Anyone use JUST a composting toilet for their home?

[ErinP]

Just like it asks.

Is anyone using (or have used) a composting toilet as their only "facility?"

[busybee870]

when i had my land , we used a sawdust toilet. and had a huge bin to dump it in with hay and leaves. Our friends were skiddish at first and then got used to it, no smell, no flies, the dumping it was fun, but it worked for us!

[Navotifarm]

Me, for about ten years but not a fancy one like a clivus multrum or sunmar. I bought an invalid toilet, you know, the chair thing with a bucket, at the goodwill for $15. I experimented with various composting "fillers,". Starting with pine shavings by the bale from southern states. Worked pretty good. Peat moss was a disaster! Presently I use leaves because the price is right - I get them by the curb every fall in charlottesville. They break down and cook somewhat in the bags. I compost them outside in a conical black composter. I add coffee grounds, banana peels, avocado pits and rinds - whatever food waste I have that my dogs and poultry don't eat. It gets VERY hot in the composter! Every fall after the first frost, I clean this out and spread it where I am going to grow gourds the next year. I put newspapers over this compost row because one time I had a fiendish dog who rolled in it! Ugh. Some was fresh!
At present I have a regular flush toilet which is the guest throne or used when I'm sick or can't get outside to dump my bucket. Ha! I always use charmin tissue. Buy it by the 12 pack. From what I read here recently about charmin and septic tanks I sure am glad I opted for the leaf bucket method!
When I got my house, the health department chief told me (when I was whining about how expensive the well and septic system were going to be), "I can make you put it in, but I can't make you use it." (Gleeful laughter).
I note I have been in homes where they had composting toilets, envirolet and sun mar, and they STANK! I won't say my dooky doesn't smell but if it is too bad, I drop a paper plate or more leaves over the odoriferous dump or whisk it away to the composter. I don't know waht the thousand-dollar composting toilet owners do but the ones I've encountered didn't have odor-free systems.
There is a very nice website for earthstar. They use a sawdust toilet, fyi.

[tamilee]

Originally Posted by ErinP

Just like it asks.

Is anyone using (or have used) a composting toilet as their only "facility?"

Yes, we are using the Biolet Ne as our only toilet.

[Rick]

We do, We do!!! We have a pit for guests, and when the temps drop below 15 degrees F, since the missus can use a small propane heater in there.

[Emmy D]

I certainly won't go into as much detail as Natvotiofarms did, wow almost TMI, but I had one for years when I lived in Northern Minn, it was the only toilet in the house, five gallon bucket with a seat on top, toss in some saw dust, it was all good...me and the oldest son used this for many years before he went on his way to adulthood and I came back home to take care of my Mother!

Emmy

[Navotifarm]

Emmy said, " I certainly won't go into as much detail as Natvotiofarms did, wow almost TMI"
Okay, so you're better than I. But WHAT is "TMI"? I finally figured out SFJ was Small Farm Journal but what, pray tell is TMI? Something that needs to be caponized, I suppose.....

[drakkensdottir]

TMI = Too Much Information. Guess you overshared a bit.

[Navotifarm]

Thanks for the definition, Drakkensdoctor! TMI = Too Much Information = retroactive censorship = neighborly caponizing. Ow ow ow.

[HermitJohn]

Thanks for the definition, Drakkensdoctor! TMI = Too Much Information = retroactive censorship = neighborly caponizing. Ow ow ow.

We all know some people dont actually poop, they just retain it all and wait until they are 65 and explode into tiny bits of petrified poo. More dignified that way, but you dont want to go to their 65th birthday party.

So peat moss didnt work for you? Its the only thing that I found that worked well for me. If you dont have good hot compost pile, and use the gourd patch method, a good heavy sprinkle of wood ash (or lime) will keep animals and any flies away. No odor. I really dont understand why people think stinky pit outhouse (or septic) is preferable. Aerobic breakdown lot more pleasant than anaerobic. But we are an 'out of sight, out of mind' culture.

Clivus Multrum is only commercial composting system I've seen that works well, but its pricey, large, and the house basically has to be designed around it.

The little mini commercial composting toilets dont really compost and are obnoxious to clean out, but will meet legal requirements some places. Whatever, anymore if I had to put in a legal septic or have an official approved composting toilet, fine, its just another tax. Like your health inspector said, they can force you to install it, cant force you to use it. And I wouldnt unless I did end up with a Clivus Multrum. Bucket and peat work for me and easy to empty. I'd grey water everything else, by installing a covert diverter valve in line going to the mandatory septic.

[Our Little Farm]

We don't right now, but we did use a sawdust toilet in our old cabin for a year and would do it again in a heartbeat. We used sawdust in the bucket, and leaves on the compost pile. Worked great, we had several buckets and after cleaning we would leave them in the sun to dry.
As soon as you cover, the smell is gone, instantly.

I would much prefer to use a sawdust toilet than a new fangled chemical composting toilet.

[nehimama]

Navotifarm, I, for one, am glad you "went into too much detail". You might be surprised at the number of folks looking for just this type of information. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[Belfrybat]

I used a sawdust toilet exclusively for years on my former property. I kept meaning to install a commerical composting toilet, but the price put me off. I actually liked the sawdust system. Even the emptying wasn't too bad, and the resulting compost was fabulous. I had four buckets and rotated between them, leaving the empties in the sun to sanitize, so even the buckets didn't pick up odors. When guests visited, I set up a fresh one which made using one a bit more "civilized" for them.

I now live in town and use the flusher for solids, but still use the sawdust one as a urinal. Doesn't make sense to me to flush all that drinking water down the toilet.

[mldrenen]

not currently, (nor in the past), but my plans for my future house include a leach field for greywater only, and a contained composting system for all human waste. massachusetts has some very humanure-friendly code.

[Cabin Fever]

I know how much most of us hate building codes and such. So, don't kill me, I'm just the messenger. Most jurisdictions that enforce building codes will not allow a composting toliet IF you have running water in the home. In these situations, if you have running water, you must also have a septic system.

[Cabin Fever]

Originally Posted by tamilee

Yes, we are using the Biolet Ne as our only toilet.

This didn't sound quite like a rousing endorsement for the product. What do you like about it? What don't you like about it? Would you recommend it to others?

[Forerunner]

We've used a simple bucket in a box with a regular toilet seat..... a bin of sawdust under the counter next to it, and a hot compost pile to process the resultant valuable resource, for over ten years now, exclusively.

Joseph Jenkins may have some of the statutory bugs worked out so far as running water and legalities go.
That said, we intentionally eliminated the running water when we had the power company remove their poles and wires from the land.

As has been mentioned, the addition of fine consistency carbon eliminates odor and insect troubles. I highly recommend the sawdust toilet for simplicity, extremely low cost and for the value it adds to the compost pile, especially if you have no other livestock manure with which to bacterially inoculate your other organic matter.

[Patt]

Only toilet in the house:

[jessepona]

Neat thread. I'm thinking about putting in a composting toilet. We have a toilet and septic tank already, but I'd love to compost our waste rather than having it go into a septic tank. I'd also love to have a gray water re-use system as don't use any harmful cleaning chemicals (just Dr. Bronners soap and orange oil/ tea tree oil for cleaning) but I'm not sure what the regulations are in our area. Probably fairly restrictive...

[chewie]

Originally Posted by HermitJohn

We all know some people dont actually poop, they just retain it all and wait until they are 65 and explode into tiny bits of petrified poo. More dignified that way, but you dont want to go to their 65th birthday party.

.

oh good grief, LOL, ROFL!!!! hahahah! this is FUNNY!! and no, i do not think navi gave tmi--sometimes it is helpful to have full detail, all the way down to the nitty gritty icky stuff.

when living in my camper, i had my loo in the barn, a few feet from the camper. the goats were great company when a person 'got busy'. teehee

i had another in the camper when it just got too dang cold for those late night trips. both were 5 gal buckets with sawdust. no smell. and once in a while, i'd sprinkle some b/soda to keep it that way. no one knew that in that closet (the 'real' bathroom but wasn't hooked up) was a bucket. at first, yeah, kinda gross, but then after a short time, you get used to it and unless you 'blow up at 65' (snicker!!) well, that's just what you do! get over it! works fine.