We brought the Westy Florida in October 2019 and used it for a good number of weeks between then and March 2021. So we had certainly gotten used to the luxury of a larger van and all that comes with such a well thought out interior by this time. Our camping for 2021 had been thrown into turmoil as the COVID pandemic altered the way we lived, and we found ourselves in a situation where our holiday money was just sitting in a bank account with no real means to embark on another Euro trip due to the resrictions on travel. So we decided to spend some of the money on upgrades that we felt would take this already capable campervan to the next level.
One of our big bug bears with the LT was that we were still having to make do with a cassette toilet which meant we had the awkward task of taking the lower part of the cassette, and all its contaminated materiel through the living area. Not ideal!
So during one of our camping trips earlier in the year we started to think about our options. The community for the Westfalia Florida is really great on social media, and it didn’t take us long to realise that the fixed toilet with the waste removed from the rear of the van was a realistic, and do able option, as it had been done before by a few people.
We chose the latest incarnation of the Thetford toilet which had the larger capacity waste tank.
A high quality Cassette Toilet for use in caravan, campervan or motorhome with their own onboard water tank, the Thetford C223CS Cassette Toilet features a waste tank capacity of 18 litres and comes with the convenience of electric flush.
Thetford UK
This came with the additional complications of having to create a spacer to move the toiler further into the wet room as the cassette protuded too far outside the shower cubicle that the rear door would hit it, and could not be closed as a result. As said previously, I had plenty of help with pictures and spacing dimentions which took most of the head scratching away from me. All I had to do was “follow the instructions provided”.
Although I was told that the toilet should have come with an installation template, there was nothing in the box. So I had to create one myself. The first thing I needed to do was measure the dimentions of the cassette holding shelf. This was so I could cut the first hole so that i could slide the toilet up against the inside of the shower room cubicle. After establishing these dimentions I created an oblong template out of cardboarb. I offerd this up on the inside of the shower where the wall met the base and marked with a sharpie. I drilled a small hole at each corner then moved to the outside of the shower via the rear door to join the four holes with a ruler and a sharpie. Next was to cut out the hole. The joining cuts were performed with a combination of angle grider with a very fine cutting disk, and a dremmel.
Next was to start working with the template I had made out of carboard for the rest of the install.
The position of the holes I decided to use lined up with the position of the holes that I assume were meant for the rear flush unit which was an optional extra not included with my toilet. If you read the installation instructions for the toilet they suggest screwing self tappers into three locations in the mouldings which didn’t really seem to make sense when there were six perfectly good designated self tapping mouldings on the toilet already. Two at each side, and two at the top. To accuratly identify the location of these on the rear of the toilet, i put some paint on each hole and carefully offered up my cardboard template to transpose accuratly.
Once established, this in turn was offered up to my wooden spacer, clamped so as not to move and the holes were drilled through the cardboard and wood. Once done I offered the wood up to make sure each self tapper hit the screw moulding. Perfect.
Now I’m ashamed to say that there was one stage of frame spacer i didn’t document. This was the captive nuts and corresponding bolts i decided to use to secure the frame to the shower wall from the outside. Basically I had drilled two additional holes in the hardwood on eash side, and one in the centre on the top of the frame. Once drilled to the M6 thread size I drilled a slightly smaller hole than the diameter of the nut, but just deep enough to recess it on the outer facing of the frame. I then positioned the nut above the recess and pulled it into the frame with the M6 bolt.
The next thing to do was to extend the apature in the shower cubicle upwards for the cassette. I positioned the toilet and dropped the hardwood spacer in between the inner wall of the shower cubicle and pencil marked around the outside of the spacer once i knew it was seated correctly.
I slid out the toilet, made sure the spacer hadn’t moved and then marked the inside of the spacer with a Sharpie marker. After this it was just a case of attacking the line with the angle grinder and fine cutting disk as per the first hole.
Due to the thin nature of the fiberglass shower wall I needed to create a means of sandwhiching the inner parts of the fixings with the outer to spread any load evenly. I used a piece of 8mm plywood for this.
The apeture was cut to match the hole in the shower wall, and as you can see i deliberatly left a border along the bottom for a little ridgid strength. I then positioned the hardwood frame on the inside and the plywood on the outside and clamped in place making doubly sure they were exactly where they needed to be. Knowing the holes had already been drilled in the hardwood frame, all I needed to do was run the drill through each one to create holes in the shower and continue through to exit the plywood at the rear. This was also the case for the bolts to screw into the captive nuts to hold the frame to the plywood. So in total 11 drill holes were ran through
Obviously the hardwood spacer was going to be subject to very damp condiotions that would inevitably have a detremental impact on the material in time. So to offer protection i decided to seal the whole thing in fiberglass and epoxy resin. This should entombe the wood and stop it getting wet.
Once dry it was sanded to a suitable finish. I chose to cover it in a slate grey effect,glue backed tiles I found at a local outlet in the UK called Dunelm (Although I am sure they are not unique to this outlet).
So now things are really moving forward because this is where stuff starts getting bolted together. Below you can see that the frame has been pulled into the toilet apeture from the back which was done with a liberal application of silicoln sealer. Any excess was wiped away and white bathroom sealant was added to finish off.
Below you can see some of the stainless allen bolts securing the hardwood frame from the outside using the captive nuts, but also the build up of various rubber sheets making up a sandwhich layer to level the toilet as the wet room has a slope towards the plug hole. Each one of these layers were bonded to either the floor, or each corresponding layer to make one imovable platform.
With the very congealed mess from the glue it was now time to fix the toilet in place. The back of the toilet has a thin rubber sealing strip that commes proud of the plastic casting. I am sure this would have sealed sufficiently, but i felt the belt and braces approach was not going to do any harm, so a thin smear of clear silicoln sealer was applied before carefully offering into place. The rest was done from the outside by the way of the correct length stainless self tappers being screwed into plasic casting of the toilet to pull the three layers together snugly.
Its difficult to see in the picture above but I made sure to mask off the area around the toilet with broad so as not to get any of the nasty glues / sealants on the shower cubicle floor. I know that these can be pretty aggressive and really difficult to get rid off should a stray blob get in the wrong place.
Next was to make a fixing for the electric flush unit. This consists of a small single press flush button, but again it needed to be fixed securly to the thin wall of the shower. I decided to use the same plywood used for the mounting the toilet, but utilised the cut out fiberglass sections of the shower cubicle so that its front facing matched perfetly with the rest of the shower.
Fortunatley the button came in two parts. There was the front facia with electronic gubbings, but also an extuded plastic member that was clearly designed to protrude into the various camoervan and motorhome interiours. This was the part i used to creare a template for the plywood, making sure there was enough around the apeture for the extended bezel of the button facia. This was done as a pair knowing that I would need one at the back of the shower to mate up with the one actually in the cubicle itself. As you can see from the image below, the internal face of the shower cubile has been countersunk for the screw heads.
After sealing the plywood the front facia was drilled using one of the plywood blocks, there were in turn offered up to an appropriate location next to the shower controls and the holes were drilled through the shower wall. After application of silicoln sealer on both sides they were bolted in place. The same was done for the front facia, and the button. All sorted! 🙂
