Family of four, no plumbing until March 2027. One porta potty enough?

One unit works for a family of four if you get the service schedule right, and adding a sink is the upgrade that actually matters. We lived through a gut job on our only bathroom with two kids, and the toilet itself was never the problem. What wore us down was having no place to wash hands outside and the tank filling faster than we expected once everyone was home all weekend.

A few things that helped us:

• Tell the company it's the only toilet in the house, nights included, so they set visits for full time household use and not a job site schedule. Check the tank level the first couple of weeks and ask for more visits if it's getting high before the truck shows up.
• A deluxe unit with a sink saves the walk to the kitchen with dirty hands. In a hard winter the sink water can freeze though, so ask how they handle that before you swap.
• Put a battery motion light inside and another on the path. Kids at 2am in the dark is the real test.
• Keep spare rolls and hand sanitizer in a bin by the door so nobody runs out mid visit.

Night trips in January were the worst part for us. Our neighbors in the same spot kept a camp toilet indoors just for the kids overnight and emptied it into the unit each morning. Your standard unit will hold up fine for the long haul.