Composting to Flushing Toilet: A Customer's Experience

Dec. 30, 2022, 3:08 a.m.

We recently had customers switch from a composting toilet to a standard flushing toilet 4 years after they purchased their Tiny. They wanted to share their experience to potentially help others make a decision when building their own Tiny Home. Read on to check out their experience!

"We originally decided to go with a composting toilet because we had no idea what we were doing with an RV/Tiny Home. Over the years we had heard horror stories of people getting burst pipes and dealing with a huge sewer mess because they didn't know how to get through winter in an RV, and we were moving to an area with very cold, harsh winters. Additionally, longer-term parking for the Tiny Home was less common to find with sewer hookups. So, we thought it would be a good idea to start off with a composting toilet until 1) we had been through several winters in the Tiny Home and felt very comfortable adding a sewer line and 2) we found a place to park that we didn't want to move away from for a long time, since moving with a composting toilet is far easier than with a hard-piped sewer line.

After 4 years, we met the criteria and decided it was time to make the switch! We contacted a few plumbers for quotes, and once we chose one and the scheduled date came around, the project was completed within just a couple of hours. The plumbers had to drill a hole in the floor, connect to existing plumbing underneath the trailer, and we also had them install a hard pipe going out to the sewer as a sturdier, more weatherproof solution. Our particular project also required back-grading because of the site we're parked at.

The final cost of the plumbing was about $2,100 (not including the cost of the toilet, which we provided). We have zero plumbing experience so we didn't feel comfortable DIY-ing it, and we are also located in Washington state. A couple of weeks later, we also purchased and installed a bidet toilet seat ourselves, given we had an outlet behind the toilet where the fan for the composting toilet used to plug into.

We wanted to share our experience in case anyone was having trouble choosing between a standard flushing toilet and a composting toilet. A composting toilet was right for us as we adjusted to all the ins and outs of RV life, because we had a lot of learning to do, and we didn't want to learn with a burst sewer pipe."

Composting to Flushing Toilet: A Customer's Experience

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