposal sites and is now caught out by a change in operating conditions. It isn't CaRT who is displaying a lack of logic.

I have followed these guys (Minimal List) for a few years. Responsible boaters. They considered the options before selecting the system, the goalposts then moved. Shit happens. 

Edited by LadyG
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A former neighbour, in a marina, had his own pump, he filled three large containers from the boat tank put it down the elsan. I don't know what he bought with the £20 he saved.

 

I have a tank but it's not connected to a throne, I put some laundry liquid in to it once. 

 

I'd rather have both, so use the cassette when it's my partners turn to empty it, and use the other facility when it's my turn 😄

Edited by LadyG
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