Well it’s now 14 months or so since we installed the Natures Head on Valkyr. I have had several people ask me for an update on our experiences with it,so here it goes. Overall we are extremely happy with the change from a standard marine head and holding tank to a composting head. Both me and my wife would do it over in the blink of an eye.
Positives for us include
- Overall total lack of odor.
- Ease of changing the composting mix.
- Regaining the use of two compartments under the v-berth and space in the port side v-berth hanging closet.
- Ease of Maintenance and totally removing or putting the unit back in place.
- Ease of initial installation compared to a standard marine head
- 90% less maintenance than a standard head and what maintenance you do end up doing is much less nasty.
Downsides so far
- Height of unit installed in a DE
- Frequency that the Urine container has to be changed and dumped.
- Dreaded gnat infestation.
- Units don’t handle diarrhea well
- You spend more time making sure the bowl is clean each time you use the unit. (very small downside,wasn’t shure I should include it as a downside but you do work at it harder than with a standard marine head.)
We have found that in actual use that the head and head compartment actually smells as fresh or fresher than the rest of the boat,this over a year of part time to full time use. It is so nice to not worry about obnoxious odors coming from the head compartment or making the whole boat reak. It even passes the wife test with flying colors.
In practice for part time use to full time use while living at the dock we have changed the compost at intervals between six weeks and 6 months. I think that living on the hook full time we would probably change it between once a month and every six weeks. Changing the compost is a simple matter of removing two hand knob screws that attach the unit to the floor,then removing the top of the unit (a matter of unlatching two latches and the exhaust hose). You then can take a standard kitchen trash bag and stretch the top of the bag over the top of the base of the composting head. There is a molded in groove that it will lock into when stretched over the top. Then you simply pick the unit up and turn upside down and shake the contents into the trash bag. Typically we have found that the contents will take up about 1/4 or less of the volume of a standard kitchen bag. We,then depending on the situation,will dispose of the the trash bag in the dumpster or more often take it home with use and dump under some of the shrubs or trees at the house. Re-assembling the unit is a simple matter of attaching the base back to the brackets holding it to the floor then placing the top back on it before latching the two latches. The whole process only takes 5 or 6 minutes at the most. Just prior to putting the top back on or even after the top has been re-attached we will add the new composting mix. In normal practice we do not clean the bottom .compartment. This leaves enough of the existing compost mix with it’s developed compost to quickly get the new composting material going. It has been recommended to us that using a scoop to remove 70 or 80 % of the compost rather than removing the head and dumping it entirely is easier and leaves more mature compost to get the new material going. We have not tried this method yet though.
Normally you charge the unit with 1.5 to 2 gallons of new composting mix. We use ground and compressed Coir bricks (coconut husk). To use them we will take one brick (about 2.5 inches by 6 inches by 10 inches log) and add a gallon of water in a 5 gallon bucket. A couple hours later you can just break it all up in to a moist earth like mixture. If it is still a little dry you can add a little more water. You don’t want it to wet though. One brick will create about 2 gallons of compost mix.
We regained I would estimate 30 or 40 cubic feet of usable storage space after removing the old plumbing and holding tank. In our boat the hoses and holding tank were very old and were permeated with odor. In the port side hanging closet,even though the hoses only took up one side of it,we didn’t use the closet because anything placed into would absorb the odor of the hoses. So we did not use that space except for tool boxes or some hard parts etc.. We have now regained full use of it. The small compartment under the seating area of the v-berth used to hold plumbing and a whale type pump that had a leak in it. After removal of the plumbing and pump we gained that entire area for storage. Like wise the large compartment under the v-berth that used to hold the holding tank.
When talking about changing the composting mix I spoke of how easy it is to take the unit apart and dump it and how quickly. To give a better example,we recently received a upgraded stir bar made of thicker stainless with a smaller three handle crank that fits in our boat better than the stock handle on the older stir bar. We had not emptied the composting compartment in the six months prior to this. Removing the head,dumping it,cleaning it out totally so what we felt comfortable handling the old stir bar to remove it and put the new on in its place and then re-assembling the unit in the boat and placing new compost material in it took about 20 minutes total. Not once did it smell nasty or make my over developed gag reflex kick in. The roto-molded plastic that the head is made of is just this side of teflon slick and when dumping it very little was stuck to it after a years use. It dumped out almost clean. The stainless stir bar did have solid matter stuck on on it in several places. It clean off easily with a hose.
Even the initial installation went very quick and easy compared to a standard head and plumbing. Installation consisted of mounting to L brackets to the base the head sits on that hold it down. Installing the ventilation hose which consisted of mounting 3 or 4 brackets up the side of the head bulkhead and on the overhead to run it to the opening to the overhead dorade box and then mounting a solar nicro vent in place of the cowl on the dorade. In all the entire project probably only took 3 or 4 hours of actually working time. Most of the time was spend on measuring for mounting the head itself to the platform,running the hose and mounting the nicro solar vent.
So far in the last 14 months the only maintenance we have done is replacing the stir bar and that was an optional upgrade. The unit worked fine with the old stir bar,the new one is just a bit heavier construction and with an easier handle for the space on our boat to turn it. Over all the maintenance needed for these units is minimal to none. We don’t use the built in fan on the the head which I would estimate would need replacement every 2 or three years. Though as I will explain later we might start using it in conjunction with the solar vent that powers the ventilation now.
We have found the installed height of this head to be slightly inconvenient. A standard marine head is very short and most boats have a built in platform that bring them up to a usable height for the average person. The Natures head on the other hand is of a standard height already and does not need a platform to make it the right height. On our boat the platform is built in such a place that you can’t remove it and have a level place to install the head. It fits perfectly in on the existing platform other than it is about 7 or 8 inches higher than we would like. Due to the constraints of having a composting bin built in the base we don’t see the likely hood of anyone building a shallower unit. This leave us with tall people being just higher than is normal and for a shorter person their legs dangle when using the head. We plan on installing a little foot platform in front of the unit to overcome this issue. Regardless in the last year no one has not been able to use the head and even if we couldn’t retrofit a little foot platform to make it more comfortable we would still regard this as a minimal issue compared to our problems with standard marine head systems. As the manufacture will tell you these heads are mostly marketed to the home/cabin/rv markets that normally have a bathroom with no platform to raise the head up. For that the work very well. If you have room in your marine head to install one flat on the floor then you are golden. Even with having to install it higher up we feel it is worth it.
For me,having to empty the urine container every two to three days is my biggest complaint. With three adults full time on the boat it needs to be emptied every couple days. For two adults we find that we need to empty it every 3rd to 4th day. For a single individual I would anticipate that you would need to empty it at around once a week. We already knew about this issue before buying the unit and on the recommendation of others that own as well as it being recommended by the manufacture we purchased extra urine containers. I would recommend this to anyone that is thinking of getting one of these heads. It allows you to change it out in the middle of the night and defer with actually dealing with dumping the full bottle till the next day or even the day after that. Changing out the bottle is a matter of about 3 seconds of time. You remove the cap of the empty bottle,unlatch the two latches that hold the top of the composting head to the base and pivot the front of the unit up about 30 degrees on the back hinge. Screw the cap on the full container as soon as you can and then using the carry handle lift that bottle out and then place the empty bottle in its place. Lower top and re-latch.. You are done. We have 3 bottles and that allows us 9 days before we have to dump if needed. Mostly we carry the full ones back to the house and dump them there. However you can also dump in a toilet or outside the 3 mile limit in the US you can dump overboard. Dumping the urine containers is probably the nastiest thing about the entire process,however we don’t find it so bad that we would go back to a standard marine head. if you dump the containers as soon as they are full the odor isn’t that bad. If you let them sit for a few days they can smell pretty bad. We have been told various things that you can add to the container that reduces this odor but haven’t actually tried any of them yet. When installed on the head we don’t find that there is any detectable odor from the containers.
Since these heads don’t flush with water you have to clean the bowl every time you use the head if you get the bowl dirty. This is actually much less of a problem and easier to do than you would imagine. After using the head two or three times you will find that you get good at getting solid wastes to fall through the trap door on the head without getting any in the bowl. Urine that goes in the two forward drain holes in the bowl is easily rinsed out after every use with a little dribble of water from the shower hose in the head or using a spray bottle of water. If you do get fecal matter in the bowl just take a handful of toilet paper and wipe down and into the composting bin. Toilet paper always goes in the composting bin where it will compost also. Then we keep some clorox wipes in the head to give the bowl a sanitizing wipe down. The roto-molded plastic the head is made of cleans very easily this way.
The are two issues that are probably the biggest downside we have hit in the last year. The first is diarrhea,inputting that much water/moisture into the composting process overwhelms it. I had an unfortunate run in with a stomach bug a month ago. The head started to have an odor when you opened it. Throwing a handful of fresh compost and giving it about three days of time for the ventilation system on it to work got it through that. But an extended bout would soon overwhelm the head. I was actually impressed with how quick the system bounced back and think that if we wired in the fan that is built into the head and ran it in conjunction with the nicro solar vent that it would accelerate ventilation and carry off the excess moisture faster.
The second issue is that we seem to have picked up a gnat issue in the head. This is also something that is a known problem with these systems. It is annoying when it happens. We purchased a Hotshot product from Lowes that you hang up and it emits vapors that kill flying insects such as flys and gnats. It is not recommended for use around people so we did not hang it in the head compartment. instead we placed it in the composting bin itself. It seems to be working at suppressing the gnats. There are still a few but not nearly as bad. The next time I will pull the permeated pad that is in the plastic unit and cut it into small squares and throw them in the head. Whole unit is really to big to fit and can get in the way of the stir bars. With the poison in the head and positive ventilation pulling any fumes to outside the boat we are not worried about issues of it us being affected by it. From what we have hear the only true solution is to remove the whole head and empty and clean and sanitize it to get all the eggs.
So the good the bad and the ugly. If you stop us on the dock and get into a conversation about heads be prepared for us to rave out our composting head. We think that is has over all improved our quality of life on the boat by a factor of 2 or 3. It is one of those products that we think its time has come.
I can’t really think of anything else. Thats about as comprehensive a report as I could come up with. If you have any questions about anything I wasn’t clear on let me know:)
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