Install of Our New Composting Head

I know many of you have been very curious about our swap from a manual to a composting head, and I wanted to share with you the install process in detail. The ventilation system turned out to be the trickiest part (mainly because we wanted to utilize old, obsolete systems to hide as much of it as we could for aesthetic results). But, other than removing the … smelly items, this was really a rather simple install, one I was able to handle primarily on my own while Phillip was tackling the rudder post reinforcement and other projects, and one we are very pleased with.

Phillip and I have been weekend cruising for about six months now using the composting head and have found it to be a wonderful new addition to our life goal of keeping things simple. There is no more pumping after each flush, no more pumping-out at the dock, no more head smell in our boat, no more sloshing (could bust a seam any day) turd tank, and we’ve opened up plenty of new, now much more freshly-smelling lockers for storage. Oh, and we closed a thru-hull (the one for the macerator). So, we are down to only four thru-hulls now on our boat and thrilled about it. I told you our motto: K.I.S.S. If any of you are considering changing your manual head on the boat to a composting head, Phillip and I highly recommend it. I can tell you this: We haven’t heard of a single sailor going from composting BACK TO a manual head. That should tell you something.

As mentioned in the video, here is the link to the detailed blog post I put together laying out all of our research and reasons for swapping to a composting head: https://havewindwilltravel.com/2018/09/15/shipyard-project-no-6-swap-to-a-composting-airhead/. This includes the pros and cons we found and the rationale behind our decision to go with an Airhead (https://airheadtoilet.com/), versus the Nature’s Head or C-head. So, feel free to peruse that helpful source before you watch the install if you would like to know more about our decision.

Then dive into this fun shipyard project video! It is our last from our time at the yard with Brandon and his hard-working crew at www.perdidosailor.com back in 2018. While Phillip and I have not yet cruised for months at a time, living on the boat and using the Airhead, we have been using it for extended weekend cruising for more than six months now, and we are very pleased with the Airhead. We were also super pumped about the many other perks of removing the old manual head: all the new (clean, fresh, non-stinky) storage it opened up, closing one of our thru-hulls (to get us now down to only four thru-hulls, just four – whoo hoo!) and no more trips to the dock just to pump out, in fact no more pumping out again … ever! What a fantastic lifestyle upgrade.

If you have any questions about our composting head, feel free to shoot them our way via HaveWindWillTravel. Enjoy the show!

As promised: a link to the Squatty Potty unicorn commercial (hilarious): https://youtu.be/YbYWhdLO43Q

And, a link to buy the Coco Bliss coco pith bricks for the composting head (which is roughly $4/brick and each brick lasts 3-4 weeks, we’re told, for live aboard cruisers): https://www.amazon.com/Plantonix-Coco-Listed-Organic-Bricks/dp/B06ZZXZQWW/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=coco%2Bbliss%2B1.4%2Blbs&qid=1553795794&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmr0&th=1.