A Mars a day may help you work rest and play, but even the pope needs somewhere to defecate. We want to have a composting toilet, so we can generate some valuable compost to put on the garden.
Eugh, I can hear some of you going, but it’s really not like that. It’s all sanitary, self-contained and doesn’t smell or look unpleasant. According to the experts. So we found this huge old chest that was far too big to store anything in (apparently it’s a grain chest), and decided to renovate that.
We bought a plastic barrel (we will need about ten), two toilet seats and some gloss paint, and paraffin to kill the wood-worm, and hey presto, one bog, fit for a king/queen, or at least, we hope, our friends!
In response to questions I’ve added the following explanation;
One loo contains straw for weeing on, and the other contains a plastic barrel for poo. You add sawdust to aid the composting process and to eliminate nasty niffs. Paper and other waste goes in a plastic bucket with a lid on to be burned or composted separately. As the whole arrangement is a bit high, we have a footstool for the vertically challenged (Julie). Natural apple cider vinegar is used for cleaning the loo. All natural and no chemicals.
His and Hers toilets !!
🙂 no, one’s for wee and one’s for poo. I’ll add that to the article to avoid any confusion!
wonderful!….. forget Tracey Emin’s bed, your stunning creation could be entered for the next “Turner Prize”
Looks brilliant and have taken notes for Armageddon. I thought I remembered something about a ventilation pipe helping smells?
Yes, most designs do seem to include ventilation and insect control, but we haven’t found a need for those just yet. Maybe we will find that we need them later, but so far we’ve remained fairly fly free, and the smell is just of sawdust and straw. Occasionally had a bit of an odour, but a sprinkling of sawdust has dealt with that.
You should be given an honourary membership of the Centre for Alternative technology (in West Wales) They were promoting this kind of thing years ago.
One thing that always puzzled me though….what happens if you need to do both at the same visit? Hop from one to the other….dilemma!!! :~)
Hopping is what I do Sally. It is possible to create a kind of two-in-one system, but it’s a lot more complex and doesn’t seem worth the effort really.
Industrious – I’m intigued by the apple cider vinegar bog cleaner. – my daughter’s in Nicaragua building bogs at the moment. You’ve got 5 days to set up a transatlantic deal with her 😉
Glad to see you have a lock on it, wouldn’t want anyone stealing the contents ;0)……..well done Joe.
Maybe a third hole and seat for the undecided !!!
Would have loved to have had something similar, but Dave wasn’t keen…..now the animals have taken over the space