What Toilet Should I Get For My Skoolie?


If you are building a skoolie you may have already looked into toilet options for when you are on the road. In this article we will go into the options that we found that can work for you while you are in a skoolie.

So, what toilet should I get for my skoolie? The three options that work the best are composting toilet, rv toilet with black water tank, and incinerating toilet.

We will dive into all three of these options in this article and what that means for you as you continue your skoolie process.

Composting Toilet

The purpose of a composting toilet is to separate the urine from the feces in order to make “compost” you can compost this and have a garden, but most people will throw the poop away in a bag and pour the urine down a drain or in a toilet.

Pros for having a composting toilet are that you are free to go really anywhere and camp for long periods of time without having to take a tank to a dump station.

Cons to using a composting toilet is that you will be dealing with your waste on your own. Composting toilets need to be cleaned and emptied on a regular basis and that involves smells you may not like and other things that I shall not mention.

If being in the great outdoors boondocking in the wild and having the freedom to put your waste where you need sounds good to you then this may be your option.

RV Toilet and Black Water Tank

This is still an option that many people use where you put a toilet in your skoolie and hookup all the water lines and install a black holding tank to deal with the mess.

Pros to having an RV toilet is not having to deal with a huge mess or clean up until you need to dump your tank. If you are camping at a place that has hookups you will have a waste hose that connects you to the sewer which is wonderful in my experience.

Cons for having this setup are as follows. Once your waste tank is full that is really it you will be at the mercy of where you are and have to go dump the tank at that moment. So it can seem like when you are outdoors that you are on a bit of a leash as the expression goes.

If you like the idea of only dealing with the waste once it is full and having it all hard piped into your skoolie then this may be the option for you.

Incinerating Toilet

Ok, so this may be some of the newest technology that you can use in a skoolie.

An incinerating toilet works to burn the human waste that one puts out into non biohazard ashes. After a week you would empty a small can full of ashes located at the basin of the toilet. Smell. I will also add that there is no smell when emptying the ashes.

Pros to having an incinerating toilet are you don’t need a waste tank to hold the waste you produce, you are not limited to where you can go or how long you can stay in any given area.

You don’t have to deal with a horrendous smell after you have set the toilet up to start incinerating the waste.

Cons for incinerating toilets are that they will draw a lot of power when they incinerate the waste. If you don’t set your skoolie up with enough battery power (if you go solar) or you may need to spend a little more money wiring your bus up especially if you are using a generator or shore power. 

Bucket & Toilet Seat

 This is the simplest form of toileting you can get or honestly, DIY.  You can quite literally get a 5 gallon bucket, place a box over it with a toilet seat cut out on top with a flip lid. It’s the easiest to make and the least expensive to buy. 

Pros all you need to do to dispose of your waste is to pull out the bucket, place a lid over the top and find a place to dump it. You can use an ordinary bag or a biodegradable bag, whichever suits you. It’s organic.

Cons dumping your own poo bucket can be embarrassing and messy. You’ll need to buy special products that will allow you to poop and pee in them otherwise you’ll need a pee container as well. You will also need to buy saw dust and other items to keep the odor and a base down for the next occupant. 

How Dispose Of Your Compost And Waste Responsibly

Biodegradable compost waste bags are better for the environment, so if you have the option, choose a better bag. You can actually throw your poop in a dumpster. This is something that is done daily by hospitals (biohazard bags) and by mothers with children in diapers. You do however, need to dispose of your urine separately. Pee can be poured in any toilet anywhere, you’ll just want to conceal it so you aren’t scaring the public.

Your RV toilet will have a black water tank that will need to be emptied at an RV dump station generally found at truck stop gas stations and RV parks.  

Toilet compost bags – 15 for $10ish dollars

Incinolet toilet bags – 400 for $40ish dollars

Summary

You can poo wherever you choose. Any of the selections you make will all have specific needs, an RV toilet needs to have special liquid  to break up toilet paper and can become backed up. Composting toilets if not using a liner can be really gross to clean out. Other toilets require specific disposal bags. 

It is completely up to you which you’ll tolerate and which makes the most sense for your build. All poop stinks and so does pee for that matter, but we try not to have the smell where we live. Keep your bathroom clean as best as you can, dispose of your waste responsibly and you should be good to go. 

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