A Really Simple Composting Toilet Setup

As part of our renovations, we've moved the head to the aft, and while the bench setup we've used for the last two years for the composting toilet has worked just fine, we made some changes to free up a bit more bathroom space. It's worked so well, I thought I'd share it.

Here's the original toilet setup, inset into a bench in the head.

You will need:
Two, 5 gallon buckets (make sure they'll nest).
Four screws and large fender washers.
A snap-on toilet seat for buckets (like the luggable-loo from Reliance.  There are several others on the market as well)
A section of 12" concrete casting tube (optional)

First, cut one of the buckets in two, just below the reinforced rim and bail. Remove the bail and snap the toilet seat onto the top.

Make sure you leave enough lip to securely nest into the other bucket.

Take the bottom half and cut two deep "V" slots all the way to the base.  If you don't do this, you won't be able to pull the other bucket free of it when you stack them.  Trust me, we tried.  Screw the bucket into place using the fender washers and screws. This will form the fixed and stable base for your toilet ( In the shot below, we had purchased a commercial bucket base to keep it from sliding while we used it during construction and just left that in place.  You don't really need it.)

The large fender washers keep the screws from pulling through the plastic.

Insert the whole bucket into this secured base, add any liner or bags you want to use, then secure them by sliding the top section with the seat into the top.

The base holds the bucket in place, the top piece holds the seat securely in place.  It also has the added advantage of raising your butt off of the compost.

If you use a bag liner, the top piece will hold it in place and keep it from collapsing.

It works really well, and the height is perfect, but we wanted to pretty it up, so we took a piece of concrete casting tube and cut it to just below the toilet seat rim (in this case, 15.5 inches).

There are lots of brands of this stuff.  Any handsaw works well.

Just slide the form tube down over the bucket stack, then insert the top section and seat.  It makes for a nice, compact, and simple pillar toilet, and the tube is large enough to leave the bail in place so you can easily remove and dump the bucket.

See, a clean and very tidy look.

Next we'll be doing something artsy with the form tube to make it prettified.  Seriously, this took all of about ten minutes and it works wonderfully.

More later

M