Seat up? Or seat down? Vault toilet etiquette a point of debate

What makes a vault toilet great?

A few things make a vault toilet great. First, it must be unlocked. Second, it should include an ample supply of clean toilet paper.

After we asked for locations of some of the best outhouses on New Mexico public lands, a GO New Mexico reader commented: “I wish you had included information that would help users keep the toilet clean and insect and animal free.”

Romtec, an American manufacturer of vault toilets, has answers to these compelling questions.

Our reader asked:

• Does putting the toilet seat down help with keeping the ventilation outside?
• Is it better to keep the door shut or open?

“Despite popular belief, the best protocol is to keep the lid open,” Hannah Duncan, Romtec marketing and communications director, said.

“This allows the air to flow in through the toilet riser, the vault and then out of the vent pipe,” she said in an email reply.

Romtec, Inc. is the designer of the Sweet Smelling Technology applied to its toilets.

“It’s a simple question of air flow. What will bring the most air both in and out of the building?” Duncan said. “Leaving the lid open.”

And she recommends to whoever manages the vaults to do regular maintenance, which includes pumping the vault, rinsing and spraying down the interior and back charging the vault with approximately a foot of water.

According to a U.S. Forest Service manual, vault maintence should “ensure that the 12-inch poly vent has a vent shroud installed at the top. This keeps larger animals from entering the vault through the vent. It is also best to place the building in a spot where it will get direct sunlight. The sun heats up the vent pipe, pulling the air up, and assisting with odor control.”

A theft of the seat and more in August made at least one vault unusable and the Bureau of Land Management is seeking answers. Surprise: This time it is not New Mexico where one of the poopiest things happened, but instead Utah.

The BLM Utah office offers its do-doo’s and don’t dos of pit and vault toilets, including conflicting advice about the seat lid position.

“We thought this would go without saying but, um, don’t steal the toilet,” BLM wrote in a Facebook post in August. “For real though, while this may be a much more economical approach to the ‘squatty potty,’ we really can’t believe that someone stole the toilet for the sake of visitors’ bowel movements.

“While we’re on the subject of vault and pit toilets, remember they are designed to take feces and urine. Please never put anything else inside: cellphones, tampons, diapers … really, nothing else, please!”

And this BLM official has advice that conflicts with the manufacturer: “Close the lid when you are done. This helps with smell and flies, which are inevitable in this scenario.”

“And, in case it bears repeating, don’t steal … way not cool, man,” the BLM wrote on Facebook.

So who should get the final word on the highly-debated lid-up, lid-down question? GO New Mexico will continue the search for answers in the great outdoors.

Tell GO New Mexico what you find most important to making your camp experience great at go@abqjournal.com. Go for it.