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Originally Posted by jdlipford
I am wondering if I can make the recirculating toilet into a regular portapotti?
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Are you thinking of a real PortaPotty, where you have to actually carry a pot of waste to a campground toilet or pit toilet, and empty it there? This often takes the form of a cassette toilet, though there are cruder versions which are basically a bucket toilet.
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Does the recirculating toilet have a flushing valve that lets the waste leave the bowl and enter the tank? When you press the flush button, does it actually open a valve to gravity flush, or is it just spraying rinsing water down the bowl.
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The answer is not quite either. The Thetford does not have a metal flushing valve that opens. Instead, it has a very floppy vinyl sleeve or wide tube that is supposed to open, letting the waste slide through, and then shutting by collapsing again. The intent is to isolate the waste tank from the bowl so you don't smell what is in the tank. While this is an accepted approach to drain plumbing (see
www.hepvo.com), the implementation in the Thetford recirc toilet does not work particularly well for some folks.
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I looked at the diagram and it appears that theres a cone filter of some sort
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The cone filter is not really part of the drain system. It is an upright tapered cylinder of coarse screen whose purpose is to confine solid waste to a small area around the dump valve at the bottom of the tank. The flush pump then draws liquid from outside the confined area. The flush liquid is de-odorized, and is usually blue, so it doesn't smell or look bad.
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I'd like to bypass the pick up tube (that uses black water to flush with) and just use fresh water (from the shower sprayer) to flush. Would this work?
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Yes, it would. You would remove the flush pump and the pickup tube from the toilet, and splice a fresh water line into the current pump outlet. You might consider connecting the new fresh water line to the cold water line under the bathroom sink, rather than the shower sprayer - the retrofit would be easier. Either way, you would need a manually-controlled on-off valve of some sort. And bear in mind that although you would be using fresh water to flush the toilet, you still have that pot o' poo holding tank down below. So you have to decide exactly what it is that offends you about the recirc toilet. Is it the use of recirculated water for flushing, rather than fresh water? Or is it the presence of the waste tank below the bowl?
You also have to remember that if you change over to fresh water flush, the tank will fill up much faster than it would using recirc water for flushing. If you are in a campground with a dump riser available, that is OK. If you are anywhere else, this will get to be an inconvenient problem in a hurry. You will probably resort to a "Blue Boy" roll-around dump tank, which does the job but is not much fun to use.
One other thing might enter your thinking. Thetford has discontinued the recirculating toilet, and there are apparently no more to be had anywhere. If you remove your recirc toilet and offer it for sale, you could recoup part of the cost of a new toilet such as the M-28.
Bill
BTW, I will move this thread into its proper place in the Plumbing Forum in a few days.