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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 19 Nov 2022 12:13
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Had our first issue with the compost toilet up here at the cabin on opening weekend of the Wisconsin deer season. Went to use the toilet and noticed my buddy must’ve went number one before me as the urine part was full of pee. Idiot me lifted the upper half of the toilet ever so slight to see if maybe something was blocking the grate area of the urine section. Well needless to say me doing that broke the seal between the upper half of the toilet and lower half where the urine drains down the pipe and out the hose.
Apparently the urine tube is frozen and this it finally filled up. I just have the urine hose going from the back of the toilet, into the wall, down through the bottom plate of said wall and then outside through the subfloor into the uninsulates floor joist area below. I then have one of those thick flexible white hot tub hoses running about 10ft to a 5 gallon jug.
My only idea is to get a long enough piece of that heated pipe wrap and wrap as much of that hose once it comes through the subfloor. I would just plug it in when we come up.
Seem like a good or does anyone have other suggestion?
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 19 Nov 2022 12:13
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I have the Separette compost toilet with wall wart plug in.
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gcrank1
Member
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# Posted: 19 Nov 2022 13:40
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Its plugged now, and whatever is upward of the plug and not frozen will get to stinkin.....
Id use a heat tape beneath where the access to it is good and see if the plug can get thawed?
Once it gets cleared my bet is you will want to avoid this again.
I use a hospital pee-bottle I brought home and avoid the plumbing problems.
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WILL1E
Moderator
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# Posted: 22 Nov 2022 08:11
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Once I wrap the pipe with the heated wire, do I wrap or put anything over that as an insulator??
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Brettny
Member
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# Posted: 22 Nov 2022 09:23
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I have a urine diverter on a 5gal bucket setup. It uses a 1.5in P trap. The trap was frozen solid because 2 weeks ago when we left I was in shorts and a Tee shirt. I thawed it with a buddy heater and poured washer fluid down it to winterize it.
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Aklogcabin
Member
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# Posted: 26 Nov 2022 10:57
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Because I see this issue come up frequently and this may help you or others down the road.
That's too bad. Literally. You have such a nice looking cabin. Handling other people's waste would not work for me. I hope you can get it to work correctly.
I also had the same concerns as to what you encountered and decided to install an Incinolet incinerator toilet. I've read all the antidotal comments from folks who don't have them or write about odors. In our experience both my wife n myself were also suspect. But in reality we litterally went out to try to smell odors and there was none. They burn very hot. Nothing but white ash in the pan that gets emptied. Installing was very easy using a 4" abs plastic pipe out the wall. Ours is electric and we use a 2500w , 30 Amp generator. Charge all the batteries at the same time. It does take a while near 45 minutes. But it's clean. And handling others waste can be dangerous if you spill on yourself.
Hey good luck, I'm sure you will figure something out. You built a nice cabin
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spencerin
Member
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# Posted: 26 Nov 2022 21:47 - Edited by: spencerin
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As far as I know, the heat tape would be fine. I have it keeping the main water line coming out of the ground into my cabin from freezing.
You can keep it plugged in because it has a thermostat and self-regulates. Once it drops below a certain temperature, it turns on; once it gets above a certain temperature, it turns off. No need to unplug it.
It'll work better if it's wrapped in insulation, yes, but it may not be necessary. I have mine wrapped in rubber pipe insulation. You can also use fiberglass wrap insulation. The manufacturer will tell you what you can use. The main thing is to avoid anything flammable. When it works correctly, it's not hot enough to burn your skin, so temperature isn't an issue, it's that if there's a short, you don't want anything to catch fire. That's also why it should be plugged into a GFI outlet or circuit.
Also, some suggest that you wrap whatever you're heating it with with aluminum foil before wrapping the tape around it so the heat spreads more evenly around the pipe. Part of me thinks that's a bad idea because more surface area means more dissipation, too.
That's probably more than you wanted to know about heat tape.....
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