Can anyone offer first hand knowledge about a composting toilet: How well did it work, how often did it require cleaning, simple or hard to maintain, etc? Thanks for any input in advance.

-- Marci (ajourend@libby.org), January 05, 2000

Answers

Some years ago i bought a composting toilet made in Sweden, it ran on a mixture of peat moss & buckwheat hulls. The the biggest problem I had was keeping the moisture up.the unit had a small heating element and a fan, (110/120V). I t had a hand cranked mixer, one turn per-use but the medium would dry out and the thing would jam and shear the pin. With 2 users, it required a clean out every 4-6 weeks in the winter. In the summer we used the outhouse. I used it because it was there but the outhouse had served me well for 10 years before. Wen I sold the place the new owner did not want the unit so i dismantled it and sold it. As it was, when I cleaned out the tray, I dumped it in the outhouse, I could have been doing that the whole time, without the expense of buying the toilet!

-- Mudlover (redgate@echoweb.net), January 06, 2000.

It sounds like you are interested in a purchased unit, not homemade. I have had experience with home-built ones, such as a outhouse-type that had accessible compartments for the waste to compost in, and have a number of friends who use different types of homebuilt ones. The "Humanure Handbook" is a good reference to help understand what needs to happen in the composting process. The commercial composting toilets need either lots of ventilation or electric heating element, or both, to keep the moisture level in the unit down so the material doesn't drown in urine. Or, they will serve fewer people than one using power for heat or ventilation. Lehman's, I think, offers a number of different units in their catalog so you could check out some of what is available. Two of my favorite references are "Goodbye to the Flush Toilet" and "The Toilet Papers". Don't recall the authors, but a search of Amazon or other book dealer could find that info, and also if they are still available. Also, they may be available at the library or through interlibrary loan. Our first owner-built composting "outhouse" worked well for the 10+ years that we lived at that place, and the main thing we regretted was building it so far from the house. It had almost no odor, no flies, and could have been built into the house instead of 50 feet away. It had two compartments for waste/compost in the bottom, each about 3x3x3 feet, and about once a year, the material was moved from the first compartment (under the seat) to the second compartment, and then from the second compartment the finished compost was used to fertilize fruit trees, etc. Two adults and 3 children used it, pllus company. Feel free to ask me any questions. (real e-mail address)

Jim

-- Jim (jiminwis@yahoo.com), January 08, 2000.

We built a composter into our house which services two bathrooms. Yeah, it's big. I basically followed the outline presented in "Goodbye to the Flush Toilet" by Stoner. Our unit is made of concrete block lined on the inside with fibreglass and on the outside and bottom with 3" thick syrofoam. Venting is by means of 4" PVC pipes which introduce fresh air into the bottom of the pile and a PV/battery driven 12v fan in the vent pipe. This unit has performed admirably for 15 years now. With seven full--time residents it went 14 years before we had to clean it out. Even then, the product had very little odor(smelled like a barn, not an outhouse} and did wonders for the grass in my backyard. Go for it! I believe that the biggest obstacle to having a composting toilet is the attitude of your local health officials. They tend to be rather ignorant in this area. Good luck, John and Pat

-- john and pat james (jjames@n-jcenter.com), January 08, 2000.

We bought a non electric Sun Mar (the kind sold in Lehman's) back in '96. Our house had no electricity so we didn't have the power heat and power ventilation. We live in Mississippi with high humidity and it had way too much moisture build up in it. The toilet was designed so that the urine drained through the solid stuff (peat moss and waste) and went into the bottom of the toilet where it was suppose to evaporate. Things don't evaporate very well in high humidity. It smelled horrible, drew bugs and was a nightmare to empty--the manufacturer didn't allow you to drain off all that urine, remember, it was suppose to evaporate. We hated it and took it out to the barn where it is barely used. We bought the book Humanure and made his bucket toilet. It works great! Yes, we dump it often (3 users and we dump it about every 3 days) but it's easy, costs much less than the composting toilet and doesn't smell (we use peat moss in it to cover waste). It's wonderful compared to our over $1,000 Sun Mar mistake. But we learned a valuable lesson -- Homemade is most often the best!

-- Dee Oberg (oberg@watervalley.com), February 23, 2000.

I also had a Sun Mar. Only thing I could figure was that it did a good job of mixing waste with peat moss. Compost was suppose to fall into bottom tray, but I always had to hand clean everything out of the rotating chamber. Yuck. I never saw that mine ever composted anything, just mixed it with peat. It also may have been a later model as it did have a overflow drain for urine, but peat always seemed to soak up any liquids. Only bought the thing because my now ex-wife insisted. I didn't read about using bucket in any book, just figured the peat moss worked in the Sun Mar, why not a much easier emptying 5 gallon bucket? I even use it in summer and no odor. Just me alone now so bucket serves well.

-- Hermit John (ozarkhermit@pleasedontspamme.com), April 08, 2000.

Couldn't have been a newer model as I bought it in early nineties and Dee said hers was a '97. Mine was an electric model however which also evaporated everything.

-- Hermit John (ozarkhermit@pleasedontspamme.com), April 08, 2000.