Cassette Toilets: A Love/Hate Relationship

Depending on who you are, cassette toilets are either the greatest invention to ever hit RVs, or your nemesis. Like many other RV toilets and sewer systems (see our coverage on composting toilets here), it comes down to your opinion, comfort, and RVing style. 

What Are They?

These are a permanent toilet with a portable black tank; they save space while still giving you necessary amenities and are often in smaller RVs like camper vans and pop-ups or A-frames with wet baths. 

You manually dump that tank by removing it from the toilet/RV, opposed to the standard permanent black tank where you have a valve and tubing. A benefit to this is that you don’t need a traditional dump site, and can empty it in a restroom (it just might require a few extra flushes haha!) 

But it’s also not a portable toilet. That is one where the whole kit and caboodle are taken from the RV or vehicle, and used outside (and can be moved from rig to rig). Some cassette toilets can be moved, but most are permanently installed in your camper. 

How Does It Work?

A cassette toilet has 3 elements:

  1. The toilet
  2. A handle between toilet and tank
  3. The holding tank

1 and 2 and pretty self explanatory; the handle works a valve much like a flush toilet from bowl to tank. It’s the tank that switches things up. Typically, there’s a door on the outside of your RV that allows you access to the tank. There are different set-ups, sometimes you can install a water flush, or a tank indicator so you know when it’s full, and so on.

Now let’s check out some Pro and Cons:

Pros:

  • No more sewage hose
  • Lots of dumping options (particularly, the accessibility offered by the average restroom)
  • No tank sensors to deal with (unless you want to install a meter yourself)

Cons:

  • More chance of bad smells in your bathroom (and beyond)
  • Smaller tank = more frequent dumping
  • Getting a little more personal with your waste
  • Cleaning it is a process
Bad Smells

The main issue with cassette toilets some people have that overrides everything else is the smell. Now, this can be an issue with many RV toilets, just the name of the game when it comes to hauling your sewage with you, but there are a few ways to combat this:

  1. Don’t go #2 in the toilet. I know, I know. But it’s the mix of urine and feces that creates that sewage smell. Urine smell can still be unpleasant, but not as bad. 

  2. Use tank chemical tablets that are created to eliminate odors



    3. Smells can leak through due to bad seals. Check those regularly!

    A broken or bad seal can lead to contents draining onto the RV floor as well as smell. The main seals are where the valve flap is between the cassette and toilet bowl, or an improper fit/install of the tank that can cause these issues.

    Small Tank

    Due to their portability, cassette toilet tanks are small (really, think the size of a carry-on suitcase, about 5-gallons). It’s not ultra convenient if you’re boondocking, or have more than 2 people using it. Lots of people get a second tank to swap out, but you’re still stuck with that full tank until you have a place to dump it. 

     

    A Different Dumping Experience

Black tank emptying can be unpleasant if you do it the wrong way, and it’s gross in general for the average joe. But emptying a cassette tank is a whole different game. You’re much closer, your hands are in control of the tank and the, err, rate of flow, sewage can splash, and the smell is…less than pleasant. Overall, if you don’t have a steady handy it can turn out incredibly unsanitary. 

Cleaning

That brings us to this point: cleaning. With a standard black tank, you usually have a flush that rinses the whole system out, here…the flush is you. It’s recommended that you at least rinse the tank after you empty it each time (add water, close, shake, and empty again), but that alone can be annoying if not gross. And when you do, you’ll most likely be using potable water (as you’ll probably be dumping in a bathroom of some kind). So there’s a risk of waste touching that water source. A responsible RVer will ensure they sanitize these water connections themselves (or don’t go direct from tap to tank). 

And that’s just the day-to-day, you still have to deep clean it once in a while. Generally, cleaning a cassette toilet tank can be time consuming and a little gross.

But! Remember, you’re still balancing all of this with the portability and function of this toilet. So weigh your comforts and discomforts before deciding on your hard stance. Because cassette toilets can be incredibly handy for boondocking, or just letting you have a toilet of some kind in a smaller, lightweight RV.

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