Wow, another terrific Bob Wells video. Here's what I do. #1: I installed a Nature's Head composting toilet in my RV. When it's time to empty the poop chamber, my first choice to to empty it on my property such as fertilizing the fruit trees. If I'm in a boondocking situation and need to empty the NH toilet, I look for a place with soil where the poop will further decompose. I'll make a big cathole and bury the contents. Poop has value and is best recycled back into the ground. A last resort is to empty the poop chamber into a garbage bag to be thrown into the trash. We do NOT put TP into the toilet. When using the NH, the TP goes into a kraft lunch sack costing about two cents. That's either burned in a camp fire or thrown away. I'm sure many readers have been out in the wilds to see someone's used TP floating around. The poop has long since decomposed, but the paper can stick around for years, especially in arid environments. When hiking/backpacking, we pack out our TP. Pee: DW pees into the pee chamber in the NH. I have two cheap, Walmart Nalgene style liter bottles for use as pee bottles. I still get to stand up and pee. I'll either empty the pee containers out in the wilds when boondocking. If in a more civilized situation such as a campground, I may dump the pee containers into the CG toilet. Or, if feasible, I will still look for the bushes. One has to use discretion and common since. Grey water: First, our grey water is comprised of either shower water, a little hand washing, or rinsing dishes. No food or grease goes into the sink. Essentially, the grey water is soapy water. One terrific use for grey water is for car washing. It's not perfect, but it's far superior to having no water at all. I've also used it for mopping the trailer floor and cleaning the exterior. I periodically sanitize the grey tank to prevent odors from forming. If camped in the deserts, I'll look for some nearby creosote bushes they look like they could use a drink. It's their lucky day as the drought is over. Invariably, there is some vegetation that would be happy for the moisture. If you're in an area when regulations stipulate that no grey water goes on the ground such as more populated CG, then I'll look for the CG's grey water drain. This will be rare as we like to avoid such areas if possible. I don't need to use the black tank for more grey water capacity as I'm constantly draining my grey tank with a bucket here, there, and everywhere. If my tow vehicle is really dusty, I may do a quickie wash by heaving bucket loads of grey water at it. I repeat that the grey tank needs to be periodically sanitized as off odors will build up.
Newbie here, so I was hoping you would perhaps include an extra bit of information on how you sanitize your grey tank. Thanks so much for all the details you provided - I could almost picture it as you described your procedure.
TR Its a Fact that human waste takes a year to compost - to safely use on any plant / tree that the fruit ends up on your table. Just is not safe but you do as you wish. As an avid gardener and using NH CToilet for yrs now I'm aware of Basic safety for maintance. Hope people will do Research to learn the facts about true composting practices...
@@ellafields9424 I'm open to reading some objective (because 'cuz I said so' doesn't qualify) "facts" on how buried, not fully composted HM, has any negative safety effect on the fruit of a tree.
When I lived in my RV I would use a black 15 gallon trash bag and line it inside the toilet . I also bought a large size bag of cedar pine shavings and after I did my business I would throw a few handfuls of shavings on top of it , and no smell . After the bag fills up ,tie it up and throw it into the trash , because the bag is black nobody’s going to get “grossed “ out . You can buy a large bag of pine shavings they use for hamsters bedding at any pet shop for about $15 or less and it lasted me 8 months using it everyday . The large bag of saw dust or shaving measures about 3’x1 1/2 ‘x1 /1/2’ and weighs almost nothing , maybe 5 lbs ..they really cram the shavings in those bags . You can also purchase small pine shavings bags too . 😏👍
Now THAT was something I didn’t know!!! I’ve been researching & prepping & doing some light boondocking for YEARS...but that technique of bagging and equalizing the grey tank is priceless! I’m sure there’s people out there that already knew that of course. But I always thought if you use the black tank for gray water it had to be modified. That’s an awesome way to do it by equalizing through the plumbing! I understand it! It’s a great idea!! Thanks bunches to BOTH of you!! Lauri
I like the idea of the sawdust that you can get, very lightweight, a giant bag at a lumber yard and apparently there is no oder if you put a couple cups in your poo bag.
Being a newbie, I learn so much from the both of you...THANK YOU...wiping out the pots before you wash them...wow...simple and brilliant ... thank you for that...that seems to be where I have wasted so much water...great tip...as for the poop bags...lol...for all those that wonder about the number on the bag...IT IS GOING INTO ANOTHER BAG AND THEN A BUCKET...SEALED...don't get so hung up on the number on the bag....lol
I solved the black water tank problem. I have 150 gallon black water tank. 100 gallon grey water tank. 200 gallon fresh water tank . 30 gallons of drinking water tank. No worries when boon docking.
I keep my RV on my own private land and to extend my tanks I just filter my gray water and use it to water my land, by filtering it all food particles are removed and we only use environmental safe soap, never had a problem with it and my plants are happy with the extra water
I don’t keep my RV on site year round we travel at least 7 months of the year, so I have not had any problem in regards to living in it since it’s not a permanent set up
We do the same even at our house. We recycle laundry, dish and shower water into the plants. The plants (and weeds) are very happy. We mulch vegetable scraps into the garden soil. I even learned that a ratio of four parts of water to one part of pee pee is good for trees!
Hey Bob / HOWA, I have a question. Could you do a video on good options for water storage for van lifers, or in my case, prius lifers? I'm curious about how people think about plastic, what are non-plastic options, how do people fill different kinds of containers, how storage containers are maintained, and so on. It'd be nice to have a video resource of a bunch of different perspectives.
I use my porta potti instead of my main toilet. Almost everyday I go into town or go where I have access to a public toilet. I take my portable with me and dump it at that time. I prefer that my waste go into a sewer system rather than the landfill.
That doesnt make a difference. Youre just shifting the ecological change from one area to another. The water that runs the sewer system isnt free. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to move that water around (coal, nuclear, oil, etc - and the pollutants from that energy is dumped into the atmosphere), not even mentioning the chemicals in the sewer systems (that needs to be manufactured by some far-away plant - that is toxic to the surrounding areas) that is extremely hostile towards the ecosystem. Youre just doing the "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" trick on yourself.
Paper in your black water tank makes paper mache. It will cost the walls and build up a permanent layer on the bottom. We have a large mouth screw top container (got it at Costco full of snacks) lined with a plastic bag. There’s really no smell, and it just goes in the dumpster. We do use a bag in the toilet when necessary.
Between the two of you I have learned so much! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. I’m making plans to get to the 2020 WRTR and RTR. Hope to meet both of you there. Thank you.
A comment on YT said to use a spray bottle of soapy water and another one of clear for doing dishes. I tried the clear just to check it out. Wow. It works like a charm and I'm amazed at how little water it actually takes. I used what was a glass cleaning bottle. I found the spray to be very fine and I think it would save even a little more water. I wipe off the dishes before washing them, too.
Hey Bob, its been awhile, Jim is really sharp as a tack, as so are you, watched Jim videos many times, science/probability/reality of most things in life will get that balanced advantage, be well out there, tc
A word to the wise. Gamma lids do a good job of containing liquids and gas, but they are not completely water/air tight as advertised. A simple experiment will prove that. Seems like I always learn something new on CRVL vids. A "macerator" transforms solid and and liquid waste to all liquid. I have found that a five gallon bucket partially filled with liquid and solid waste, with a little bit of grey water added along with some soap, and gently stirred, will liquefy the waste in about a day. A day's waste then amounts to about a gallon of liquid which can be siphoned into a gallon jar and poured down a standard toilet. (Paper should be disposed of in a separate bag.) Obviously, this is not a method for boondocking, but may suffice for those who are in the city.
Very interesting thank you for sharing your wealth of information. Going full time in 3 weeks will be preparing my 28ft tt, your videos are so encouraging. Thank you Jim
This may bring up a lot of disagreement and argumen but have either of you considered the POSSIBILITY of recycling your gray water? I have built "water purifiers" for people who live in houses (huts?) and their ground water and only available water sources are unsafe and they have no problem drinking the output. Basically a solar water distiller (that could be designed to break down and stored while moving) and clean water drains into one of your 5 gal water bottles. Could make a 14 day stay on BLM land doable without trips to town for water.
I go further, I have a 1 gallon freezer bag I put my paper in, I use half-sheets of paper towels, doubled first use, folded into a triangle second, fold the triangle again up to 2 more times for a total of 4 uses. Second paper towel I use water, a splash on the towel, same potential 4-use paper towel. never discard in the toilet. I fill the freezer bag up, then trash can. It never smells, but I begin to melt above about 68°, so am never in that heat voluntarily. In that oppressive heat, walk your bag, (sounds like you use 1 bag per incident), off a distance, leave it open, dry it out. Dried dung used to be a fire fuel, or trash the no longer smelly dry material.
My dad had a son Navy showers! Please set a timer for 3 minutes and then the water went cold... Stone Cold 😯 He was often deployed, but when he came home it was a whole new ballgame 😏
I was amazed at how wasteful I was with water and soap. Now showering takes less than a tenth of what I was using. Same with dishes. Laundry still takes a lot of water, though.
Please 🙏 invest in a portable mic to mic-up your guests so we can hear them. Bob, your voice is very loud.. but the guests are barely audible on my phone & Bluetooth. Thx for all the info! 👍👂👂
"I wipe out my plates when I use them..." I'm a great cook, but am house-cleaning disabled. I heard Bob once say he used vinegar in the final rinse. I have been trying to do the dishes more, shallow pan of soapy water, cold dip-rinse of the soapy residue, final hot dip into hot water, bit of vinegar. In my career, up to 80 hour-7 day weeks, came home to flop on the unmade bed/storage platform. I struggle.
In my home we had a period where the pipes weren't working and had to get creative. I was able to clean almost all our dishware by spraying with the Dollar Tree vinegar spray and wiping clean. If done quickly after use, it was very effective and everything had that clean vinegar benefit.
We have two 42 gallon Barker Tote Tanks... They tell you you can pull those on your truck hitch over to the disposal facility... I have pulled them up onto my trailer, and taken them to the dump site... After about four uses, they start leaking around the screws on the front landing gear flange... Otherwise, it's a great way to empty your black tank, and Carry Your refuse to a dump station...
I was raised with the outhouse in our outhouse we always kept a bucket of lime and you put in a little cup of lime in there once a week and absolutely no smell I've seen people have outhouses and stunk to high heaven but they really wasn't raised with one. lime is really cheap ... anyway just a thought
I know a person who buys a 25 lb bag oof barn or stable moisture partials I forget what it’s called but it’s like 5.00 it is made of sawdust and it absorbs the liquid and works for cat litter also. So much cheaper than cat litter. They toss it out at the end of the day. No black tank for them they love it.
To anyone reading this - if you want to boondock, just get a camper a composting toilet or carry a composting toilet. The maintenance on a regular black tank toilet beats the convenience. There is a backsplash sometimes if your tank is full. Nasty. also, You have to constantly seek out RV dump stations every week or so and drive there to do the dumping cleaning and maintenance. Not worth it.
Hello, I just wanted to say. Your videos have helped me figure out how to live in a van, i really appreciate it. I was wondering if you could make a video on where to buy a cargo van, and how to buy it safely. Thank you so much.
I am a nurse I come in I take 5 minute showers I never go over 5 minutes I wash my hair , wash my body, rinse and use conditioner only a few times a week, I shave my legs in a pan with cool water , then after do my feet !! I never flush my toilet when just peeing , I only flush when I shit lmfao ppl are so crazy and amen when i was camping we pooped in a bucket covered it up with litter then put it into 2 bags and threw it out like you do a baby diaper !! Gray water can be dropped put onto plants or your yard as long as it doesn't have paper or certain soaps in it !! Life can be so simple ppl make it hard !!
I wish there were more LTVAs around the country. The government owns all our land, and won't let us use our own land with permits, payments, and their close statist eyes on us.
Please explain the equalzing process again...I am doing the diy biodigester process at this time to clean my black tank and produce .my own gas for cooking and heating but need more tank space
We make almond milk by soaking the almonds, then straining them and juicing them with a juicer. Add a little vanilla and some add sweetener. Bingo! Fresh milk made easy and much better for one's arteries.
I boondock for 8 months a year in central Idaho Rockies and southern Utah canyons. I don't use either tank. Plan to remove it all this spring. I shower outside with a Big Kahuna 12v shower daily, pee outside, and poop either in a hole from a folding toilet lid chair, or ride my motorbike a little ways to a USFS or BLM outhouse.
Bob/Jim can you explain when it is legal to let gray water on the ground? Seem like as long as you use safe soap it would be good for the trees. I am sure some places do not allow it can you cover this topic?
You can check local regulations. In some areas, especially in the sticks, grey water can nicely absorb into the ground. different story if you are on hardpan.
Why don't I use a sand filter for a small pool with a 5 micron filter for recirculation shower? This has been puzzling why nobody does this because everyone does say they miss the long showers? You can recycle a good 5 gallon for a good lean long shower
In California we often had equalizing gray and black water tanks. Most of the time, we simply ran a small hose over to some tree and let it have a long drink. If this not allowed in Arizona?
If Jim is reading these comments: Since you're in LTVA's in drier areas; why don't you utilize some of the "evaporation" methods to get rid of several gallons of the grey water each week?
Eventually I'd like to have one of those blue boys. What I'm concerned about is weight. I would store it in the bed of my truck. Looks to be fairly heavy empty, can't imagine when it has waste in it. Lifting it into my truck by myself would difficult, any suggestions for a solution?
It seems to me that trash is trash and most any service station has trash cans. Whenever we're getting fuel or water, we get rid of our trash at the same time. :)
“Odor sealing bags BOS” Do a search with the above wording. I’m not affiliated I only use the bags. I was and still am impressed on how good they work and you will be to. You won’t need saw dust or a 5 gallon bucket. Just be cautious not to poke a hole i bag. They do work great.
I'm probably showing my inexperience, but lots of people in homes in the suburbs, throw dishwater or water used to clean into the yard. Same as with car wash water, water from outdoor showers, etc. Can you dispose of grey water in that way? I get that you wouldn't want to dump it into a body of water or where others are parked, but is there anywhere that grey water can be released into the environment? Could some kind of portable drain field line be used?
My goal is to be able to stay 2 weeks without moving in my van since I have to move anyway. How do you store trash? I would think inside would attract bugs and smell bad but outside would attract wildlife. Is there a container to use like you would use at a house but smaller?
Hi Bob, I'm really enjoying your channel and learning a lot, even tho I will not be living nomadic lifestyle. Was thinking about human waste and how nomads deal with it because I work at a city dump. At home we have a compost toilet and only grey water goes to the ground in one spot. Hence, I'm wondering if someone would be interested in setting up a company to deal with nomad human waste since that life is the future. The odd time a bag breaks andI it often makes me think of starting up a business but I am not young anymore and thought I would put my thoughts out there for you to suggest to the right people. Thanks and have a great summer!
I live in a 28 foot travel trailer that I gutted and made into an apartment on wheels. It started out as a nine person bunkhouse, and now, it’s a beautiful apartment for one person. I started out bagging my poop and separating the urine as well. I have to admit that I let the urine go down into the black tank and I did empty at dump stations. Eventually I got sick of that. I got a c-head composting toilet. I guess even though I have a water system I use vinegar and water in a spray bottle to do my dishes. I only shower about once a week, even though I clean myself up most days. When I shower, I use a 2 L garden sprayer with the trigger handle. I fill it a little over full, so I use a little more than 2 L of water to wash my hair and my body. I do let that water go down into the gray tank. I have hair to my waist and this works for me. On the days that I don’t shower, which is most of them, I either use diaper wipes or Dr. Bronner’s and water in a spray bottle and paper towels. I try to alternate those two things. The more you conserve the less you have to replace or get rid of. I can easily go a week or more on 10 gallons of water and probably only have to dump less than once every couple months if that. Propane is my biggest problem. Now that it’s not as cold, I don’t go through quite as much. I quit using the heater long ago, because it used so much propane and electricity. I have solar now and three 100 amp hour battle born lithium batteries, so I likely could get by with running the heater with the electricity. It just uses way too much propane though. I was just using a burner in the morning to warm the house up. I finally got a portable Mr. buddy which works beautifully to warm the space. I can just leave it on as it’s not too large for the space that it is trying to warm. If I could just stay put in one place it would cost me next to nothing to live. I would mainly have to pay for food. I even have a little washing machine that I can run with my inverter and hang the clothes to dry in the trailer. I basically don’t have any reason to go to town most of the time. My feet are just a little too itchy to stay in one place that long though. I have to admit that my biggest expense is gas to pull the trailer around!😏
I couldn’t figure out how to send a link on RU-vid. My phone did not seem to give me that option. Anyway, go to eBay or Amazon and just enter portable washing machine. They come in all sizes from extra small to the one I have that holds 20 pounds of laundry. They range in price from about $69-$149, which is what I paid for mine when I bought it. They are amazing! They have a very powerful motor, and they get your clothes cleaner than a regular washing machine. The spinner is extremely powerful and the clothes come out extremely well wrung out. I just hang everything on hangers hooked to my slide out in the trailer, and within an hour or two I can put it all away. If you’re worried about water consumption, the small ones are probably the way to go. Mine takes quite a bit of water, but I save the water in buckets and reuse it for the next load. It’s kind of just like having a suds saver on a traditional washing machine. I just wash from the cleanest and whitest to the dirtiest and darkest reusing the same water. It works quite well.
We removed our propane system. We went with a Chinese Diesel Heater instead for heat since it is cheap, very warm, and easily refillable at the gas station.
Why not install a composting toilet. So much easier and you are not handling fresh waste material. When it is fully composted it is odorless and dry. Couldn't imagine using a bag everyday and dealing with all that.
I don't understand why you can't run grey water out if you're using bio soaps? I've also heard you can dig a hole and bury your solid bathroom waste (no bags) and pour your liquid waste on trees/bushes. Isn't this true? I've spoke with this one guy that burns his bag with tp and solid waste in his wood burner in his converted bus. This I see as weird, do you?
Thanks Guys 👍 I’m in Southern Idaho I am trying to figure out a rig with what I already have & If you guys are anywhere close enough this June-July- or early Aug. I hope to meet up with you. Thank You for all your videos they are truly valuable & informative Have A Blessed Day ✨🤗✨
