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Composting toilets. Your opinions please...
#1
Posted 19 December 2015 - 20:24
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and experiences please.
#2
Posted 20 December 2015 - 18:19
at 1st we where a bit worried about smells etc etc ..and used a port potty…we both hated digging the holes and emptying the thing
totally blown away with this compost toilet….its a B&Q orange bucket, sits inside a wooden box with a toilet seat….soooooo easy to empty into a designated compost bin…( not for food plants, but christmas trees and hedging ) and today, i added 250grm of composting worms..
the sawdust can be collected for next to nothing….or you can buy a bag cheap enough…..
on the plus side too…not wasting water…will end up with great compost, and it takes up no more room than a conventional toilet
we do add some nice pine fresh toilet cleaner in the bucket….this is one that is designed for septic tanks.. and safe to compost...
both pee and poo go in…honest..no smells at all, apart from the nice pine scented wood chips
#3
Posted 20 December 2015 - 18:59
They are electric or not (winch) and they hold a weeks worth or a months worth depending if you are full of sh!t or not.
They 'flush' by tipping the poo and pee into the hopper. You just turn the hopper every day or so. Idealy the pee should remain seperate and they do this by having a weep hole into another internal pot.
They use a simple tiny computer fan to keep smells up the long pipe, and you empty it into your place of choice when you like.
About 1k in price though. They can be got cheaper though. Visit the lammas site as they have one for sale, unused.
#4
Posted 21 December 2015 - 09:41
http://www.axeheadfa.../?s=compost loo
http://www.diyhouseb...et-toilets.html
1st link is ours, second link is 'all you need to know'.
You may think you won't play 'How High can you go'... but you will :-)
We throw some straw in the bottom, then use ours like normal but sprinkle sawdust over number 2's.
We buy sawdust by the bale and we are creating a run of wheelie bins for the waste. We think 6 bins will be enough for an annual rotation.
There is no smell apart from the immediate smells you would get anyway. Didn't know you could get compost friendly pine fresh!
Micro cheesemakers get their milk delivered in large lidded buckets - 5 gallon I think. We got 5, the advantage of them over buckets is you can take the full bucket out and replace with a new one, stick a lid on and leave it, to deal with at your own convenience (sorry :-) ) also, they are white, which feel hygenic.
If you build your framework around the bucket, you want to be sat at 17 inches high :-)
Also, if you build your frame, men and boys will be sat peeing. Put a pee guard on the font of the seat that drops into the bucket - you don't want an risk of pee leaking over the top into the frame - boy issue :-) We fashioned one by cutting a section out of a bucket and screwing it under the rim of the seat.
Go for it, I say :-)
#5
Posted 21 December 2015 - 20:57
#6
Posted 21 December 2015 - 21:02
#7
Posted 22 December 2015 - 19:52
Di is fantastic and a great person too..as is adrian …it was her blog that changed our minds, and it really works
#8
Posted 23 December 2015 - 10:08
I've just bought the parts to build one, a couple of buckets and a urine separator from here:
I've just got to find the time to put a box together for it. Charley wants to spend loads of money on a fancy plastic version of the same thing (£600!!!), for when we have guests (i literally cannot remember the last time we had a guest)
#9
Posted 23 December 2015 - 13:29
#10
Posted 23 December 2015 - 16:08
i gather if you don't separate then the container fills up a lot quicker and you need much more 'soak' material (sawdust, etc), also much more likely to get smells. When 2's are kept dry and allowed to dry further, there is no smell
You can divert urine off outside using standard pipework, either direct to a soakaway (ground permitting) or to a sealed container that you can move and empty
Ultimately it all could go to same compost but for convenience and pleasantness of use it might be best to separate
#11
Posted 23 December 2015 - 17:22
the urine doesn't seem to be an issue with us…unless we have lost our sense of smell we do empty once a day, and throw a few mulching leaves into the compost…no big deal really...
the worms seem to have settled in nicely
#12
Posted 28 December 2015 - 19:44
#13
Posted 28 December 2015 - 20:02
#14
Posted 28 December 2015 - 20:13
#15
Posted 28 December 2015 - 20:40
#16
Posted 29 December 2015 - 22:09
I found the units I was thinking of here http://www.toiletrev...posting-toilet/
Yup, they are more expensive but the units that have a large collector at the bottom was what appealed to us.
Not having to collect the waste too often too.
One thing that we are learning here at our farm is that it is nicer to have a taller bucket!!
You can get a five gallon bucket toilet lid that sits on a standard five gallon bucket that you use in the same way as the shorter buckets.
Our chem. toilet broke down on our last visits (I am happy of this as it makes us have to go in the composting direction early) so we ended up using the compost bog. MUCH better. It felt good inside knowing that our poo and pee is going to do good for us down the line. But it is outside the caravan and its warmer inside!!
I will rip out the chem. toilet inside the caravan and seal the base of the toilet room with a glass-fiber 'tray' and start the room off again! It will increase the size of the showering area too.
Good luck on your poo-e adventure shepherdscove.
#17
Posted 30 December 2015 - 09:28
we just put a shelf inside the box to keep the bucket higher….
#18
Posted 30 December 2015 - 14:18
we just put a shelf inside the box to keep the bucket higher….
Theres that I suppose!
#19
Posted 31 December 2015 - 11:49
Mornin' (just).... If any of you cut your logs as I do, (with a chainsaw quite often), if 'splits' (Y-type junctions) you will amass a large quantity of chippings. These are brilliant for composting, and would be good bog-type material.