Our new porta potties are a hit all over Sonoma & Marin counties.  We've listened to our clients and bought a portable toilet color they wanted, a color that blends in well with the landscape here.  Our new Standard & Deluxe toilets also feature a dirt free floor, no longer will you walk into a bathroom with stains or wet spots on the floor, our floors always stay clean.

Rent A John
707-521-0787
POB 7397
Santa Rosa, CA 95407
http://www.rentajohn.net/
https://plus.google.com/112450791743752893373/about?gl=US&hl=en-US
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rent-A-John/472721526073602

Rating: 3 of 5 (Maybe)

Poly Portables toilets look almost identical to Poly John toilets from the 90's, in fact they're so similar most people cannot tell the difference.  It takes a well trained eye to spot the differences in the corrugation.   I suspect one company simply copied the other, they're so similar parts such as the feet maybe interchangeable.  

Before we switched to Poly John we used Poly Portables, one of the reasons we switched to Poly John was that their restrooms looked very similar to our old Poly Portables so we could get away with using them both at one site.   

What made us change our minds on using the Poly Standard was the extra price and that we got sick of changing springs.  If there's one defining flaw it's the door spring, they're guaranteed to fail.  Unfortunately they haven't really come up with a good solution to fix the problem.  The real issue is regarding the cable at the end of the spring and the metal retainer at the end of the metal cable.  It breaks because naturally the retainer is supposed to rotate to keep the spring/metal cable parallel to it, however it corrodes (aluminum?) and in a few months it doesn't move freely anymore, it simply pops several times when opening the door.  After a couple of months of bending back and forth the metal cable snaps and the door won't stay shut anymore.   TIP: to prevent further problems spray that area of the spring with oil or lube it makes the spring last many times longer.

Other issues are the vent pipe, it's brittle and commonly breaks, though this may be fixed by now.  The vents around the roof seem to some how break apart also.

Another concern maybe the CEO of the company, she has been known to have a bit of an attitude and was quite rude to me a few years ago.  The lack of professionalism and integrity is one of the reasons why I no longer do business with her company.  

If buying used "Poly Standards" make sure you don't buy ones with wooden feet, they're quite horrible.  The feet rot and come loose from the base of the toilet.  They're also horribly heavy and hard to drag around.  They updated first with a solid plastic skid that was a bit brittle (especially when you drill stake holes), to a hollow version with stake holes built in (the best type).  

These restrooms make decent portable toilet trailer candidates, the tanks are made so they can stop some waste from coming out.

In Conclusion, these are pretty average toilets, they're an old design from the early to mid 90's, there's decent sign space and amenities for most of your customers.

We consider the PNJ3 as the industry standard for portable toilets, it's the most generic form available and in our area of Northern California we see these things all the time.  The Poly John PNJ3 is reliable which is very important to a sanitation company however it has a big draw back when you want to mount these to trailers, they will almost always spill the contents of the waste then being driven from site to site.   The reason for this is the opening at the top of the holding tank.  It's very large and doesn't have a "catch" for the waste that rises up from the walls (this is what causes most splash outs).  They do have a solution to this which is simply a lid that has to be manually added and removed each time the toilet is to be used however this is VERY unpopular with customers as the waste from the tank ends up at the bottom of this lid, very unsightly indeed.  If your watching Poly John I have invented a solution to this problem you'd be interested in...

A common accessory is to add a hand wash sink to these port o lets, we found that though the sink is a great design with a large basin, easy access for maintenance, however they also have some defects, the main one is that the no kink drain hose which seems to be very low quality always breaks resulting in a costly purchase of a new quality no kink drain hose (after which the hose never breaks again).  Because this hose is actually above the clean water tank dirty water can drain straight into the sink.  Another issue is the soap dispensers, they're one of the worst I've seen as they leak soap constantly.  It would have been much better to make the dispensers seal so they wouldn't spill.

Company:  They've been very friendly to us for the most part, however we had an invention to improve their portable toilets (seat cover dispenser) that they past on citing that out of the USA these are not very widely used.   We once had another manufacturer (Five Peaks) cancel our order though we had already rented those units out and had to quickly find another supplier, Poly John delivered on time and kept our customers happy.

Color choice recommendations:  Tan, Light Gray, Aqua, we recommend a color thats light and appealing, this also makes the restrooms seem cleaner for longer increasing customer satisfaction.   We chose Aqua however we now feel that Tan would have been better.

Here's a list of pros & cons:
Pro: Cost, these are very affordable especially for what you get
Pro: Attractive, these have nice curves throughout
Pro: Lot's of sign space, most manufacturers forget that we put signs on them
Pro: Very durable, the springs almost never break, nothing ever falls apart etc
Pro: The optional sink is easy to maintain and has a large basin

Con: The door is made from two sheets of plastic, if you accidentally push a sheet in it'll cave in and detract from the cosmetics.
Con: The holding tank can spill waste easily, so don't shake this thing around or mount it on a trailer
Con:  The redesigned toilet paper rod is horrible, when you take out the paper the rod drops to the ground (we now use zip ties on the hook end to ensure it doesn't fall out
Con: The sink has a defect in which the no kink hose fails 

Five Peaks, is one of the most innovative portable restrooms to come out in a long time.  It's very attractive and has a lot going for it, however there are some serious draw backs to consider too and they don't all relate to the design unfortunately.

Some of the features that help this restroom stand out are that it's light weight meaning it's very easy to move around and place.  It's easier to clean because the marbleized holding tank and floor don't show dirt as much, it also has openings down each side to sweep off the floor.  However they have their own issues, the springs on the door always break, they apparently got them made in China and the factory that made them didn't really figure out how to make a spring last.  The door spring is very difficult to replace which is why this is a big issue because it's incorporated into hinge.  The way to remove it is to detach the roof and slide out the hinge rod, there is another option which you drill a large hole in the roof where the rod slides out which makes changing them a bit easier.  

Besides that flaw the company has been very unreliable.  We ordered several dozen restrooms months in advance from this company and had already rented them all out, however two weeks before the delivery date they (kenny the salesman) cancelled my order because one of their existing clients from Texas wanted to bulk up on restrooms encase a hurricane hit (it never did) so instead of doing the right thing, they gave there client in Texas our restrooms, we even complained to the company president (which still is there I believe) who did nothing.  We instead called Poly John and got our restrooms within the two weeks and were able to fulfill those orders.   Five Peaks has since changed hands to Satellite Industries & Kenny the salesman is now gone, so maybe they've improved.

As always I recommend the color choices of: Tan, Aqua, Light Gray in that order, a five peaks Aqua restroom is quite attractive but tan wins out for being easier to maintain.

Here's a list of pros & cons:
Pro: Cost, these are very affordable (may not be now that Satellite owns them)
Pro: VERY attractive
Pro: Light weight
Pro: Easy to clean
Pro: 3 Roll paper dispenser
Pro: Shelf Space
Pro: Large urinal

Con: Not durable, the springs break
Con: Lacking in sign space
Con: Company has a checkered past
Con: their accessories are just ok, the sinks etc aren't as good as Poly John's option