
Case Study: Luxury Portable Toilet Trailer Leaking Wastewater Holding Tank Repair
Holding tanks with the capacity to store 3000 litres of wastewater underneath two luxury portable toilet trailers undergo strengthening. Corrosion had caused numerous holes to appear which were sealed before the holding tank exteriors were reinforced in a repair which avoided decommissioning units otherwise in perfect working order.
Case Study Overview
Site Luxury portable toilet trailer
Location United Kingdom
Repair Type Tank repair and refurbishment
Defect Heavy corrosion to two wastewater storage tanks
Repair Products
Sylmasta AB Original Epoxy Putty,
Liquid Metal Epoxy Coating
Case Study PDF

Case Study Details
Luxury portable toilet trailers are mobile restroom facilities used for large outdoor occasions, such as music festivals and sporting events. They include flushing toilets, urinals, sinks with running water, mirrors and lighting, offering a much more comfortable experience than standard portable toilets.
Toilet trailers require no connection to permanent plumbing. Instead, the wastewater they produce is stored in holding tanks between the floor of the restroom and the undercarriage of the trailer. When the event has finished, the tanks are drained and the wastewater taken to a treatment site before the trailer is moved onto its next destination.
Constructing a portable toilet trailer is expensive, and so when one of the United Kingdom’s leading suppliers discovered holes starting to appear in the wastewater holding tanks of two of their units, they contacted Sylmasta for advice on whether a repair was feasible.




The plumbing, fixtures and fittings in each of the trailers were otherwise in perfect working order. The company therefore wanted to avoid decommissioning the two trailers if the holes in the wastewater tanks could be plugged and the weakened metalwork strengthened against future damage.
Sylmasta recommended a two-stage repair, starting with Sylmasta AB Original Epoxy Putty and finished with Liquid Metal Epoxy Coating. The first trailer was jacked up, enabling access underneath the wastewater holding tank. The metalwork was then ground down to remove rust, dirt and grime.
AB Original Black was supplied in stick format for the plugging of the holes. An AB Original Stick combines the resin and hardener pre-measured rather than in a tub of Part A and a tub of Part B, eliminating the need for weighing out and mixing separate components. This makes a repair quicker and easier.




The required amount of putty to fill a hole was cut from the stick and kneaded by hand. Once the putty had turned a uniform black colour but was still soft, it was pushed into the hole. After two hours, AB Original cured to form a rock-hard sealing material. Every hole in the wastewater tank was permanently filled in this way during the repair.
Once all the holes had been attended to, the entire bottom of the trailer – an area 1.3 metres by 2.5 metres – was painted with Liquid Metal Epoxy Coating. Also painted were the metallic box and pipe fitted to the bottom of the holding tank, through which wastewater was removed. Two coatings of Liquid Metal were brush applied, curing to form a smooth, metallic, hard-wearing surface.
This new surface repaired and strengthened the weakened metalwork to increase structural integrity. It acted as a protective shield against further external corrosion and encased the wastewater tank in a new outer shell, capable of containing the wastewater if the original metalwork became fully breached in future.




After the repair of the first toilet trailer was completed, the second was jacked up and fixed by following the exact same process. Each trailer could go back into service 24 hours after the second coating of Liquid Metal had been applied.
In total, 10kg of AB Original and 10kg of Liquid Metal were used to repair the two portable toilet trailers at a cost of under £800, representing a huge saving on replacing the units. The company are now planning to use the repair method on other units when the wastewater tank becomes weakened by corrosion, potentially extending the lifespan of their entire fleet by up to 10 years.
Products Used
AB Original Epoxy Putty Stick
Epoxy putty which cures inside holes in tanks to form a rock-hard, sealing material

Liquid Metal
Brush applied epoxy coating strengthens metalwork by creating a new outer surface
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