Zone5

For those of you who have been thinking that your humble zone5 blogger has got his head in the toilet for much of the time, I can now offer you proof:

After many years of shitting in a bucket I am now proud to announce the opening of a brand new twin-chamber concrete block toilet which renders my bucket obsolete.

The bucket toilet has served me well: no special equipment required, merely a seat and a bucket and somewhere to chuck it- I have been using large plastic barrels which have done an admirable job at turning my poo into a useful amount of compost each year.

Eventually however I decided that I didnt want to be emptying buckets for the rest of my life and Carpenter in Chief Alex persuaded me a concrete block “brick shit-house” was the proper job.

The main resource for this kind of system- and humanure systems in general- is The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins, all of which is available online.

The new toilet is constructed at one end of the house under a lean-to. Moving the toilet outside has freed up a lot of space in the cabin and is more hygienic.

The toilet works by using one side only for a year, then leaving that and using the second side for a year, by which time the first one should be fully composted and ready to empty.

Each chamber is approximately 1 cubic Meter in size, which should be sufficient for a family of four for a year. The wooden seats are built on top of the blocks.

The chambers are emptied from removable doors at the back.

One of the main issues with a twin chamber system is the potential for smells if there is too much urine: I decided to separate the urine by placing a small funnel at the front and piping it into a gravel swale/potential reed bed that is below the house and currently takes my gray water.

The funnel system seems to work fine for males, and, “depending on aim” I was told so far for females as well.

Some urine in the compost is fine of course but too much nitrogen or liquid in general is about the only thing that can go wrong, so best avoid the possibility. It would be possible to deal with the excess urine by adding carbon- sawdust is easiest, also paper, straw- which I do anyway. I layed a thick mattress of straw on the bottom of the first chamber before starting to use it. Wood ash which is likely to have small pieces of charcoal in it is also excellent and something I also have plenty of.

I installed a vent to carry away any lingering smells, and a drain in case liquid does mange to build up to excess. There is nothing worse than a smelly toilet which is surely guaranteed to put visitors off!

Jenkins seems confident enough in his thermophilic system to use the finished compost on his vegetable garden; I am more inclined to use it on trees and shrubs, but have on occasion used it for above-ground vegetables and am still quite normal.