Luggable Loo Improved

There are three things a van dweller must have to be happy living full time in a van. One; a large bed so you can sleep comfortably. Two; being able to cook inside and Three; a comfortable place to poop.

The Luggable Loo works OK, but if possible I prefer a typical and familiar home toilet seat and size. The issue is altering the 5 gallon bucket because it's too small to fit the larger elongated toilet seat.

There are many ways of attaching a home size toilet seat to a 5 gallon bucket, below is one of the ways and the way I did it. The most difficult part is reshaping the bucket to fit the new lid. I found a simple way to do this and the total time was less than 2 hours to complete the project.

  

For size comparison is my Luggable Loo and the modified bucket with an elongated home size toilet seat.

Elongated seat installed.

Elongated seat with the lid in place and finished. Ready to go so to speak.

The wooden form made from 1x4 stock used to reshape the bucket. The curved end was determined by using the elongated seat as a pattern to trace onto the wood. The overall length is 13 ¼ inches.

The wooden form in place. Originally the form was one inch shorter so I had to shim it to get the proper size. A one-piece form needs to be 13 ¼ inches overall length.

With the form in place, all I had to do was use a heat gun (not a hair drier) on the small curved area from the bucket rim to about halfway down the bucket side. You need to get it hot enough to relax the round bucket molded tension and take the shape but be careful not to melt the plastic. This takes about 5 minutes. Do not overheat the plastic but get it to about 200f degrees. Let the bucket cool to touch and you’re done.

Here’s the bucket after the form was removed.

To align the seat to the buckets outer rim, I used ¼ x 1.5 inch long wood dowels glued in place. It just so happened that the holes in the seat were where the rubber seat bumpers were (simply pry out the bumpers) are in the perfect location. Also note the hinges were removed and not used.

To align the lid in correct position over the seat, use the seat as a template and magic marker the shape onto the bottom of the lid. Drill four dowel holes and glue in the wood dowels.

For an air seal I used window sponge weather seal that has a peel and stick backing. Size is 3/8 x ¾ x 10 feet long.

Seat seal in place.

Lid seal in place.

Finished seat with a 13 gallon kitchen plastic bag with draw string closure.

Summary;

It works great, just like home and about $13.00 or the same cost as a Luggable Loo.

Note;

You must use a wood toilet seat. If you use a plastic one, there is not enough plastic thickness to install the wood dowels.