Bought a cheap composting toilet off Amazon and instantly regretted it

I thought I was being smart saving cash on a composting toilet for my cabin up near Flagstaff. Spent around $180 on one of those no-name brands with good reviews, figured how bad could it be. First week it worked okay, but by week three the separator thing broke and the smell was unreal. My buddy has a $600 Nature's Head unit and after using his setup I felt like a fool. I ended up ripping mine out and ordering the real deal, plus I had to buy new compost medium. Has anyone else had luck with the budget options or is it always a waste of money?

3 comments

3 Comments

claire8725d ago

Learned that lesson myself the expensive way.

evahenderson5d ago

Swapped mine out for a rotomolded one with a sealed lid and never looked back. The difference was night and day after just the first week. Ended up drilling a tiny vent hole and adding a charcoal filter too which helped a ton with moisture. Wish I'd just done it right from the start instead of trying to save forty bucks.

kai_webb915d ago

The problem isn't just the price, it's that cheap compost toilets use different plastics that absorb odors. Those expensive units use HDPE plastic that doesn't soak up smell over time. The cheap ones let everything seep into the material and you can never fully clean them out. After a few months the whole thing just stinks even when empty. You basically bought a fancy bucket that holds bacteria.