All things toilet!
Update: This article was written in 2011. While it isn’t wrong, it is a little out of date. You can find a more recent article about motorhome toilets and how we fitted a SOG unit to our latest motorhome in the ‘How To’ section of this blog in the main menus above.
Motorhome Life – Black Water
Perhaps the most unpleasant part of using a motorhome: the toilet. Let me start off by saying: the thought of using a cassette-based toilet is probably far worse than reality. We quickly got used to ours and it works really well.
First a few facts, and then a few hints and tips:
- All the motorhome toilets we’ve seen are made by Thetford. They have a plastic box called a ‘cassette’ which holds the toilet waste. This is usually accessed via a small door on the ourside of the van; it slides out so you can walk to the emptying point with it. Some vans have fixed toilets; I’ve never seen one and don’t know much about how they work.
- The ‘Thetford’ type system is dry. That is, your ‘waste’ sits in a dry bowl before you ‘flush’ it. Again, this isn’t as bad as it sounds.
- The flushing process involves turning a large knob next to the loo which opens a ‘blade’ and allows the waste to fall into the cassette. Pressing this knob on our van pumps some fresh water around the bowl. Our old van had a seperate water supply for flushing, which you could add a fresh smelling pink chemical to.
- Talking of chemicals; you have two ways of stopping your loo from smelling. The traditional way is to use chemicals which you place directly into the cassette after emptying it. This is usually a blue coloured liquid or sachets. A relatively new system we’ve seen often used in Europe is the SOG unit, which avoids the need for chemicals. The SOG consists of an air fan attached to the door of the toilet. It has a pipe attaching it to the cassette. When the blade to the toilet is opened from inside the van, this switches on the fan which pumps air from inside the van, through the cassette and outside (through a carbon filter so you don’t stink out the surrounding area). This flow of fresh air increases natural bacterial breakdown and stops nasty whiffs.
- The Thetford system lets you use toilet paper as you normally would; it goes into the cassette along with the other waste.
And for a few hints and tips from our experience:
- Our cassette is the thing we most often have to empty on the van; it lasts between 3 and 4 days if we don’t have access to other facilities. Plan ahead to ensure you can empty the cassette, and if you’re off into an area with no facilities, empty it beforehand, even if it’s only part-full. Don’t empty the loo anywhere other than a designated spot (called Elson points in the UK, and various names in mainland Europe); the locals will soon start to hate vanners if you do.
- You can buy expensive Thetford toilet paper, which is supposed to degrade better, making the cassette easier to empty. Alternatively, it’s cheaper and more convenient to just use inexpensive, thin toilet paper, which degrades just as well.
- Don’t bank on being able to easily buy chemicals abroad. Either bring a good supply with you, or keep an eye out for motorhome dealers as they seem to be the only people who sell decent stuff. We found some ‘motorhome toilet chemicals’ at Mr Bricolage in France and they simply didn’t work.
- I find satchets easier to use than liquid chemicals. You don’t have to measure them out, you just drop one in and you’re sorted.
- The chemicals need some water in with them before they start working. We drop in a cupful (not actually using a cup obviously) or two to get things started.
- Many people have a pair of marigold gloves for emptying the loo. I personally don’t bother; I have a good wash afterwards.
- Emptying the loo isn’t the most pleasant of tasks. It smells, even with chemicals, and it looks like what it is. The loo disposal points vary in type and construction; in Spain and Portugal there’s usually a grill you have to lift (we’ve heard of ones the size of manhole covers which are impossible to lift). I make sure I know how the system works before I take the cassette out, to save me carrying the heavy cassette any further than I have to, and to keep the job as short as possible!
- Our cassette has a button you can press during emptying, which allows air into it and speeds up the flow. Be careful with this if you have one! Speeding up the flow helps remove as much solid waste as possible, so you don’t have to keep adding water, shaking and re-emptying the cassette. However, you don’t want to lose control of the flow and have black waste all over the place (or even worse, all over you!).
I’m about to embark on my own adventure for a year or two in a motorhome and this subject worries me more than any other! Of course it has to be done but I wanted to find an explanation and a description of some sort. I must admit I envisaged some kind of automated system where you plug your ‘cassette’ in and the machine pumps it out and washes the inside for you! All very fragrant and hands off. Perhaps one day.
At least I know what I’m in for now!
Hi Numpty (:-). Don’t worry about the loo mate. It’s not pleasant but for me the worse thing about it was the embarrassment of the whole malarkey. I soon got over it. The ready availability of a loo wherever you are completely makes up for the unpleasant emptying experience, not to mention the feeling of freedom, awesome places and inspirational folks you get to meet. Good luck fella, and if we can answer any questions, fire ’em over to julieandjason@ourtour.co.uk and we’ll do our best. Cheers, Jay
Hi I’m a Motorhome novice
I have just emptied my toilet cassette for the first time
But after replacing it
The light on the controls in the toilet has stayed on
Telling me my cassette is full and needs emptying
This is not the case as I have just emptied it
So now it won’t put fresh water into the bowl when I need to flush it
Just wondering has this happened to anyone else
Do I need to clean anything????
Hi Julie
Well we’ve now bought our motorhome, a lovely Burstner Elegance 1998 now called Ellie – we are soo pleased and spent our first night wild camping on Saturday on the North Norfolk coast. I forgot the duvet but at least we found out the heating works :-)
Anyways – we pretty much filled the Thetford in 24 hours so how do you empty it if you are wild camping for any length of time. Do you empty into normal toilets? I’m just thinking of that couple in Greece you talked about recently who were on the same beach for 2-3 months, how did they do the “dirty” :-)
Planning our trip for Spring next year only issue is our aging cat who hates being in Ellie so that might delay us.
Many thanks
Jane
Hi Jane
Ah yes the ultimate taboo – emptying of the loo!
I suspect because you filled it in 24 hrs you either have a smaller cassette, more people in your van or were renting it out to the passing public! Newer vans tend to have smaller cassettes so they are easier to lift/carry to the emptying point, but not so good for wild camping.
I know some people who carry a spare cassette with them to prolong time needed between emptying points. I’ve also heard of gallant men folk using old water bottles instead of the loo when possible, as it’s the liquid that fills it up, so flush sparingly.
Whenever you get motorhomers together talk will sooner rather than later turn to the loo, especially if you are in a country with limited facilities. We’ve met folks who have climbed over rocks to empty their ‘contents’ into the sea, others carry a shovel and dig a hole to pop it in. Neither of these are great in my view, especially if you use chemicals in your loo to keep it smelling sweet.
We try to find a campsite to empty ours in, even if they are closed for the winter the service point still works if you’re not adverse to a bit of fence hopping. Petrol stations will sometimes let you use their loo (although this can be tricky in Greece with the old ‘no paper down the loo’ signs). By speaking to other motorhomers you can unlock a murky world of sewage covers adapted with little bits of wire on them so you can lift them and empty into them.
In France it simply isn’t a problem as there are so many Aires with service points, same goes for most of the other Western European countries. It just might be an issue in the UK, so you might have to pay to use the service facilities on a campsite every couple of days, costs about €5 on European sites.
Julie