Permanent cruising means that you can be caught out! Mainly in winter (but also the summer of 2007 in all the floods) you get to a cut or lock that has been closed for repair or damage, it could hold up your movement (so to speak) for a while. And that's the snag.
Pump out toilets generally mean a holding tank - normally under the bed, and that tank can last you 2-3 weeks, if you use it sparingly! before needing a pump out. Also as the tank fills, so your boat often takes on a list, advertising to all that you are sleeping on 80 gallons of poo!
Cassette toilets are worse!! (in my opinion) When the cassette is full, you replace it with the spare, and then a third and fourth! - at least you can carry on replacing, BUT you need to carry all those smelly casettes. Either empty or full, they take up the same space.
Enter the compost toilet! (Pictured here in a Narrow Boat bathroom)
I think K2 will be fitted with a compost toilet - a system that only needs emptying every 6 months to a year!(apparantly) Fluids are evaporated off, and what is left over, err, well decomposes, until it becomes earth, that you riddle out, and put in a flower pot!!Follow the link to Envirolet. This could be the answer.
Three problems :
1. The toilet is almost 3 foot wide, so could only really be installed in a new build. Well that's the plan for K2!!
2. Cost - at £1300 it's an expensive loo! But as an average pump out for a year is around £500 it won't take very long for a return on the investment. and you never get caught short!!
3. What happens when you are not onboard and the power is off? Anyone got any experiences of that?
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