Composting Toilet Reality Check

Over the last year of living at the Luck Cabin I have been able to learn about how some sustainable ideas work in reality.... and not just how they work in the manufacturers description. Which may be where the first problem starts - things that have to be manufactured have a chance of costing a bit much and not really being the easiest thing to work with.

I wanna start out with saying I do not regret having a composting toilet system , a septic system is destructive & i want no part of putting one on my land - I do however have some things to share with those who are considering a similar composting solution to mine.

(Not all composting toilet methods are created equal!! You can spend anywhere between $10 handmade to over $2,000 mega system.)

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REALITY CHECK:::

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#1: the urine container fills up fast. For just me alone it fills up in a week or so. If people come over, it has the chance of overflowing if I dont think to empty it right before they get here.... which i am here to say is GRROOOOSSSSSsssSSSS. So gross! JEzuz, and i dont get grossed out very easily, as ya'll should know. I can skin a dead chipmunk, but urine splashing out onto my face is another monster all together!

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#2: You will be scooping poop! The thing is it is supposed to be nice composted poop turned into garden goddess blackness, but there are times when this plan doesnt work out, and also what about the very last shit you took before you are about to clean out the poop container??? Yeah, that one didn't have time to compost. This is when i really think a Humanure system, handmade with a bucket that can be easily pulled out and dumped is MUCH better then any permanent system (if you are in a cabin, obviously not in a boat!)

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#3: Winter = Cold = Poop ain't gonna turn to dirt! My cabin was not warm enough to keep up composting temperatures, so basically what happened during winter was the poop was kept at a really nice cold temp that kept it fresh! mmmMmmMm! Perfectly preserved poop waiting for me to scoop out!

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#4 : When ya scoop it out the container, if it didn't compost good enough your whole house will stink like poop but worse. Enough said there.

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#5: Who's gonna clean up after? I know this sounds minor but the reality of it is a bit different, I have to use plastic bags or something to cover my hands and arms to scoop out the poop (cause remember some of it wont be composted), then i use a shovel to scoop it, and then a bucket to poop the poop in. So once all these things have poop on them, you have to find a way to clean them. Spray a hose outside, of course.... and have poop splatter back onto your clothes when it flings off the bucket.

I have chose to let time take care of these things, in the rain. I leave the buckets, shovel out in the weather to clean it off.

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NOTE :::: ALL of this is way more intense (I believe) if you have more then one person using the composting toilet... I am by myself, mostly dealing with my own waste. Decide how much you love your partner ahead of time and be prepared to dive your hands into their poop if you want this kind of system.

Again --- BUCKET! Easy to remove trays! something, anything.... is better then scooping! Find a composting system that makes the removal of the waste as simple as possible, because in a ideal world it's black dirt, in the real world someone took a shit yesterday and it didnt get a chance to become black gold.

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My vote is to have two systems ideally. Depending on your situation of course, but if you are in a cabin (aka not in a boat, RV, or tiny house on wheels) use a easy bucket humanure style toilet, and build an outhouse for guests during parties.
At least.... that is what I am about to start building this summer.

Xoxoxoxo

Love/Hate: My Composting Toilet

I get alot of questions from readers, friends, and facebookers about my composting toilet system... which is really not an advanced system, but a fancy humanure toilet. Maybe you could even call it an indoor outhouse! There are lots of kinds of composting toilets, AKA bigger families might need a different system. This particular one is the right size for a boat, cabin, and RV that doesn't house alot of peeps (pun intended). If you still want this exact potty and have a full family be ready to dish out the toilet emptying chore schedule right away!
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Here is a lil' educational video (i even tried to use my education voice) I made this morning about what it's like to have one of these compoopster toilets, in reality. Not in a magazine or online looking all beautiful and clean- but with stains, skank and dank right out in the open.



Xoxoxoox

Mouse In A Bucket

Last night when I went in my bathroom to use my composting toilet, I noticed a tiny furry dot in the peat moss bucket! A little scared mouse!
I didn't know how it got in there and I wasn't entirely sure it could climb back out...

awwwwwwww. It's so cute, it's sick - I just can never get myself to hate mice... maybe if they passed on plagues (fleas on tha' rats?) like in the days of Ole' I could fear them but since I am from these modern times I just don't have any bones ta' pick with the mice.

So i poured it out the bucket into one of my outside potted plants and watched it run away!

Xxoxoxo

Setting Up & Using My Composting TOiLeT

The Nature's Head Composting toilet comes mostly together in it's box when ya buy it - but there were a few things to put together, experience and learn to really understand how this thing works (good and bad!). It's not something that takes alot of thought or requires heavy installation skills - but at the same time a composting toilet does require you to be aware of where your "solids and liquids" will end up... there will come a time when it needs to be emptied and realistically it takes more care & effort then a flush away toilet.

The style of Nature's Head composting potty is much in the light of a simple humanure system, except you got all the fancy look of a regular toilet, a built in system for venting, fan and ease of separating pee from poop. The first step to beginning to use it is to fill the "solid" catch container with peat moss (they say you can use other organic materials such as crushed leaves etc also) ---> So I went ahead and filled it up a few inches with the slightly moist peat moss.This will start the composting process, and according to the company when you empty it you leave behind some of that stuff cause it continues the process from then on. Now, as terrible as it might seem, I went ahead and start pooping in it BEFORE i even vented it... since I live alone and was (mainly) the only one using it I had the luxury of testing it's basic capacity to hold back stink ---> having used a humanure toilet in Big Sandy Mush I wasn't too afraid since I knew regardless that composting process does start and generally it doesn't smell any worse then a typical bathroom.

And honestly, there was virtually no smell coming from this thing... until you lifted the lid, and it still wasn't as rank as say an outhouse or a public bathroom. Pretty mild.For Venting ::: A fairly large hole the size of the tube opening had to be drilled into the wall so that the vent tubing could be attached to an outside vent contraption called a "mushroom vent". I was told the higher up you go with your vent the better smell will be held down, so I gave that thing a good stretch!
This silver thing (in the pic below) on the outside of the house is the "mushroom vent", i think named after it's shape and not because anything freaky will be growing on it. My good friend Noelle helped me install that part cause at first it baffled me.
OK, so all was going well and cool, until something REALLLLLLLY horrible disgusting happened!!!!!!!!!

The lil' urine container is kinda opaque and my bathroom for the time being in kinda dark. You can see slightly into the tank to measure when it's getting full but in the dark corner I had no idea it was topping over. When I finally at a glance saw that it looked 'almost' full I went ahead to dump it out.......

NOT realizing it was more then full & had just hit it's capacity at the top, filling up into the draining part of the toilet - when i took the toilet apart to open the lid and casually pull out the little urine holder the URINE EXPLODED, SPiLLeD out like a waterfall into the bucket that holds the container!!!!! THEN onto the floor! and on my hands!!

BLECh blech bleCh......

If the smell and experience wasn't bad enough....
When i started undoing the bolts to take the secondary container out to for washing off, the freaking bolts would fall off RIGHT into the overspill puddle of urine!! Gawd and Babee Jezuz!!!!
I do not like what Dr. Ruth's Encyclopedia Of Sex calls "water sports", AKA I know with 100% certainty now I have no fetish for my friends or my own urine - and in fact I became the most not tough, grossed out, girl of all time. There was alot of screaming, closing my eyes, and wishing for a coma to hit me during these moments... I mean hey - I was splashed with, washing up, and hands dabbed in mixed bag urine. (See below my most psychotic 'get me outta here' face eva'!)
Anywho, what i did was wash the bajezzus out of the floor and container with apple cider vinegar and baking soda and hot water. That way everything would be clean before it was put back together, cause otherwise there may be the start of a permanent stink anytime moisture would touch it.

I learned my first big lesson for composting toilets ---> MAKE SuRe the urine level doesn't overflow!!! As for the solids in the back container, they are not stinking and doing just rad. There is a cool little handle to turn them around and around (stirring up the contents for better composting) - I do this pretty often and after each time I use it since I have yet to even hook up the inner fan in da' potty! OI!

Would I have my eco toilet choice any other way?

nope.

Xoxo

Making Eco Efficient Space In A Rural Cabin

These are the very first steps to making my eco mecca, tiny cabin, chemical free, healthy home a place where I can not only grow my own food, have animals and be in the woods - but also have a functioning earth friendly home to sleep, cook, bathe and blog in. The little 432 sq foot cabin I am moving to doesn't have a bathroom, so yesterday I spent some time pretending to be a architecturally savvy woman and drew the totally 80's art deco looking floor plan above! I am sooo proud of it.
I am changing the open kitchen area (pictured above where the oval rug is) around to be more efficient in a small space while including a bathroom. Now anyone with even slight chemical sensativities or allergies knows renovations are about the yuckiest thing to have to do, and planning these to be utterly chemical free & healthy to breathe can baffle the best of us - but I have finally gotten to a point where I have found there is a way to do nearly everything without causing off gas problems into your home.

Caulk is a big yuck-o no no for many sensitive people, so I went ahead and eliminated the need for caulk in the bathroom by choosing a clawfoot tub, stand up pedestal sink, and a composting toilet which only needs to be bolted into the floor. (I found the tub for cheap in the local classifieds and the composting toilet is from Nature's Head.)

Flooring can be a huge challenge too, but for me I try to uncomplicate it by always choosing hardwood floors for every room. No matter what, even the bathroom. I decided against tile because the grout in the past out gassed hardcore and would make me dizzy. For this cabin I am putting in (super on sale cheap as sin) locally milled hickory wide plank floors that have no finish on them, and are nailed in (no gluing required!) The finish I will be putting on myself will be a mixutre of mostly walnut oil and beeswax. Heavy on the walnut oil more then the wax, which will be melted in a small quantity.

Size matters, when it comes to a house - the smaller your house the less of any kind of material you'll have to buy. This would help people avoid the toxic cheap stuff and purchase the better eco friendly stuff for renovations... although I have found that nearly everything you need can be found through craigslist or on sale locally. I also found an eco friendly fire retardant free insulation that is SUPER cheap and easy to install... check out Innovative Insulation Inc. here! My first choice would be sheeps wool insulation, but the expense is really intense... so radiant barrier insulation is a good chemical free alternative.

Plumbing can be a big challenge too, many people still believe they have to use PVC and plumbing glue - both of which are toxic. PVC stays carcinogenic for the entire life span of the pipe, so like who wants to drink that water??? Ways to avoid plumbing glue and PVC plastic are to use copper pipe and/or the piping called PEX. Pex uses clamps to connect pipes and doesnt crack during winter freezes like PVC does... no glue, less repair = better health and more money saved long term.
My drinking and bathing water is spring water that is gravity fed, down into the house. Since the poop will be composted by the composting toilet, there is only a need for a grey water system to catch the sink & tub water. I don't use soaps of any kind, so my system will be very pure.

Leftovers can be used to make other things around the house. For instance, there is always left over wood flooring, which can be used to make shelves, repair walls, make a kitchen counter top, or bathroom shelf for holding my toothbrush.

The space in the kitchen will basically be divided in such a way that instead of spreading out across the whole area, the back 6 feet will become a tiny bathroom, then the new wall (made only of wood) for the bathroom will allow for the kitchen to be made into a smaller 'V' or 'L' shape fitting into the corner of the wall, and storage space can sprawl upward instead of outward.

Suppppper Exciting.

Anyone have any other ideas, suggestions, or links to pictures of tiny spaces made more efficient? I need all the visual help I can get.

PS- if ya' eva' want to get paint for your home, make sure it's 100% chemical free Milk Paint!

XoXo

Composting Toilet: Potty Assist

Imagine this: Two men hanging up a grey sheet and placing a small square box underneath, then lifting a composting toilet in a big hug to place it up on the grey pedestal created and shooting some hawt photos of it.

Ya'll know how I love the humanure toilet system (simple potty in a bucket & cover with leaves and compost it), so much more then the mass scale sewage treatment plants and soil wrecking septic systems in rural areas.
In general the reason I love humanure toilets the most is you can build one for under $25 (we built one for $7 here in Big Sandy Mush) - while most other systems will cost you gobs more. In reality though many people just can't get into "roughing" it with such a homemade toilet system, and this is where the fancy composting toilet steps in. I have done quite a bit of searching, reading and observing of composting toilets that are manufactured over the years - I am the kind of nerd who would drool over the SunMar Compost toilets in the Real Goods Catalogue then look at the prices and wipe away my drool, shuffling over to my regular ole' septic toilet. I actually listened to neighborhood composting toilet gossip too "you know my friend so-n-so, he has a wife and three kids and he said the compost toilet stops working in the winter cause it gets too cold, the microbes don't work" or "you have to aim your pee cause you can't pee in the poop hole" ect...
And to be honest all this talk of having to add microbes you had to buy in a jug, and aiming pee was a big turn off for me - I just rathered the simplicity of Humanure via leaves.
Till i found this baby pictured above ::: The Nature's Head Composting Toilet.
Humanure simplicity meets composting toilet design. Yeah, I know it looks like something built for the nursing home, like some kind of potty assist chair, but in the world of composting toilets this one is looking like the freaking Taj Mahal - with it's fancy stainless steal parts meant to not rust in a wet environment, and it's almost regular toilet shape.
So here's some things I like about the Nature's Head composter...

• You can use peat moss or leaves just like in a humanure toilet (your not forced to buy microbes)
• You can add a solar vent to it and have it utterly off grid, or vent it with a fan
• It separates your solids and liquids, meaning no need to aim your pee (I know cause i wrote them and asked!)
• It's made totally in the USA
• It only needs to be bolted down, AKA you need no plumbing skills to install it
• The whole unit costs $850, which is about 1/4 of what you pay to put a septic on your land (not to mention you can put this thing in an RV, boat, or wherever you want to go from then on. Your own to-go toilet.)

Do any of ya'll have a composting toilet, and if so can your share your gossip - the design perks and flaws?!

XoXOoo

DIY:Simple Humanure Composting Toilet

Have ya ever thought about where your poop really goes once it's flushed away? My first hint of understanding this mystery was growing up in New Orleans and driving on the Earhart Expressway past the big, smelly and ugly sewer treatment plant in Jefferson Parish on my way to school - it fascinated me to no end that everything flushed ended up somehow at this steaming alien looking factory of steal & holding tanks. Everything, meaning all the usual bodily excrements plus I began thinking of my mom's toilet bowl cleaners, toilet papers treated with bleach, puke, tampons, needles, paint, firecrackers and gawd only knows what else the freedom of flushing gave to people to throw down there. It really hit home when as an adult I moved into a secluded cabin in the pristine mountains of North Carolina, which only had an outhouse for a bathroom, and the reality of what goes down the toilet goes into the earth became a glaring truth. As I not only prepare to move into a place of my own soon and refuse to be part of the land wrecking "septic" builder genre, I also presently live where no septic is available so I have been exploring what type of system works best for a potty.

Working 'best' will ideally follow these criteria:
1. I don't have to face coyotes and freeze my ass off if i have to go to the bathroom.
2. Gentle on the earth and my nose.
3. Doesn't cost me ridiculous amounts of money just to have a spot to poop.

The following video is a simple DIY project about how to make your own composting tiolet for $25 or less! Considering that a manufactured composting tiolet will cost well between $850-$3,000 dollars to install making your own humanure system is probably the most economical and truly the most earth friendly.



PS- Here is another link for plans to building a PASSIVE SOLAR COMPOSTING TIOLET! Woo, now that is neato!

XoXo