Pooping in a Car, Van or RV: Review of Thetford Porta-Potti

hi everyone welcome back before we go into today's video I want to give my sincere thanks to Jamie at enigmatic nomadic and for for his hard work in the production of this video he was either the cameraman the editor or appears in it whichever one it is or all three thank you so much James and everyone please go to his channel and support him because he works tremendously hard for our community and deserves our full support now let's watch the video [Music] okay welcome back to another one of our videos today we're going to talk about a somewhat unpleasant topic in fact it's so unpleasant and among civilized society and civilized people they won't even talk about it but we're not polite civilized society we're van dwellers and we'll live any way we want to because we're free the topic of today is poop and if you look right here below me you'll see we all poop the cows poop dog's poop you and I poop then if we're going to live free in the wild in nature then one of the things we have to do is figure out how to poop so we'll start with a shovel the most simple form of pooping is if you're living out in nature there's a hole in the ground now it's almost perfectly legal it's perfectly only nearly all public land National Forest BLM to go out and and dig a hole in the ground and poop in what my rule of thumb is I want the hole to be as deep as the shovel if I've got that good deep hole squirrels aren't going to dig it up and you know and it's going to be safe some people just kind of go out and dig a little hole like that and poop in and that's not secure you can't poop on a rock and put a rock under it over it the squirrels will get into it and you'll have toilet paper everywhere and you'll have bad idea dig all that deep poop right in you're good so next up fruit for as long as been first invented pottery they've had p-pods and I've always used a pea pot I've got this is the one I use in my van a lot of people use these in the evening it's dark it's rainy I want a pee I pee in this then at the end a night I take it out and dump it and rinse it really good so this is the most you know other than digging a hole in the ground or just going outside and peeing this is about as simple as it gets our next is this little baby this is my unit I've been using this exact setup I use two bags just simple Walmart bags Hefty's a little better but I've never had a Walmart bag fail me and I always keep double bag and I'm always ready to go so I've gotten older the time between I feel the urge and the time the urge is pretty darn insistent let's go right now it has become narrow and narrower so I always have a bag ready to go and in my bag is a little toilet paper of course and uh wet wipes oh you got to stay clean out here especially your be fine got it you know there are a lot of things you cut corners you can cut your behinds not one of them you want that thing to be clean all the time and I even have a roll of antibacterial wipes and I will often clean up with one last time I'll wipe my hands with the bat i bacterial wipes and then I will finish up with water and finally I I'm kind of a little bit crazy about germ phobic about it I don't I want to be clean when I'm done and then I will usually finish up with gel alcohol gel I don't I don't want to get sick because I didn't wasn't clean after using the bathroom so that's my routine now I'm uh you can just sit right straight down on a bucket and I started out trying that I didn't do it very often and I didn't do it for very long because these things are pretty pretty sharp and if you're in there for a little while you got to do a little reading material while you're there you want to have something comfortable this is this is literally six years old it's more net I did this in 2009 so that is six years old I this is nothing but a pipe insulation from Home Depot or ace or any hardware store sales pipe insulation comes in a three foot or four foot roll it's got a slit down it you just kind of tear the slit apart slide it down and then cut it because it'll be too long and then just duct tape and this has lasted me it's very comfortable and I've been using this since 2009 there'll be six years this year now I never my body my skin never touches this because this would be impossible to keep clean or sanitary I never sit directly on it so I always have a bucket inside it and I'm kind of a nut for saving every little bit of space I can so I inside my bucket I have dog biscuits my dog needs biscuits and I need the storm and that's where I store them and I've always got a double bag on top of it so besides my dog the stuff never touches my dog my dog's biscuits and you know watch if they did I think my dog might prefer the biscuits so he doesn't seem to mind he's never complained so then the next one and this is the one more common this is a little more money that was three dollars cost me three dollars is some duct tape to make that toilet and you've probably seen or heard of these this is a luggable loo and it has a just has a standard five gallon bucket and you snap this down on and then it's got a seal now this is not an actual luggable loo brand can you zoom in a little bit on that this has got a seal and that's that makes this one unusual many of them don't have a seal and you'll get odors if you don't have a gasket on this side and it closes down and and these are 15 bucks 10 to 15 bucks on Amazon we'll put on a link and then it's just like any other five yama bucket and this is your seat it's quite comfortable and more if you feel a little more civilized some of us still want to have that urge to feel civilized and some of us have this real strongly and nothing wrong with that we're out here to be comfortable and happy not to prove how tough we are although some of us want to prove out toughen our and then finally so stop this one bar open okay I will this is another way to do your lid this is actually I tell that we've demonstrated this this is a bucket I use as a water filter this hasn't cuts called a gamma lid on it and with a gamma lid you you buy this and this as a unit you undo them pound the gamma went down on it it has a gasket inside so it forms a watertight seal the gamma lid has a gasket here and then if you've ever take it but got a new five gallon bucket and tried to get the lid off it s horrible they make tools cut and you really have to use the tool to break a 5-gallon lid off of one of these things if it's new and then they won't ever seal tie it again but with this you can put the gamma lid back on it screw it on and because both sides have a seal it will seal tight and it will all end will keep all loaders out so if you have odors in there and that's the advantage of the gamma seal it's not a I wouldn't count out to be honor percent water tight but spills aren't just coming out if we turn it upside down I think some water would probably come out but not much and and then because you've got this thing this is also a water filter this is kind of my survival part of my survival gear you dump this in the creek and you and I can have a gamble it on it to seal it and then I have a filter that screws on here and you just set it up you set your your water your down there this is a sawyer is the brand name of this filter and you just let it drip it'll just slow it'll it'll do a five-gallon bucket fill it water filter or five gallon bucket in a few hours so you get as simple as well as water filtering could be you dip it in the creek you set it down you let it filter and you got clean purified water it kind a little bit off topic but every van dweller should be able to make purified water if you're out here there's a pond from us not even a half mile from here and if we had to have water I could go down and fill it and filter it and we'd be in business oh but the reason you would care about this as the Gambel lid for a toilet because this is a lot more comfortable than just the lid I have a friend who uses this setup a gamma lid and then he uses it and he's there's a controversy in the van dwelling community do you do one at a time and then I do I'm a one at a time guy I say this is not something I treasure I'm not storing it and building it up I use it one time I pull that baby out of there I wrap it up this is all my toilet paper so it's really big I wrap it up and I wrap it up and then I put it in and wrap it again and then I usually will put it in the third one so I don't want to smell and it goes into the toilet I mean it goes into a dumpster and my bad person because I put put two poop in the dumpster well go to us go walk your dog and leave the poop lying on the ground and see what happens and let people watch you they're going to be yelling at you and they're going to say pick that up and then what do they want you to do when you pick up your dog's poop they want you to put in a dumpster that's what I do I so know and I've had babies and probably a lot of people watching this severe babies and if you've ever had baby what do you do with their goodies well you put it in the dumpster so waste can go in the dumpster and as far as I'm concerned my waste is as good as anybody's waste and it can go in the dumpster so ah this has got a nice seal and if you want to use it multiple times and my friend does he puts down you can put down with Chris you can have your plastic in it and your plastic bags and then you can put down a layer kitty litter you can put down a layer of sawdust sawdust is a very good one and chips and wood chips any kind of thing and then you use multiple times and dump that I just don't but I know some people do and are completely consumed with that system at the RTR one year I set up up I set up a tent at the RTR because they're people who are in cars and there's no word for them really practically go poop and they they're new and they don't know how to do so at the rubber rendezvous which is big gathering of and dwellers every January I set up a tent and I have a bucket in it and my first year I let I you I put in kitty litter and they put it in and they pooped and they put it in they pumped and it went by the end of the time I went I went about a week and oh my goodness oh my goodness it was the most horrible experience of my life dumping that thing and I would never ever do that again and so now the dealings I give them bags instructions right on the tenth one time use you take pack it in pack it out you come in here you poop in this you wrap it up you take it home and you throw in the trash I'm not dealing with your trash take care of your own business yeah your business yours and not mine it's as precious as it is you keep it and so I'm not a fan of multiple times but people do and and the gamble it is useful for a million little things so they're about ten bucks on Amazon we'll put a link on Korea but it is comfortable enough with the gamble lid to just sit directly on it with with the bag so you're not ever actually touching okay and so that's it now these are all pretty crude you know to a lot of people the idea of pooping in a bucket is just out of the question and I understand that I'm a crude person so it doesn't bother me but for those bothers me for those who have bothers there's another solution and Kindle will demonstrate that now well kind of demonstrate that I'm not going to sit on it for you this is what we use civilize people a civilize people if you want to call us that but this is a port-a-potty this is called a Thetford it's a higher-end model of a porta potti we used to have a Coleman we had it for about three years and the seal was starting to rot I think it's because we use bleach instead of just water and a little bit of less harsh chemicals but now we have this Stepford its 3.2 gallons and it was about when we bought it two months ago it was one hundred and seven dollars and we bought it on Amazon so um the reason why we like to use a porta potti or a real toilet instead of a bucket or a bottle or anything was when we first started this lifestyle we didn't have a porta potti I was going to try my artists to bring in my inner man and use a she we feast my inner beast and use a she we for those of you that don't know what a she is so a she we is kind of like a funnel that you would that contours to a woman's body that you would put into a like orange juice bottle or something and pn2 and use it as we have different Plumbing's than we actually do I tried that for about a week and a half and let's just say for me it didn't really work we had to tear all the carpet out of the van so um we bought a porta potti and I loved the porta potti because I can get down in the middle of the night and use it I don't have to leave my van I don't have to go outside I don't have to find the spot I don't have to think if somebody's watching me squat down and all that stuff it's just it's a big hassle for me so we use porta potti the thing I like about this part of potty is it has a flush on it you can fill water there's two this is a flush flushes the water this comes off you can pour water in there what I do just to have a little bit of a chemical in there is I pour just a little tiny bit of ammonia in there mix it with the water and it kind of keeps it from smelling but just kind of cleans it as you go kind of thing too and it actually has a seat on it and you just pull this out right here and it opens the hole to dump it pretty much to flush it how you get it off when you want to dump it is there's a little handle back here still figuring this out and it just lifts off and then what size is that about three gallons 3.2 3.2 gallons and the thing I like about this is if I can dump this anybody can dump this and it has a handle so I can carry it and this is just water I'd dump this so this is where you pour out of it actually turns so you can have easy pouring and you don't have to drip it on you when you're carrying it to wherever you're going to go dump it what we do is if there's a public restroom or a port-a-potty that we can dump it in usually dump it in that sometimes if we're out in nature for too long then we'll dig a hole really deep hole and we'll pour it in because we are two people and it takes about two to three days to really fill it up the other thing I really like about the sport potty is it has a sensor on it right now it's fully green because it's fully empty when it gets fuller it'll go to red and so you know if for some reason you're not really focusing on how full it is because you're not moving it around we move this around the van all the time because our van we have to move things to make the bed go down and everything so we're moving this constantly and so we can always feel how full it is and but it's nice because you have the sensor you have this little thing that turns around and the flush and it just watches right back on so have you ever had any accidents while spilling it uh no not with this one this one is is really I really liked it the only problem that we had with the other one the : that we had a Coleman and it was about four gallons it was really heavy for me if I had to go walk down a hill and go dig a hole I was always falling I'd always have to put it down walk down the hill put it down and then walk down you know it took me a long time to do it so I never really wanted to dump it so when we had our Coleman the seal started to rot after three years and we tried and tried and tried to buy a new seal but Coleman doesn't have just little parts to buy for seven or eight dollars but that fir'd being the porta potti brand does have little parts that we can we can piece out and part out and fix as it goes so that was another thrust to buying a pet bird port-a-potty brand instead of getting another Coleman and I like it it's nice and compact it's kind of high we use this as a chair we put a little pillow or a blanket on it and use it as an extra chair in the van and it doesn't smell the other thing I used to do on the Coleman was we used to get little toilet bowl fresheners that we would hang off of the flush and just leave it in the toilet bowl and then we would spray it with water and it would make a really nice cool refreshing smell instead of the smell that nobody wants to smell Oh at this one we can't really do that but the flush with the water and the ammonia seems to work really well and we never get woken up in the middle of the night because somebody's sitting on the toilet now they make a lot of these in a bigger size like five gallon you wouldn't recommend that then um well for me because we we passed on and off the duty of emptying it and I like to be able to to do it myself if he's gone or something or you know I'm cleaning I want to be able to go out and dump it myself I don't want to say hey can you dump the toilet and wait while he's trying to work I can just go do it the five gallon would be way too heavy for me I would I could do it because I got muscles but I would probably have to walk put it down Rast walk put it down rest and that's a lot of bodily stuff to be dumping at one time so we like this because I can dump it you know every other day or two or three days and and it's not that heavy and sometimes we're not even dumping it when it's fall so it's really not even that much to dump and I don't have to dig this big hole and it's just a lot easier for me you know being a fatigue woman and all yes deep so you would never consider being without this and switching to a five-gallon bucket no way okay I don't want to sit on a bucket and bag everything up and that just seems like one it's just a lot of work just to do your business um like you were talking about Windows you know when you have a window it's only open for a matter of time and you know I don't want to have to bag up a bucket and we're always moving everything around our van so I just think a bucket would just be a big mess and it just it just doesn't work for us and we can move this down and I never have to leave the van to go to the bathroom so I really my porta potti well the key thing is that no matter what you're looking for out of living in a van and living the mobile life you can find what suits you if you want to live a little bit cruder you can poop in a bucket and if you want to live a little more civilized you can get one of these any idea what off your head what this this is going to be about 8500 I've we but we bought this on Amazon for 107 dollars okay yeah I'm sure that's about two going rate and so it's not that much and your life it you can make your life a whole lot more comfortable pretty easily it's a big quality of life thing it is I think if you can just make little tweaks here and there to have a better quality of life then why not I mean we're already living free and wild and awesomely why not make it easier at the same time absolutely do you name your toilet and this name right oh you're all Jenkins poor Leroy okay well thank you and there you go another salute simple solution for a problem and there's every problem in the van Doyle life has a solution and it's our goal to give them all to you [Music]

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 1,252,282

Rating: 4.8645258 out of 5

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, full-time, Thetford, porta-potti, Poop, pooping, bathroom, bucket, 5-gallon

Id: -gj3ocdO4Qk

Length: 21min 53sec (1313 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 07 2017