A while ago, we talked about the different toilet options one can have in an RV or Bus. We’ve been on the road now for half a year as of writing. This has given us many miles to put our choice, the Separett Villa, thoroughly through its paces. We have zero regrets!
This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you click on it and make a purchase I’ll receive a small commission at no cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. For more information, please check our Privacy Policy and Disclaimers and Disclosures.
As we mentioned before, the Separett is a non-macerating dry toilet. It has a high capacity and is super easy to clean and maintain.
We’ve put our heroic toilet through the gauntlet of everything from sick kids, to loose stools, and everything in between. I’m happy to say we’ve had zero issues! No smell (sort of, more on that in a bit), no leaks, and no soul-wrenching cries of gut-twisting fear when it’s time to change the bag.
Issues
The smell? Not really. The whole time we’ve been on the bus we’ve had maybe 3 instances where the toilet was making a bad smell. One time, it was actually a few potatoes hanging in a sack that made the choice to meet their maker. The other two were because someone turned off the switch.
“The Switch” controls the fan. The fan’s job is to pull fresh air into the toilet and vent it above the bus. This helps dry the stools, and remove the smell. There have been at least two instances where a kid has turned off the switch. Thanks to the exhaust fan in the middle of the bus, some smells had been pulled back into the bus.
Clean-up time
When it comes time to change the bag, either when it’s full or after about a week of using bio bags, the process is super simple:
- Lift the lid and remove the old bag
- Tie it off and double bag it for security
- Rinse the bucket if needed
- Thoroughly clean the entire toilet with vinegar and a microfiber cloth
- Put in a new bag
- Close the lid
Everything that was in the bucket is gone. This eliminates persistent issues that macerating-style dry toilets can have, like flies or nasty microbes that can cause a bunch of stinks. All we have to do to manage extra moisture is add a handful of pine pellets.
Pine pellets are easily found at any farm and feed store. A 40lb bag should cost less than $15 and last for months, if not years. We buy them to use in the rabbit’s box and keep a peanut butter jar full in the bathroom for those instances when… things run a little loose.
I’ve heard cedar is better. But cedar is toxic to rabbits, and we don’t want to carry two flavors of pellets.
I mentioned that you can only go about a week with bio-bags. This is because they start to break down after about a couple of weeks, and who wants to take that risk? When we first started out we used them as that is what the toilet came with. That, and we were moving about once a week to make it to the sugar beet harvest. Even after only a week, the bio bags would leave moisture in the bucket and we had to rinse it every time. When we ran out of bio bags, we switched to cheap kitchen garbage bags and haven’t had any issues.
One more thing…
We did learn pretty early that we prefer to travel with a fresh bucket. The vent is above the bus, and while driving, the odor makes its way forward to the driver’s window. It’s not horrible, as the contents of the bucket are mostly dry, but it’s a nuisance at the least.
Now, the Separett does cost about $1000, so it’s a bit of a big ticket. Many have made their own DIY dry composting toilets by putting a urine-diverting seat on a 5-gallon bucket and plumbing in a PC fan with basic hardware store parts. This brings the cost a lot closer to $200, for essentially the same device.
For the money though, we love our Separett Villa. It’s easy to use, easy to clean, easy to maintain, and overall a great fit for our boondocking lifestyle on the road!