| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| gardening-girl |
Has anyone made a compost loo?We need to organise some sort of loo for the walled garden.There is a blue plastic tardis over there, could we convert this in anyway?(Not plumbed in ).If not, how do we go about building a compost loo? We hope we may be able to get a council grant to pay for whatever we do, but after our working party this morning,we need this sooner rather than later. 
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| dpack |
yes they work fine
plenty in archives a few years back |
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| dpack |
yes they work fine
plenty in archives a few years back |
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| vegplot |
Yes, they work well if properly constructed and maintained. | ||||
| Bulgarianlily |
You need to start by working out which of two types you want. A true composting loo, in which the humanure is composted in situ, can be difficult to maintain, and a lot of work to build.
I would go for a compost collection system, I use a bucket which comes with a lid and removable handle, built into an elegant wooden box with a toilet lid on top. This is partnered with another bucket of sawdust or other similar material, which is used each time as a covering layer to keep smells in and flies out. The bucket is frequently emptied into a compost heap, which might be separate from your main compost heap and only used for things like fruit trees, where the food never touches the soil The beauty of the bucket system is that it is easy to have a small stack of them, and then when you have a lot of visitors you can just stack the lidded full ones up round the back of the building! Start by measuring the height of a normal loo before construction. You would be amazed how hard it gets sitting on a loo either too high or too low! If you have another spare corner somewhere, and can find a watertight container that can hold an entire strawbale, this makes a good male urinal, and lasts a long time before rotting down into excellent compost, and the removal of half the liquid load makes the buckets lighter. 
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| JohnB |
And female 
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| Bulgarianlily |
Oh my god. I never though of putting one on it's side!!!!! How totally obvious. That is an elegant and beautiful solution. | ||||
| jamanda |
Ginko tree has a couple. Might be worth PMing her - she doesn't always catch threads. | ||||
| sean |
Only on downsizer would you find someone describing a bale of straw soaked in urine as elegant and beautiful. |
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| Tavascarow |
For sure that is bound to be someones signiture before the day is out.
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| Sally Too |
For the original question, you need this book: Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins JJ's web page on humanure: here There is a file about 2/3 the way down the page that you can download that gives a brief overview of the humanure toilet system. Also you can download older editions of the book here for free. |
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| JohnB |
Here's a more sophisticated one:
Number ones on left, number twos on right 
Number ones go down pipe connected to funnel, mix with waste water from wash basins and are fed to leaky pipes in nearby polytunnel 
Number twos go into bucket. I think it was bagged as it wasn't composted at the time. There was an event going on at the time while we were building them, so they were urgently needed! 
Sawdust supply to add to bucket 
There is a similar setup in the female loo, but the funnel is located in a different position. Is this one elegant and beautiful too?
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| woollyval |
We have one! It is next to our volunteer accomodation (posh name for caravan) at the top of the field and has a glorious view!The feature is the seat, as it has a urine separator which goes into a container! A large removable bucket is inderneath for poo! Alongside the seat is a bucket of sawdust to be carefully put down hole into bucket after use....being careful to not get any down the separator! These seats/separators are really hard to get hold of and I had to order mine fron across the pond! Men wanting a wee are requested to please water the stingers if caught short or run for the compost heaps and aim well!
I like compost loos....but they must be managed well/properly or they can get a bit ripe! |
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| hardworkinghippy |
This is one of our compost loos - with (At certain times of the day in summer !) a hot shower.
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| woollyval |
We have a solar shower by ours but since 2006 there has not been any sun strong enough to get it more than tepid .....with the odd day of nearly boiling 
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| jamanda |
What a lovely sunny summery picture. Even if it is of an outside dunny. | ||||
| hardworkinghippy |
Thanks Jamanda!
Amazing what you can do with a bit of greenery eh ? Val, we've a 12cm black plastic pipe that runs along the ground for about 200m for watering the fields and garden down at the cabin. Although it takes a while to warm up, by the afternoon there's gallons of hot water and a 9m head so the pressure's good too. Nice in the summer but a bit chilly in the winter ! 
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| ksia |
An inspiring thread. Thanks to all.
Now my broken rib is getting better I might get round to making one .... |
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| hardworkinghippy |
Broken rib - Oooh that's painful ! 
Wait until it's totally mended to do anything heavy Ksia !! |
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| ksia |
Yes. I've now learnt that lesson. It seemed to be ok a couple of weekends back. So I shifted a few logs ..... |
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| hardworkinghippy |
Typical ! |
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| vegplot |
The Humanure book details the mechanisms for dealing with human pathogens to enable manure to be used in the veg garden. |
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| kirstyfern |
How do you move the straw bales once saturated and don't they leak??? | ||||
| Bulgarianlily |
I agree with the comment about the humanure book but we have usually felt our composting skills might not keep the temperature high enough to kill off pathogens so have played it safe.
I understood that the bales should be in a watertight and movable container, unless you are going to rot them down in situ? All these emoticons and not one of them about composting! |
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| gardening-girl |
Thanks for all the info, our next working party will be for the loo
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| vegplot |
Good point. Perhaps users could post some notes on their particular system works in practice and what they do to get the best of if their systems. |
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| Bulgarianlily |
And how they manage the composting bit (with a collection system) when you can't find the compost heap in the snow. I may have to dig a really deep trench in the greenhouse to empty buckets into. Is this a really bad idea? Greenhouse is not used for root veg.
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| shadiya |
i used one of those 'on the sides bale' loos and ended up with a puddle, so I think you have to be careful the bale isn't already soaked to capacity. I'm not sure quite how you work that out, other than by peeing over your own feet!
We have a bucket and chuck it system too with a stable door and a lovely view. If I can work out how, I may post a picture.... I'd definitely recommend the Humanure book. One of my favourite bits is his take on the pathogens in poo. He reckons we're all a bit poo phobic, what comes out is only the not digested bits of what we ate so how does the process of digestion suddenly make it toxic waste? Assuming that one is healthy and eating non factory food of course. The problems that have been encoutered with disease seem to have come from places where the 'night soil' is being put straight out on fields without composting, and he recommends we all lighten up about it. I have and we're all alive and well but others must do as they feel best. We do compost ours for at least 18months though, and I must admit, so far, it hasn't made it to the veg patch, so my phobia is clearly still lurking in there somewhere! 
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| Bulgarianlily |
Just revisiting this to say that today I opened up a compost heap to see if it was fit to use. This was started autumn 2007 until summer 2008, contains humanure, household food waste and lots of wood shavings, used in the composting loo. Apart from some couch grass invading the upper layers, and an unexpected patch of very large potatoes (did we throw some out?), the rest is a flaky rich brown mix. The only things I could see in it that was obvious to view was half rotten down wood shavings, some lemon halves and some teabags. No sign of toilet paper, toilet roll inners, shit or anything else. It was nice smelling and a great consistency. The heap was defined by strawbales, I am breaking up the partly rotten ones that are left, and mixing it in the compost and the whole thing is going on some part of our dry, (unhumurous?) land. The couch grass was easy to shake out of it. | ||||
| cassy |
That's good to know. I have not started our compost heap yet, mostly due to the weather as I can't see much decompostition going on at these temperatures, but also as I'm still trying to find the best place to site it. Any problems with leachate with yours? |
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| Bulgarianlily |
Nope but then we have a very dry climate. More a problem keep the heap damp! If I was worried I would make a concrete base with some kind of drain to divert any excess liquid.
You can insulate a compost bin of course if your average temperatures are a bit low. |
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| cassy |
I was hoping not to have to do that, but I think you're right and it will give me more flexibility with siting. Yes, we've a bit of a wet climate here - we're going to roof the heap and your strawbales idea for insulation sound like a good plan. Ta!
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| Bulgarianlily |
As usual, Mother Nature is ahead of us on this idea.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8552000/8552157.stm |
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| RichardW |
Those of you that use sawdust as a cover, how long is it taking it to rot / compost down?
We started a compost pile about 18 months ago & it took a year to fill it. So we are now half way to filling the second chamber & will obviously need a second unit. I am just trying to work out if we will need 1 2 or 3 more chambers. |
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| vegplot |
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