Portable Toilets for an Island Job Site or Event: How Many You Need and How Often They Get Serviced
Unit counts, service schedules and placement for construction sites, weddings and festivals between Duncan and Victoria.
Whether it is a framing crew in Cobble Hill or a wedding on an acreage in Glenora, the questions are the same: how many units, where do they go, and who empties them. Getting it wrong is memorable for all the wrong reasons.
CONSTRUCTION SITES
A common planning ratio is one unit for every ten workers on a standard forty hour week, serviced weekly. A site running longer hours or a bigger crew needs a second unit or a twice weekly service rather than hoping one will cope. WorkSafeBC requires employers to provide washroom facilities for workers, so this is a compliance item as well as a courtesy. Add a handwash station if the crew is eating on site.
EVENTS
For an event of about four hours, plan on one unit per fifty guests as a floor, and more if alcohol is served, since usage roughly doubles. A 150 guest wedding is comfortable with four units rather than three. Include at least one accessible unit. For anything over a single day, book a mid-event service.
PLACEMENT
The truck has to reach the units. That means firm, level ground within hose distance of where a vacuum truck can park, and no low branches or soft lawn in the way. Keep units downwind of food and seating, lit if the event runs after dark, and out of the low spot where rainwater collects.
WHAT TO ASK THE RENTAL COMPANY
What the per-unit price includes: delivery, pickup, the number of services, and supplies. Whether the company does its own pumping or subcontracts it. How quickly they can respond if a unit needs attention mid-event. And for remote sites, whether there is a travel charge.
Shoreline Septic rents units from $235 per unit from its Duncan base, and because it runs its own vacuum trucks, delivery, servicing and pickup are handled by the same crew. It covers events and sites from Duncan to Victoria and also handles septic pumping, RV tanks and grease traps. Dispatch is at 250-228-2959.
Disclosure: the publisher of this directory also works with Shoreline Septic.
Sources & further reading
Compiled from the linked public sources. This report does not imply endorsement by the named businesses.