Airstream Argosy moho build

[scottorious]

So, I'm loving this site. Bob has gone out of his way to educate folks on how to thrive on low incomes. I'm coming at this from a slightly different angle than a lot of the folks I'm seeing on the YouTube channel (which is how I found this forum) but I think the goal I hope to achieve is the same thing. I have a really wonderful job and it's so great that I'm afraid that it's going to trap me in its comfort. I read the page titled 2,000,000 year old man and it really resonated with me as I have been discussing many of those same points with my girlfriend who is a mental health therapist. I'm ready to live my life on my terms and to do that I bought an Airstream Argosy 28 motorhome. Had I found this website and Bob's videos sooner I think I might have gone a different route but this is what I have now so I suppose it's the right vehicle for the conversion. I work a night shift job at a water treatment facility located at a lake which has a bunch of parks right next to it. I hope to skirt some of the laws by parking and napping during the day while the parks are open. I went on a scouting mission the other day to look for viable parking spots and I realized that I never visit the parks like I want to, I get off work and head home to do the things a homeowner must. All of the chores associated with maintaining a house as well as maintaining the junk you need to just maintain a house. My current house is only 800 square feet so it's pretty small by most standards but if you toured my house you'd notice that 3 rooms of the 6 are totally empty and unused. I use the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. I like small spaces (I also have a sailboat which is my ultimate goal) and I want to pursue having less and less stuff. I see in Bob's videos that the folks who head down the road of having less junk ultimately need virtually nothing. It's amazing how much crap I own just to service the other crap I own to service the crap I own. My #1 example of that is my lawn mower. I have a yard that I have to mow therefore I need a mower, owning a mower means I have to service the mower therefore I own the required tools. I don't even like mowing. 

Anyway, where I'm trying to get is this. I plan on reworking the interior of the Argosy. Do any RVers out there renovate away their bathroom and the subsequent black water tanks. It seems for as much as one would try to avoid using their RV toilet it sure takes up a lot of real estate and requires extra amounts of servicing. I sort of envision my build out to include a big comfortable sleeping area, a fully functional kitchen and a place to sit and lounge. I've already got a gym membership to a 24 hour gym and I can shower and do laundry at work. My location also requires that I'll have to endure winters so eliminating potential freezing tanks is a goal also. 

Sorry about that ramble, so many thoughts pent up in my head with nobody to bounce ideas off of. As many of us know, most people look at you funny when you mention anything like this. Thanks ahead for any posts!

 

[Thirsty Boots Nomad]

Welcome to the forum!! Not sure if there is anyone that renovated AWAY their bathroom; ... but there are several that converted their traditional commode to either cassette or compost toilets so the "black" tank could either be completely removed or used as a second "grey" tank for even more extended boondocking potential. Most in the group are willing to help with suggestions/answers to any and all questions or concerns you will have along the way so ask away and enjoy the journey.

 

[scottorious]

As someone new to RVs, the term cassette toilet warranted a quick google search. I think that's something that's possible. 

I'm considering total removal of the bathroom because I envision myself trying to use it as little as possible so the expense and complexity of building it and servicing it seem wasted on something I'll attempt to only use as a last resort.  The cassette toilet really has me thinking though!

 

[Almost There]

Total removal will render the trailer virtually unsaleable in the future so that's probably not the way you want to go., particularly as this is your first venture in to this arena and are already questioning whether it was the right choice. I'd say 99% of prospective purchasers want the toilet intact.

What a lot have done is removed the existing toilet and replaced it with either a marine grade separating toilet like the C-Head or Nature's Head and then connected the two tanks so that your gray water capacity is greatly increased. Leave the shower in place!

This and solar with a beefed up battery bank will get you boondocking for weeks with little to no cost other than your initial investment.

The reason I recommend a separating toilet over a cassette is that the cassette still has to be emptied and usually only gets you 4 or 5 days worth of use for 1 person before needing to be emptied. It also uses chemicals to control odor so it has to be emptied either at a sani-dump or in to a sewer connected toilet/porta pottie. I get at least a month of use out of the solids container in my C-Head and the liquid container can be dumped in a wide variety of places depending on where you are on the continent. You can also use spare containers if you have no place to dispose of the liquids. The separating toilets require absolutely no chemicals so they're environmentally friendly as well as very inexpensive to operate. I use pine bedding from the pet department for less than a dollar a week operating costs.

 

[scottorious]

Being able to sell it in the future is certainly a concern. I experimented with a bucket and peat moss for a summer after reading the humanure handbook so I'm not overly opposed to that. I guess I should be more clear, the model of moho I got is a rear bathroom model with split twin beds. I'm probably removing the entire bathroom because it's kind of impossible to use in it's current configuration. I like the idea of separating toilets, I should look into that more. I would be able to take the right model onto my sailboat when I transition to sailing fulltime after I pack away enough funds by living the RVlife for a couple years.