Cassette toilet Retrofit

[MikeJinCO]

We are beginning to plan a trip to South America. From the small amount of information I have so far it appears that dump stations appear to be few and far between. Since we will be picking up a used smaller TC for this trip, is it feasible to take out the existing toilet, seal off the black tank and put a cassette system in its place or do I have to go to a porta-potty system?

We had a small MH with cassette toilet on our New Zealand trip and it wasn't that much of a problem, but then again that was only 2 weeks, not 6 months.

[MacHof]

At many of the places we "camped" in South America, using a macerator pump and a hose would have been quite challenging, if not impossible. I would highly recommend the cassette toilet or cassette potty.
Cheers, Henrik

[Photomike]

I would go with a cassette toilet. I think you will be hard pressed to find gas stations that will let you run a hose and do you really want to do it all the time. With the cassette you carry the waste tank in- dump, flush and you are done. Better yet put a composting toilet in, not sure I am 100% sold but they sound cool.

[racewave]

I added a macerator pump to my S&S Bitteroot 8' camper. Grinds up the contents of the 30 gallon black water tank and can pump it up hill thru a 1" flex hose or dedicated garden hose for more extension if needed. I bought the hardwired pump and installed inside the rear compartment door next to the dump valve. Can now pump into any available dump pipe or outhouse etc.

[MikeJinCO]

That portable sewer pump is about what I'll look at. I don't own any of this potential rig except for a Honda generator so budget is not really the issue at this time.

[Camper_Jeff___K]

This could work well for you.
Portable sewer pump.
Comes with a 20' hose. Connect a 20' extension.
Run hose into service station toilet, outhouse, bucket if need to carry longer distance to dump. Fuel tank or passenger compartment of somebody's vehicle that you need to get even with or not.
Could be a good way to handle the situation. Three hundred for this setup -vs- cost of installing different toilet.

[Mike_Hohnstein]

Mike Hohnstein wrote:
I find a 5 gallon bucket works just fine, fill it 2/3 and walk it to the gas station toilet or metro or park vault toilet. Repeat until empty.

I suppose more detail is appropriate here, I empty the holding tanks on my 1040 Lance, both 18 gallon grey and 18 gallon black tanks with the bucket technique when no dump station is about. It works well.

[MikeJinCO]

I've come up with the answer for the entire rig that seems to suit us best. Fortunately the DW agrees with me as this would be the trip of a lifetime so budget isn't a great issue.

Truck- a 3/4 or 1 ton SRW probably king cab with either an older(pre 2007 diesel or gas) We would get a used flat bed for it and then put in air ride seats. Many of the non main roads are just a constant wash board we will have had by then 5 back operations and a couple of hips so some extra money for air ride seats is more a requirement than luxury. The flat bed is so we can carry things like macerator pumps and a small generator fairly easily.

Camper- Small size seems to count, The Trek of the Americas folks have bigger rigs, but seem to stay in the more developed areas, other folks like the hackneys and Kathy and Rick from travelin tortuga say to go as small as comfortable. So we would find higher end used popup, since we're in Colorado probably the aluminum framed Outfitter 9.5. For the rough roads wood frames seem to be too fragile. We started out with a wood frame Hallmark 12 years ago and loved it, but the wood frame did prove to be not sturdy enough on Mexican roads.

Toilet setup- A portable macerator pump and long hose. This eliminates having to modify a perfectly good camper, and I don't haul 6 gallon water jugs anymore.

Power-primarily solar with a 2kw inverter and and back up generator, we have 2kw Honda. People seem to have electrical hookups only a few times a trip, so independence is very important.

So next spring I'll probably start putting this rig together. I've got to get thru another back fusion first.

[MKish]

I think you want something that seals up nicer than a bucket on bumpy roads, or when you're sleeping near it. I have a low-end Thetford and that thing seals up so tight it swells going over the Sierras. (Open verrrrrry slowly!)

[Jfet]

Mike Hohnstein wrote:
I find a 5 gallon bucket works just fine, fill it 2/3 and walk it to the gas station toilet or metro or park vault toilet. Repeat until empty.

Until you trip...

[Mike_Hohnstein]

I find a 5 gallon bucket works just fine, fill it 2/3 and walk it to the gas station toilet or metro or park vault toilet. Repeat until empty.

[RoyB]

You have to dump the cassette pottie as well... It holds 6 gallons...

If you get the pottie version only usually the door is inside. If you get the cassette pottie/shower combo then the pottie tank door is on the outside.

I have the combo version but I wish I only had the pottie version. We have only used the shower maybe once in the past five years. I guess there is just something unnatural about sitting on the pot to take a sit down shower hehe...

[Jfet]

I can give you whatever pictures you want of a Thetford C402 cassette toilet as that is what we are installing in our flatbed camper build. We did make a hatch in the outside wall to allow the wheeled cassette to be extracted from outside. The toilet itself is pretty simple...ours has a built in water tank for flushing. There is just a 12V wire for the flush pump.

[MikeJinCO]

Portable tote is a good possibility, the question as with anything TC is where to carry it? Probably solvable with a rack under any overhang. Thanks for the suggestion.

[MikeJinCO]

I didn't realize that cassette means that you have an outside door. I think we would have to use a porta potty as the camper would only be used for this trip, then resold. I think I would have to pick up a camper and then get a porta potty with the best height to adapt to the existing bathroom.

I'm quite leery of using a wood framed camper as we had a couple of problems with our old Hallmark on the rough roads in Mexico and SA is by most reports no better. We would be picking up both a truck and camper just for this trip. Truck either pre 2007 diesel(no 6.0 Ford) or gas and camper fairly small, our duramax dually and large, heavy Bigfoot aren't going down there, as we want more "back country" capability . Back country means off the major highways.