crapper review

CRAPPER REVIEW


I know, you thought I did a crappy review of books yesterday. Today, we have a review of actual crappers. I don’t think most guys, left to their own devices, would be too afraid of off grid living. We have allowed ourselves to be castrated, feminized and put in a position of victimhood, but back in the day when men were men and sheep were nervous a real man would catch something in his teeth for dinner ( eating it raw if in a hurry ), curl up in a single blanket for warmth at night and play gross out with his camp mates by leaving turd landmines around the place. Today, maybe, just maybe, he has enough reptilian brain instinct left to survive if left with a few cases of MRE’s, a ten below rated sleeping bag and a bottle of whiskey. But in many cases the one question left, the one thing that gives him pause before setting up a tin box in the middle of nowhere, is what he is going to use for a crapper. The old salts panning for gold and eating beans for breakfast might have been content to use an outhouse, but they could also move on after the gold played out. If you settle down for good in a place, there not being any more unclaimed land to steal from untamed savages, you don’t want to have to smell your dinner from five months ago every time the wind shifts. To avoid that, nothing beats a sawdust toilet, best covered in the book “Humanure”. Here we are going to cover the best way to get your little creations collected for their trip out to the turd compost bin.

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A sawdust toilet isn’t rocket science. You crap in a plastic bucket and cover with sawdust. Deposit in your separate human compost pile kept out of the rain. Urine is separate. Left sitting for a day, then diluted twelve to one with water, it is generally safe to use to fertilize plants. Myself, I would just water the trees with it rather than my potatoes. The question today is, how best to get the initial five gallon bucket filled. You can make your own fancy crapper bin. A wooden box with a front loading door and a hole on top. You install a toilet lid, then you have a sturdy good looking crapper. Of course, you are using hundreds of dollars worth of tools to make it. For those of us too antisocial to have much company, and those of us living in a very small travel trailer where space is at a premium, it is easier to just go with a plastic camp toilet. Mine is the Luggable Loo, a thin toilet seat with lid that snaps on top of a five gallon bucket. Easy and let’s face it, a poly bucket toilet is ugly anyway so why worry about cosmetic appeal? Under $20 after shipping usually. The problem is that the plastic used on it is, pardon the pun, crap. The first winter in use, and the thing cracked. Being very cheap, I have yet to replace it and we continue to sit and stand very carefully, least the crack pinch an ass cheek.

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At first this was not a problem. A bit of duct tape on the underside and we are still in business. But this winter, we needed to bring in a second toilet as the trailer holding tank has stayed frozen for a month. The Luggable Loo is our sawdust toilet, the second is our liquid only toilet ( previously it was the trailer toilet until permafrost set in ). The second toilet was on hand, I didn’t buy anything. When we first moved to the Bison Compound I tried to use the camping toilet from Wal-Mart. A flimsy plastic bowl and seat with a short poly bucket inside. I tried using water and the green deodorizer/sanitizer offered for sale right next to the toilet. As reviewed previously, a liquid nightmare. There is also the bags you use that turn liquid to a odorless gel. When the bag kept popping its zip lock, it also ended badly. Best just to separate the liquid and solids into two toilets ( don’t believe me- you’ll see ). One in sawdust, one diluted to water the plants. So, the Wal-Mart toilet ( or, buy similar here ) is a flimsy plastic, the Luggable Loo easily cracked in the first cold snap ( and last winter was no where near as bad as this winter ). What to do?

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I took the Wal-Mart camping toilet ( $20, black lid with grey bowl- the non-flushing type ) and threw away the outer bowl, keeping the poly bucket, seat and cover. Rest the seat over the sides of the poly bucket ( which I trust you have a plastic bag in ) and put the cover over that. Before, the seat rested on the outer bowl which is flimsy. Now, it rests on the solid poly bucket. It doesn’t move now. It looks ugly and ghetto, but it works well. The Luggable Loo doesn’t work so good anymore. It was the solids lid, now it’s the liquid lid ( I switched to get both to work better ). Which means I now have condensation on the bottom of the lid and the duct tape is coming off. Back to worrying about pinched ass cheeks. If I had my druthers it would be to replace it with the Wal-Mart camping toilet seat and lid. Because I stored that outside for the last year while not in use and it never cracked from the cold. But, of course, being cheap I won’t replace it. And winter will be over soon enough anyway. But if you are fixing to move off grid and are going to use a non-flush toilet, use the Wal-Mart camping toilet rather than the Loo. Not the flushing toilet also available in the camping section. Not the folding chair with the plastic bag hanging from it ( gross! ) but the flimsy plastic outer bowl with the short poly bucket in the middle covered by the wide seat which looks like the upper half of a hollow donut, covered by a deep upper half. So that the outside looks like a fat squat oval. I just saved you some grief, you are welcome.

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