One of the easiest projects we’ve done in the trailer is to replace our Dometic 300 toilet with the upgraded 310 version. 

The 300 is made of plastic while the 310 has a ceramic bowl, which my wife insists provides a more secure seating surface.  The 300 just dumps water in the bowl to wash out the waste while the 310 uses a “vortex flush pattern” to swirl the incoming water around to better clean the bowl. 

Best of all, the 300 has a cheap feeling plastic lid while the 310 boasts a nice solid wooden seat/lid of the slow-close variety.  Just give it a flick and it slowly and quietly closes on its own.  My wife loves that so much that she’s begged me not to put the toilet seat down so she can do it herself. 

Just kidding.

A number of lucky trailer owners had defective 300-series toilets that caused their bathrooms to smell worse than a Texas feedlot.  Under the Dometic warranty, they were able to upgrade to the 310 toilets for a mere $75.  We had to pay for ours, which we got on sale at Camping World for only twice that amount.

Installation was a one-beer breeze.  I just unbolted the old toilet and bolted on the new, adjusting the angle slightly to fit the space.  It’s now traveled thousands of miles with nary a problem.

Of course, with the good comes the bad.  My wife liked the slow-close seats/lids so much, I got to play Mr. Plumber for a day, replacing every toilet seat at home with the slow-close versions.  That project, of course, warranted a few more beers.  

One of the big reasons we wanted to upgrade from our little A-frame folding trailer to a Micro Lite was so we would have an actual bathroom with a toilet and separate shower. Here are some of the improvements we’ve made to that shower.

One of our first upgrades was to ditch the origial shower sprayer.

We replaced the stock spray head with an Oxygenics sprayer. We went cheap and installed the white standard model #26781, which cost about $40 from Amazon. It provides a much more pleasant spray and supposedly uses less water. Installation involves little more than unscrewing the old hose and screwing on the new.

If I had it to do over, I might opt for one of the more upscale Oxygenics sprayers, but this works fine.

The cheap plastic clip provided with the Oxygenics sprayer would not hold the shower head in the desired position, so we replaced it with a rotatable aluminum bracket, which cost about $10 from Amazon. With it, the shower head stays nicely in position.

The Oxygenics shower sprayer has an on/off push button for use when taking sailor showers. It’s designed to allow a minor flow when closed, supposedly so the water temperature stays constant. That’s not an issue when camping with full hookups, but when boonie camping, that constant dripping is wasted water doing nothing more than filling the gray water tank.

To cut down on water waste, we installed a KES chrome shutoff valve (about $11 from Amazon) on the shower line. Flip the lever to the left and no water flows through the pipe. Flip it all the way to the right and the flow is full. Anything in between moderates the flow to any desired pressure. We love this thing, and have never had an issue with water temperature not being constant.

After the first few camping trips in the new trailer, we found we were collecting hair in the shower drain.

To solve the problem, we picked up a package of cheap drain strainers, probably from the Dollar Store. We leave the plug in the drain while traveling. When we get to camp, the plug comes out and the strainer goes in. No more hair in the drain issues.

To provide a place to hang wet sox and dainties, the female half of the family wanted a retractable clothesline across the shower (about $15 from Amazon). It turns out this was pretty much a waste. Instead of pulling out the line, she has found it is more convenient to simply hang the wet items over the shower door.

Finally, we added some command hooks to the shower stall walls for hanging wash cloths, a back brush and a shower squeegee.