I'm kind of disappointed in the Biolet model I chose...

You see - being all excited about this I did a lot of research - reading other people's experiences with composting toilets and all the different brands and models out there.

I found a lot of folks really praising the biolet toilets.

For instance in this article "The hot poop on alternative toilets" they started with an Incinolet, incinerating toilet, but found it too power consuming, smelly and just a little bit scary.

Then they went with the Sun-mar Centrex composting toilet but found that no matter how closely they followed the instructions they seemed to be constantly removing not compost, but a soggy mixture of peat moss and poop. (later he says he feels it may have been more his not doing it right than the unit itself).

In the end he states "imagine our delight when we recently discovered the swedish Mulltoa (Biolet in the US) composting toilet. Lifting the lid fires up the fans; sitting on the toilet seat opens the trap doors; putting the lid back down activates the churning motors. It does everything automatically and anticipates your every move and movement."

I was sold!

So when I chose the biolet toilet, I had this beatiful vision in my head - but I did not read closely enough. Knowing that I want to run this thing off solar power - I went with the least power consuming model, the BioLet 30 NE, non-electric. I understood that it did not have a heater to help evaporate the excess fluids and that you would have to add a fan if you wanted one - but I just assumed there would be at least a manual mixing mechanism.

I assumed wrong.

When I got it and opened it up, excited as a kid at christmas, I found that it was very simply, a glorified poop bucket.

Don't get me wrong - I KNOW this thing would work - and work great - but not for my situation. This is going to be in my home. My very tiny home. Where everything is close together... and the thought of having to stir the contents, by hand, with a stick or something - made me kinda gag.

So I talked to the folks at Biolet - and they were VERY understanding. Even in the midst of still recovering from their own exposur to Hurricane Ike, they offered to let me ship this model back and upgrade to the next one up. The Biolet 10 standard DOES have a manual mixer and a heater to deal with evaporating the fluids. This will of course up my solar needs - but so far those needs are so small, I think it's a small price to pay.

So of to FedEx I go, with my toilet under my arm. I bet they'll laugh when I plop it on the counter.