good afternoon from some beautiful
undisclosed location along the Colorado
River here in Arizona if you haven't
watched us before we are Ben and Rebecca
of his-and-hers vlogs for the last year
we've been living in Denny the
expedition vehicle you see behind us
before we share with you what we're
going to do for a video today I do want
to do the obligatory plug for our
website wws and hers hub comm we've got
courses ebooks magazines newsletters you
can watch our videos there the list goes
on check it out today though we are
going to do a video about the dirtiest
secrets of having a cassette toilet and
if you're wondering like what is a
cassette toilet it's a pretty nifty
little device in some ways it's kind of
a very fancy port-a-potty yeah yeah it
molds right in to wet bath would
probably be the most common location and
the cassette of the cassette toilet part
is really cool because you can just pull
a cassette right out and take it and go
dump the materials inside so cassette
toilets come in many shapes sizes and
styles some have electric water pumps
ours you have a knob so there's no
electricity some hold their own water
for cleaning others draw water from your
onboard water tank storage we do use
ours for number one and number two I
know some people just do one or the
other or both but if we're gonna be
giving you a testimonial we need to let
you know how much we use it well let's
start out with the things we like about
this cassette toilet number one it is
very simple both to use and to dump
secondly does not require electricity
and for us we like that because
electricity is a commodity when you're
out on the road well it's always a good
idea to put on some nitrile or latex
gloves but I'm going to talk about the
freshwater aspect of this toilet this is
where you fill it up it's
simply unscrews and amazingly enough it
actually accepts water really really
fast so you're not just standing here
for 20 minutes I'm not gonna do it right
now
because I don't need to winterize it but
before we left Alaska there was a point
in time where I had to drain the water
out of it and it was so simple I
literally unhooked it from here pulled
this off dropped it down and all the
water drained out easy
and speaking of winter we just traversed
the Alaska Highway in like minus 18
conditions and granted the box is heated
while we were driving but we did not
have any issues with aspects of this
freezing up and it was bitterly cold
while driving minus 25 while camped
minus 18 and that's Fahrenheit all right
well I think we're done in here
one thing Ben forgot to mention that
fresh water lasts for the two of us
about two weeks so you don't have to
fill it up very often the other thing I
really like about this toilet is that
you can use any kind of toilet paper you
want so I'm a Charmin girl was never a
fan of the Scot toilet paper when we had
the RV so this is a nice change for us
so the final thought for things that we
really like about the cassette toilet is
and we have not had to do this one yet
ourselves but you theoretically could
dig a hole out in the wild and dump it
and then refill in the hole which i
think is a lot better than what somebody
here at this campsite did before us
moving inside the camper let's talk
about the things we don't like about the
cassette toilet first off in where
requirements the underside of our lid
condensates really Pleasant when you sit
down
we don't really like cleaning the inside
of the cassette toilet very much the
outside is surprisingly easy because
it's in a wet bath and you just kind of
host it all off but the inside is
problematic because there's a little
squirter there's little nooks and little
crannies that just get dirty but the
worst part and we are not alone in this
one skid marks they happen they're not
easy to clean off you know in this
environment you know a home has a
regular traditional toy
brush you don't have room for that
because this is going to be spilling
it's nasty and we have found and we were
shocked when some other traveling
friends of ours said they do the same
thing they just kind of got a wad up a
chunk of toilet paper just kind of stick
it in there and work it around around
but I still like to accept toilet my
number one biggest beef with this toilet
is that me being a male my junk touches
the bowl but you're here doing your
business and tuck it in and it touches
just not all that pleasant as we
mentioned before dumping the cassette
toilet is pretty easy to do it's not
hard to find a place to do it because
you don't need a traditional dump
station and in fact we actually prefer
not to use a dump station because
hitting a hole about this size from way
up high very hard to do tends to be
messy unless you can wash it away our
preference is to use vault toilets or
porta-potties and apparently in Europe
they're actually set up for dump
stations for these cassette toilets so
someday we look forward to checking that
out
select back said we prefer outhouses or
vault toilets but the characteristics of
those are what we like the long drop and
what that does is that eliminates
splashes that segues into do not go into
somebody's house and dump this toilet it
really truly is not polite their
splashes it's messy there's better
places to do it then like a residential
bathroom let's talk the logistics about
dumping and maintaining this cassette
toilet first off we tend to recycle our
gray water whenever we're dumping to
rinse out the tank and since this is an
adventure vehicle we don't have a
traditional gray tank we have a tank up
here attached to this hose and we're
able to just quickly turn it on that
lends itself to dumping out the toilet
the cassette then filling it with a
little bit of water flushing it around
making sure
thing gets out re dumping it and putting
it away nice feature we've tried a
couple of different things to keep the
toilet smelling fresh including vinegar
which really didn't work all that well
and we have gone back to using the same
treatment that we used in our RV toilet
we call it the orange stuff and it
smells really good and keeps everything
fresh between changes so now that the
cassette has been dumped the orange
stuff is in everything smelling all
fresh and clean how long does it take
for us to fill it back up well if it's
the two of us and it is the sole toilet
that we are using three days that gets
infinitely longer if I can kind of step
outside in water the bushes and stuff of
that nature or if you are using public
facilities as we close this video out
we're gonna give you a few last-minute
tips to make your a cassette toilet
experience a little more pleasurable
starting with always keep a stash of
nitrile gloves this tip helps keep odors
down when you're in the process of using
the cassette toilet but drop the
contents into the bowl of the toilet and
then drop them into the cassette you can
use water obviously water helps but
don't let that linger it just adds to
the smell another tip for dumping the
cassette toilet when you're actually
ready to take it to a place to dump it
go ahead and open and close that gate
again that Ben just showed you make sure
that there are no remnants that are
gonna be left on the top of the cassette
when you pull it out of its housing
just a little messiness this tip is in
regards to the nature of the contents
inside the cassette toilet when you are
at a campsite for several days it's not
sloshing around so the solids kind of
remain solid for a while and the paper
doesn't get all broken up but the minute
you drive around and it's sloshing it
just becomes a very soupy ugly mess but
that soupy ugly mess is nice when you
are dumping the cassette because it
minimizes splashes just a little
thought a really important factor to
having a pleasant experience in a
room without a door is the max fam you
gotta make sure that you put it on in
the right direction though so you want
it to be blowing air into your rig
open the window in your bathroom and the
odors will blow out a couple more tips
in regards to dumping the cassette it's
always best to dump it sooner rather
than later if it gets too full it gets
really messy guys enough said in regards
to a full cassette well did you know you
can have two if your rig is big enough
they can be made so there's an extra
compartment right there for a spare
cassette which doubles your time alright
thank you so much for watching our dirty
secrets of cassette toilets hit that
subscribe button head over to his and
hers hub comm for more engagement but
Beck has one final lesson about the
cassette toilet that was learned the
hard way yeah don't hit the vent button
unless you know what it will do and your
time
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