Thats not really a composting toilet when the composting is not done by the toilet . Outhouses was still used in some houses to 1980s in urban areas in Europe . Last ones in city where i live got running water in 1990s and thats in a city founded 1652 . Then again water treatment started after 1950s , before that you did not have tech to do it .
Pete Lind Outhouses were also still being used in rural areas (and small towns) in Texas in the 1980s. No one thought anything of it. It was just a normal part of life.
I can't agree more. I have been wanting to do compost toilet for a while and with 2 major issues with septic tank and learning about them I am done with it. I am all about not using any system that can break and be a financial nightmare and a damn yard nightmare. Yeah no thanks! Its just another way to get us further from the way we were meant to live.
Exactly. Flushing away drinkable water, where the water to waste ratio is what?... 10 to 1, that is weird. Composting humanure, and reusing it, that is NORMAL. No odours, no waste, that is normal. Geoff Lawton and David the Good both makes this sound really great.
I stayed on a permaculture farm in Nicaragua, and they used rice hulls in their composting toilets. They had 3 for about 20+ guests per day. I was afraid of it at first, but it was just fine. The first stage of compost for the human compost after it matured a bit was heating water. They had very cold water that ran down from the mountain, so they put hoses through the compost, and it would heat up the water that was in the hoses in the pile. It was a very cool place. Cheers!
I have an off grid summer cabin and use a composting toilet for night use. (I am 70 years old and do have to get up a couple of times in the night.) I have an outhouse for daytime use but much prefer the composting set up. All I did was get myself an over the toilet commode chair and set it over a 5 gallon bucket with a little peat moss in the bottom. I have a separate container with a mixture of sawdust and peat moss. After every use I just sprinkle a cup full or so of the dry material into the bottom of the bucket. No muss, no fuss and definitely no smell. In fact last winter I had an issue at my home when my plumbing system backed up so, no big deal.I just got me another 5 gallon bucket and luckily I had just purchased a BRAND NEW commode from a second hand store for $20.00 and in less then 10 minutes we were in "business" haha! As for disposing of the end product, I never let mine get very full because it would be too heavy for me to carry, but I would just dig a hole at the top end of my garden, dump the contents of the bucket into the hole and cover it up. Now, I don't put any paper in the composting toilet I prefer to burn the paper, but that is just my own preference. I know the paper would break down along with all the other material. I know there are people that live in their converted vans etc., and use a similar system to mine but instead of using the peat moss or sawdust they line their "toilet" with a plastic bag, do their business and then dispose of the bag and it's contents in a garbage bin at the next coffee shop!! I suppose if you have no fixed abode so to speak they don't have too many options but in our town we have a couple of homeless people who regularly sift through the garbage bins outside stores etc., to see what they can find, I would hate for them to come across any surprises. Anyway, enjoyed your video, take care and stay safe....
@@nancylourose I lived in a van and would put my waste in the dog waste bins along with my dogs, much easier for everyone. Nobody rummages in dog poo bins 🤪
Hey Doug & Stacy, we are building the Humanure System because we watched your video. Our cabin in WV will use this because we are tired of trying to keep pipes from freezing in the winter because we are not there. This system will eliminate all those problems. We will be removing the old porcelain throne soon. We also plan on building an outhouse for an outside toilet facility. Keep up the great videos. :)
We had an outhouse. Our washing was done in the wash house. We took baths as kids in a washtub before the cast iron stove on the kitchen. We lived in a three room log cabin. Our neighbors lived a mile away. The power went out every winter. You had to boil snow for water when the pipes froze. Then we moved to a new farm. It had better power and an oil furnace. A fireplace and wood stove. An indoor bathroom with a hot water tank tub and shower. We always had gardens and orchards we fertilized with cow manure because that is what we had. Now I live in the so called modern age. I look at the prices for food and fruit I used to pick off the tree and the garden and sigh as I long for those days. In the kitchen, the previously warehoused frozen fruit rots on the counter before it can fully ripen and be eaten. Those farms all became housing developments after the bank squeezed us out.
3:54 My dad composted a whole cow once. He always piled up the old hay from the feed lot every week just before putting new hay out. One winter he had a cow get sick and die. He buried her in that big ole compost pile and comes spring, there were just some bones left!
I'm sorry, I didn't realise this would be so funny, but you had me in absolute stitches when you said there were times where it wasn't appropriate to empty the buckets. "Like the neighbours were having a picnic or something like that. 😆🤣😂😅
I was introduced to composting toilets in 1980. The book was ,"goodbye to the flush toilet" 1979. I really enjoyed your video! Since I trim trees for a living, we have lots of sawdust and chip. We use a bucket system and I built an incinerator so our stuff turns to ash in a couple hours!
Mid-1960's. Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was a teenager. My mom was a microbiologist and a gardener. We'd go down the the sewage treatment plant and get composted poop for free, to take home and put on the yard... not the veggie garden. Still though, I thought it was a great idea. Now, I"m an old sailboat cruiser and composting toilets occupy some of my idle hours. Thanks for the videos!
Ever try peat moss? It comes in big bales, and is super-dry. I've used it -- absolutely no smell. Perfect success. Also, if you dig a 3' square hole, 3' deep in the fall... and fill it with manure and carbon material during the winter, and top it off with 6 inches of dirt... Set a few straw bales around it, and top it off with a window, or a frame wrapped in plastic. You've got an 1800's style hotbed!
I read Jenkins book and used a sawdust toilet for a couple years. It worked great. Things happened in my life, things change, and I haven't done that for 15 years or so. This video has inspired me to try again. Wonder how grass clippings would work to block the odor????
No I wouldn't suggest grass clippings, you would be running into problems . Way too much moisture involved and nothing to soak up the liquids. Sorry I don't explain it very well, I understand what I mean as I have lived with composting toilets most of my life and they are second nature to me, but don't ask me to explain the science behind them haha! I am sure someone will be able to give you more details as to why you shouldn't use grass clippings.
My great grands and great aunts and uncles all grew up in the Appalachian foothills of North Alabama. I still remember outhouses and chamber pots - the original composting toilet systems, I guess. ☺️ So grateful I was connected to a time where others were mindful of waste and their connection to their food and the earth that gives it. What a shame we felt embarrassed until the outhouses were torn down and the indoor plumbing was complete.
Cee be WOW! I never thought much about the media influence. Powerful insight. I’d give so much just to have an ounce of the wisdom they had in self-reliance. I think many who thought they were poor were those who were genuinely rich.
Cee be THANK YOU!! I had no idea the series existed! I was going to interview my aunt the next time I was home. This is incredible! I want to show her the books and ask her for her memories. So grateful for you sharing this!
Practice Hospitality I have the first five Foxfire. Most of it is the way my grandparents live in the Ozarks. They did a good job of preserving the knowledge for future generations.
Back in the 1970s in a town about 90km away, the house owners would build their elevated toilets in their backyard with a bucket beneath. A man (probably farmer) would go around and collect them, he must have used it as fertilizer. I guess that's the reason why the veges those days are healthy looking,
Interesting information! Since I visited a place with a composting toilet (which I found interesting long before ) I decided to give it a try. My composting toilet now is still experimental, with a bucket like you tell. I have a compost heap for 'composting everything ' . But I wasn't sure about how to continue. So thank you for explaining!
When I started raising turkeys I ran across a chapter regarding how to compost dead turkeys. It was in their own poop. By the time a few months have passed ain't nothing left. LOL
You're a really GOOD composter! You should advertise to all the RVers who use composting toilets but just throw the humanure in a trash can. They could drop it off with you on their way through town!
@@cassianoroloff Not sure what the song is called but David The Good is the guy singing... if you listen again, you'll here him say "and check out my book and compost everything" That's all I know. Enjoy the rest of the evening!
You could use a mechanical system for applying the sawdust into the waste bucket. Think something similar to the classic pull-down flushing system but with a solid rather than a liquid. That could avoid kids making a mess all over the space.
How do your buckets last so long? We go through a bucket every 3 days with just two using it. Do you just use minimal amount of sawdust? I love composting but I always wonder if I am doing it wrong to have to empty it so much. 😋 Just curious. Thanks.
Hey Dave!....2 contractor 3 mil plastic bags( double bagged), on a scrap of a tarp so you can skid it, and pee elsewhere. Put the bag in the yard with leaves on it for a year, and you can dump then re-use it. cheap, easy, little smell if each dump is covered with dust and compost. You have to knock down the volcano at times, but can just leave the stick in the pile.....MM....
We have an old fashion septic tank. In my mind it works similarly to your composting system except it is buried and the water leaches out. I guess if you can't see it people are ok with it. I would not only eat your tomatoes but ask for seconds.
Humanure, something the vast majority of us waste, recently watched a documentary about Teotihuacan when it was a thriving metropolis some 2,000-3,000 years ago, archaeologists were baffled at not finding any sewer system, not even a chamber pot! I'm thinking those ancient Toltecas were composting the humanure and growing beautiful 3 sisters crops! 🌽🌽🌽
I still remember poo pickup during the early '80s. By the mid-'80s, a lot of Aussie councils had phased out the service. A lot of the concerns do appear to relate to sewerage going into the water supply, but they could easily require people to have closed humanure services.
Leach lines get really clogged up by tree roots -- that's why you're not supposed to plant perennials there. That said, the peach flavor was the variety, not the water source. Tree fruit is the one food that pretty much cannot be affected by even un-composted manure -- witness generations of grazing meat animals intentionally (and unintentionally) raised in orchards -- they poop where they live.
Way too much nutrients and water for Peaches...unless your in the desert. We had peaches next to our septic line when I was growing up in Tennessee. The peaches all molded. The trees grew really fast though.
Good info. Makes night soil much less intimidating. Never read a book on it. Never thought about that there might BE a book on it. With the Chinese building up 15 feet of top soil at their home sites over thousands of years I should have known better. Interesting.
If there is a farm animal feed store near you, there's something called bedding pellets, made out of compressed wood chips. We use it for our cat litter boxes. It has zero scent & covers the scent of the cat urine perfectly. Not so great on the poo if there is any left uncovered. I've often thought if I ever for real use a composting toilet, I'd use this material. It's super cheap. It's like 40 pounds for less than 8 dollars. We get it at Coast Farms in Oregon.
My grandparents were shepherds they had composting toilets, grandpa would also use horse manures/sheep manures as fertilizers. May I ask, who is the adorable old man singing :"Ah~" @0:16? Please let me.....(anyways, at home, my dad use his poop to fertilize, I save all my urine as well as shower water and water that's used to wash face and hands --- all saved in a pail and used to water trees outside our house)
David, what do think about the idea of having a conventional, normally plumbed toilet empty straight into a VERY large BSFL system? I'm talking VERY off-grid, miles from prying eyes, situated a good distance from an elevated house (gravity!), with an endless supply of wood chips for daily covering within the Larva Factory. BTW, I'm also looking into installing a stand-up urinal that empties straight into an IBC tank. Aged urine, anyone? Seditious, ain't we?
If it went down into the ground enough with drainage to keep it from becoming a fetid bog, why not? There's probably a good way to engineer it. I thought about setting up a banana circle around a pit that a toilet emptied into.
David The Good Nice! I love the idea of placing the "farm" in a bit of a depression, and surrounding with water- and nutrient-hog bananas, or something similar. In my model, the toilet would be emptying onto a large are of chips, probably 8 x 12 or more. Plenty, I think, to handle the couple gallons per flush. With your idea, any bit of leakage would be sucked up by bananas anyway. I'm on FLA sugar sand, so you know there won't be any standing cesspool! I've already considered a very shallow cattail pond for gray water; why not make the pond more of a mote around BSF Island, with bananas ringing the shoreline? No nutrients escaping that trap! I just hope "they" aren't listening!
Here in the west, we only have shallow Wells.... consequentially I would not like to take the chance of polluting my own well from the leeching of waste. I'd feel more secure with a rubber lined pit with boulders and gravel, to allow for evaporation.
Fred Tice I have a specific reason for using BSF: chickens, laying and meat. Raising without commercial feed or commodity grains, the biggest challenge is protein.
I wanted you to know, I'm totally buying your books because of that song at the end (and cause I was already debating it but that sealed the deal) I found your stuff based on the Spring Gardener Green house review (I think i may buy one soon) and I love your content. Keep it up!
Did you have any trouble with anything like those bagged leaves that came from someone else’s yard? I thought about doing that but then I had concerned about whether or not those leaves were sprayed? Any thoughts?
Howdy ! Hurricane Harvey wiped out my rural septic and at first I panicked at the thought of thousands of dollars to replace... then I realized that it was the “jumping off place” ... the driving force to go ahead and do this. I got over the icky factor a couple years ago , when I began ‘ watering’ my banana trees with the golden elixir... that was the first year my trees began to make bananas. I’m sold. Great video David keep em coming ! 👍
I don't think I'd have a problem with this, yes it's icky but if it's WELL composted the danger & smell should not be an issue. The only problem is IF the contributors were on medication that gets excreted in their waste, would it be broken down or remain in the produced compost? Would the plants pick it up?
David this is a great video. However I need some well thought out advice please. I am in Ecuador and most plumbing systems cannot handle toilet paper. Consequently everywhere you go there are baskets beside the toilet for the paper you use. I hate gathering up the bag once a week (!) and leaving for garbage pick up. so, my question is do you think i can take the bag out to the confined compost pile, move stuff out of the way - kinda like worm composting - deposit the bag of used paper, cover it up and walk away until next week. I dont have red wigglers - they are hard to get here - but my compost piles are usually full of regular earth worms. i should mention that i have built a series of 8" high raised beds and put all compostables in one until it is full and then just leave for a month or two before planting.
I thought of using a Bulk food dispenser filled with sawdust and pipe to poo bucket box, as a way to controll the kids with sawdust. I couldn't find a large cheap bulk food dispenser so trialing it with a smaller one. Not ideal as it means more turns of the dispenser knob.
I have been so excited to try this out! I have a lot of access to sawdust and I have had good, non smelly, experiences with it as, you said. ...... And that rap was sick dope!
I live in a mobile home and have built a urinal separator myself with a 5 liter (small) bucket at the back, I use a decomposing plastic bag with sawdust and tie a knot and throw it out after every toilet visit, now I have bought a small house in the country and would like to use the same system, but I would like to compost my small bags in possibly with some small bags of kitchen waste too would that work in your opinion?
I got three compost tiolets in my house when my plumbing goes bad or when someone is using my bathroom and i need to use it, i have no problems using a bucket and woodchips. I even have a compost tiolet in a off grid cabin i have my relative staying in my backyard. I plan on building a second tiny off grid cabin with a compost tiolet
If anyone thinks human poo is nasty just know that the produce you buy at the store is grown with animal poo and even blood from the slaughterhouses. Great vid btw man
In North Korea, I believe Humanure is called "Night Soil" and during winter, citizens are expected to chip it out of communal lavs and reuse as fertalizer. By the way, I drive by a company called BoonJon on Rt. 40 often. Always wondered what they did. I assume it's the same company?
Striper Sniper thats also why that soldier who escaped and was shot was examined and was riddled with parasites. If your not doing it 100% right dont put it on your food
Would you put a composter in a greenhouse to keep plants warm? Or is does it smell? Would sawdust prevent that? If it’s that warm, it almost sounds like a good idea.
This is going to sound gross but wev been busy so iv had a compleatly full bucket in my bathroom for about a week and no ones noticed. Theres no smell but i probobly should get on that instead of watching this XD
I had a full bucket - peat moss/biochar & number 2 only - in my basement storage room for over 4 months. I dumped it last weekend, and no smell at all.
I am born in Sweden on a farm 1957 and we had of course a toilet outside. So the modern toilets are very new in our human history. People say that the water toilet is the worst construction done in the whole of 1900.
Best to dilute the pee before you use it on your plants, some people dilute at a ratio of 1:10 and some 1:15 and, just for interest, human urine is completely sterile when it comes out of your body, it is after it is generated that bacteria is created.
My region in Hungary is a temperate continental region that is increasingly threatened by desertification. Every flushing consumes one gallon of drinking water. This in itself is worth the effort. The added fertility is a bonus.
Did you have a urine separator? We're using the Nature's Head Composting toilet in our School bus RV conversion. Whenever we settle down, I want to build a system like your fridge to get some good use out sh... it.
We started our compost toilet with New Year. I like it, but woosh, we are filling our bucket pretty quickly (5 of us) round 4 days a bucket. I suppose we may be using way too much of saw dust, but if we don't, we cannot keep the smell under control. I also have problem getting the compost really hot (where I live, it is barely freezing), getting just up to 35deg C. I guess that it all has to do with "freshness" of the saw dust. If it was little bit aged, maybe we wouldn't have to use so much of it in our bucket, reducing C-N ratio and our compost would get hotter? Anyone any idea?
Dry sawdust or wood shavings do not have the odor-absorbing capability of moist or partially-rotted sawdust, so you have to use more. Because that material is dry and fluffy, it takes up more space in the bucket too. Jenkins recommends dumping your sawdust outside and letting it get wet and "rot" a little before you use it. If you have some moist compost handy, you can mix it with your sawdust or other material and use that as a cover material. I once used compost mixed with finely shredded leaves and that worked well.
Thank you for posting this. I've been very curious about how this could work if we really needed it to. So, this begs the question... what about cat waste? Would you have to use a special kind of cat litter? It sounds like you have a big family, which is a blessed, wonderful thing. May I ask how many children you have?
i was on a permaculture course in the south of spain, and if i remember well they developed a kind of compost toilet, but it separated urine from pooh, they didn't like the urine so much mixed in. They would wait 3 years before using it on their veggies. It was wonderful, do you know of this system? (Supernatural)
You don't have to look into it very far to realise a composting toilet is by far the best solution in every way, the only downside is how its perceived, I will never own land so the composting side doesn't really apply to me but I will be doing it in my off grid truck and will skip the whole porta potty and dump station thing not to mention the expense.
Lol.... Don't ask don't tell. Reminds me of and old horror movie with award winning chili.... Lol... Great video. I was cracking up with the thought of the law kicking in the door... Lol
You know you’re destined to be an extreme composter when you find this story thrilling and you’re on the edge of your seat.
Toilet seat I hope
I was going to say on the edge of your toilet seat! 😅
🚽 Yes! It definitely makes a difference when you have a Toilet Seat, for your 5 Gallon Composting Bucket
You don't have to be weird to compost humanure. The conventional waste managment system is what's weird.
Yeah, that's the truth. We use clean water to get rid of "waste" that should be returned to the soil.
Thats not really a composting toilet when the composting is not done by the toilet .
Outhouses was still used in some houses to 1980s in urban areas in Europe .
Last ones in city where i live got running water in 1990s and thats in a city founded 1652 .
Then again water treatment started after 1950s , before that you did not have tech to do it .
Pete Lind Outhouses were also still being used in rural areas (and small towns) in Texas in the 1980s. No one thought anything of it. It was just a normal part of life.
I can't agree more. I have been wanting to do compost toilet for a while and with 2 major issues with septic tank and learning about them I am done with it. I am all about not using any system that can break and be a financial nightmare and a damn yard nightmare. Yeah no thanks! Its just another way to get us further from the way we were meant to live.
Exactly. Flushing away drinkable water, where the water to waste ratio is what?... 10 to 1, that is weird. Composting humanure, and reusing it, that is NORMAL. No odours, no waste, that is normal. Geoff Lawton and David the Good both makes this sound really great.
I stayed on a permaculture farm in Nicaragua, and they used rice hulls in their composting toilets. They had 3 for about 20+ guests per day. I was afraid of it at first, but it was just fine. The first stage of compost for the human compost after it matured a bit was heating water. They had very cold water that ran down from the mountain, so they put hoses through the compost, and it would heat up the water that was in the hoses in the pile. It was a very cool place. Cheers!
That sounds like a great system.
Wow that's ingenious!
Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when we compost poo?
Lol
Solid gold!
Haha!! Nice
Missed a trick should hae left out the st on compost 😎
*compost you
I have an off grid summer cabin and use a composting toilet for night use. (I am 70 years old and do have to get up a couple of times in the night.) I have an outhouse for daytime use but much prefer the composting set up. All I did was get myself an over the toilet commode chair and set it over a 5 gallon bucket with a little peat moss in the bottom. I have a separate container with a mixture of sawdust and peat moss. After every use I just sprinkle a cup full or so of the dry material into the bottom of the bucket. No muss, no fuss and definitely no smell. In fact last winter I had an issue at my home when my plumbing system backed up so, no big deal.I just got me another 5 gallon bucket and luckily I had just purchased a BRAND NEW commode from a second hand store for $20.00 and in less then 10 minutes we were in "business" haha! As for disposing of the end product, I never let mine get very full because it would be too heavy for me to carry, but I would just dig a hole at the top end of my garden, dump the contents of the bucket into the hole and cover it up. Now, I don't put any paper in the composting toilet I prefer to burn the paper, but that is just my own preference. I know the paper would break down along with all the other material. I know there are people that live in their converted vans etc., and use a similar system to mine but instead of using the peat moss or sawdust they line their "toilet" with a plastic bag, do their business and then dispose of the bag and it's contents in a garbage bin at the next coffee shop!! I suppose if you have no fixed abode so to speak they don't have too many options but in our town we have a couple of homeless people who regularly sift through the garbage bins outside stores etc., to see what they can find, I would hate for them to come across any surprises. Anyway, enjoyed your video, take care and stay safe....
Thank you. Good system.
Not impressed with people who dump their waste into someone else's trash bin.
@@nancylourose I lived in a van and would put my waste in the dog waste bins along with my dogs, much easier for everyone.
Nobody rummages in dog poo bins 🤪
7 years for us here, good vid! We just emptied a bin for flowers and garden 👍
Good work!
I love your guys. I'm getting tons of useful info and especially on composting toilets. We are now on the system.
Hey Doug & Stacy, we are building the Humanure System because we watched your video. Our cabin in WV will use this because we are tired of trying to keep pipes from freezing in the winter because we are not there. This system will eliminate all those problems. We will be removing the old porcelain throne soon. We also plan on building an outhouse for an outside toilet facility. Keep up the great videos. :)
We had an outhouse. Our washing was done in the wash house. We took baths as kids in a washtub before the cast iron stove on the kitchen. We lived in a three room log cabin. Our neighbors lived a mile away. The power went out every winter. You had to boil snow for water when the pipes froze. Then we moved to a new farm. It had better power and an oil furnace. A fireplace and wood stove. An indoor bathroom with a hot water tank tub and shower. We always had gardens and orchards we fertilized with cow manure because that is what we had.
Now I live in the so called modern age. I look at the prices for food and fruit I used to pick off the tree and the garden and sigh as I long for those days. In the kitchen, the previously warehoused frozen fruit rots on the counter before it can fully ripen and be eaten. Those farms all became housing developments after the bank squeezed us out.
This is so sad.
"Don't ask, don't tell." LOLOL You delivered that line with such a straight face!!!
3:54 My dad composted a whole cow once. He always piled up the old hay from the feed lot every week just before putting new hay out. One winter he had a cow get sick and die. He buried her in that big ole compost pile and comes spring, there were just some bones left!
Yup. The Amish bury their dead horses in sawdust. They just disappear.
I'm sorry, I didn't realise this would be so funny, but you had me in absolute stitches when you said there were times where it wasn't appropriate to empty the buckets. "Like the neighbours were having a picnic or something like that. 😆🤣😂😅
Been living with it for 24 yrs... AWESOME! Livin off grid that is. Recycling old fridges for insulated growing mediums. Such a great life! Kudos!
I was introduced to composting toilets in 1980. The book was ,"goodbye to the flush toilet" 1979.
I really enjoyed your video! Since I trim trees for a living, we have lots of sawdust and chip. We use a bucket system and I built an incinerator so our stuff turns to ash in a couple hours!
Mid-1960's. Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was a teenager. My mom was a microbiologist and a gardener. We'd go down the the sewage treatment plant and get composted poop for free, to take home and put on the yard... not the veggie garden. Still though, I thought it was a great idea. Now, I"m an old sailboat cruiser and composting toilets occupy some of my idle hours. Thanks for the videos!
Thank you for the story. I think it makes sense to close the loop.
A great straightforward lesson in human waste composting, thank you.
You are welcome. Thank you.
I lived 6 years off grid w a "Loveable Lou".....
It never had a smell....worked great.....
Great video. I've got an expensive elec compost toilet, and it's not a good thing. I'll be "going" the bucket route now.
Dude! These tomatoes are the Shhhhhh... lol
I would ask because I always wanna know what my food grows in
🤣LITERALLY
😂 hahaa awesome
Ever try peat moss? It comes in big bales, and is super-dry. I've used it -- absolutely no smell. Perfect success.
Also, if you dig a 3' square hole, 3' deep in the fall... and fill it with manure and carbon material during the winter, and top it off with 6 inches of dirt...
Set a few straw bales around it, and top it off with a window, or a frame wrapped in plastic. You've got an 1800's style hotbed!
Yeah, it works really well.
I read Jenkins book and used a sawdust toilet for a couple years. It worked great. Things happened in my life, things change, and I haven't done that for 15 years or so. This video has inspired me to try again. Wonder how grass clippings would work to block the odor????
No I wouldn't suggest grass clippings, you would be running into problems . Way too much moisture involved and nothing to soak up the liquids. Sorry I don't explain it very well, I understand what I mean as I have lived with composting toilets most of my life and they are second nature to me, but don't ask me to explain the science behind them haha! I am sure someone will be able to give you more details as to why you shouldn't use grass clippings.
grass clippings are too moist. Mine often grow mold on top.
We have just begun to compost our waste on our off grid property.. it works just fine. Thanks!
I have a number 1 bucket and a number 2 bucket. Fruit trees love them both!
Me too. Very similar experiences and similar solutions implemented, with similar successful results.
My great grands and great aunts and uncles all grew up in the Appalachian foothills of North Alabama. I still remember outhouses and chamber pots - the original composting toilet systems, I guess. ☺️ So grateful I was connected to a time where others were mindful of waste and their connection to their food and the earth that gives it. What a shame we felt embarrassed until the outhouses were torn down and the indoor plumbing was complete.
Cee be WOW! I never thought much about the media influence. Powerful insight. I’d give so much just to have an ounce of the wisdom they had in self-reliance. I think many who thought they were poor were those who were genuinely rich.
Cee be THANK YOU!! I had no idea the series existed! I was going to interview my aunt the next time I was home. This is incredible! I want to show her the books and ask her for her memories. So grateful for you sharing this!
Practice Hospitality I have the first five Foxfire. Most of it is the way my grandparents live in the Ozarks. They did a good job of preserving the knowledge for future generations.
Back in the 1970s in a town about 90km away, the house owners would build their elevated toilets in their backyard with a bucket beneath. A man (probably farmer) would go around and collect them, he must have used it as fertilizer. I guess that's the reason why the veges those days are healthy looking,
That is really cool.
Biochar seems like a good option for covering the poop, and always having a trench avaliable to empty the buckets seems good too.
I use soil and grass clippings. Works like a charm.
Interesting information! Since I visited a place with a composting toilet (which I found interesting long before ) I decided to give it a try. My composting toilet now is still experimental, with a bucket like you tell. I have a compost heap for 'composting everything ' . But I wasn't sure about how to continue. So thank you for explaining!
O, I forgot to tell: I live in a ground-floor apartment in a suburban neighbourhood 🙄
I like this idea and we'll be using this when we move. Thankfully there's a sawmill a few miles away from our new place
When I started raising turkeys I ran across a chapter regarding how to compost dead turkeys. It was in their own poop. By the time a few months have passed ain't nothing left. LOL
You're a really GOOD composter! You should advertise to all the RVers who use composting toilets but just throw the humanure in a trash can. They could drop it off with you on their way through town!
Always wondered about composting toilets. Thanks for sharing.
You are welcome.
Dried and shredded corn cobs make a wonderful composting toilet litter. Great video.
Fred Tice How do you shred a corn cob?
That song at the end, love it!! Great video, thank you for taking the time to make this for us. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
what is the song in the end? great video =)
@@cassianoroloff Not sure what the song is called but David The Good is the guy singing... if you listen again, you'll here him say "and check out my book and compost everything" That's all I know. Enjoy the rest of the evening!
Anybody else hanging out til the end for those beats
This is a good description of what to do. Thanks
I use fine wood shavings from the feed stores.
People use this for bedding in horse stalls
You could use a mechanical system for applying the sawdust into the waste bucket. Think something similar to the classic pull-down flushing system but with a solid rather than a liquid. That could avoid kids making a mess all over the space.
How do your buckets last so long? We go through a bucket every 3 days with just two using it. Do you just use minimal amount of sawdust? I love composting but I always wonder if I am doing it wrong to have to empty it so much. 😋 Just curious. Thanks.
Hey Dave!....2 contractor 3 mil plastic bags( double bagged), on a scrap of a tarp so you can skid it, and pee elsewhere. Put the bag in the yard with leaves on it for a year, and you can dump then re-use it. cheap, easy, little smell if each dump is covered with dust and compost. You have to knock down the volcano at times, but can just leave the stick in the pile.....MM....
We have an old fashion septic tank. In my mind it works similarly to your composting system except it is buried and the water leaches out. I guess if you can't see it people are ok with it. I would not only eat your tomatoes but ask for seconds.
The problem isn’t your neighbor; your problem is the local/state codes on black water disposal.
Humanure, something the vast majority of us waste, recently watched a documentary about Teotihuacan when it was a thriving metropolis some 2,000-3,000 years ago, archaeologists were baffled at not finding any sewer system, not even a chamber pot! I'm thinking those ancient Toltecas were composting the humanure and growing beautiful 3 sisters crops! 🌽🌽🌽
I still remember poo pickup during the early '80s. By the mid-'80s, a lot of Aussie councils had phased out the service. A lot of the concerns do appear to relate to sewerage going into the water supply, but they could easily require people to have closed humanure services.
Yep, it works. Good job.
Recycled fridges make great cold and hot smokers. I use them mostly for cold smoking because very little work is needed if a smoking tube is used.
Good idea.
We had a peach tree on top of leach lines from our septic system. Peaches were unedible!!!
Leach lines get really clogged up by tree roots -- that's why you're not supposed to plant perennials there. That said, the peach flavor was the variety, not the water source. Tree fruit is the one food that pretty much cannot be affected by even un-composted manure -- witness generations of grazing meat animals intentionally (and unintentionally) raised in orchards -- they poop where they live.
Way too much nutrients and water for Peaches...unless your in the desert. We had peaches next to our septic line when I was growing up in Tennessee. The peaches all molded. The trees grew really fast though.
We love our compost toilet. It works great. Thanks for your informative videos.
You are welcome. Thank you.
Good info. Makes night soil much less intimidating. Never read a book on it.
Never thought about that there might BE a book on it.
With the Chinese building up 15 feet of top soil at their home sites over thousands of years I should have known better. Interesting.
Great term: night soil. I'd forgotten about that!
Great info David and great song.
If there is a farm animal feed store near you, there's something called bedding pellets, made out of compressed wood chips. We use it for our cat litter boxes. It has zero scent & covers the scent of the cat urine perfectly. Not so great on the poo if there is any left uncovered. I've often thought if I ever for real use a composting toilet, I'd use this material. It's super cheap. It's like 40 pounds for less than 8 dollars. We get it at Coast Farms in Oregon.
Great info and I love your style. of talking/ delivery.
The rap at the end!!! BRILLIANT.
When you did this, did you separate the pee from the poop or did it all go in together? TIA! Thanks for sharing a part of your life with us.
All together.
My grandparents were shepherds they had composting toilets, grandpa would also use horse manures/sheep manures as fertilizers. May I ask, who is the adorable old man singing :"Ah~" @0:16? Please let me.....(anyways, at home, my dad use his poop to fertilize, I save all my urine as well as shower water and water that's used to wash face and hands --- all saved in a pail and used to water trees outside our house)
Wooo you make your own music too, very cool David!
David, what do think about the idea of having a conventional, normally plumbed toilet empty straight into a VERY large BSFL system? I'm talking VERY off-grid, miles from prying eyes, situated a good distance from an elevated house (gravity!), with an endless supply of wood chips for daily covering within the Larva Factory.
BTW, I'm also looking into installing a stand-up urinal that empties straight into an IBC tank. Aged urine, anyone?
Seditious, ain't we?
If it went down into the ground enough with drainage to keep it from becoming a fetid bog, why not? There's probably a good way to engineer it. I thought about setting up a banana circle around a pit that a toilet emptied into.
David The Good Nice! I love the idea of placing the "farm" in a bit of a depression, and surrounding with water- and nutrient-hog bananas, or something similar. In my model, the toilet would be emptying onto a large are of chips, probably 8 x 12 or more. Plenty, I think, to handle the couple gallons per flush. With your idea, any bit of leakage would be sucked up by bananas anyway. I'm on FLA sugar sand, so you know there won't be any standing cesspool! I've already considered a very shallow cattail pond for gray water; why not make the pond more of a mote around BSF Island, with bananas ringing the shoreline? No nutrients escaping that trap! I just hope "they" aren't listening!
Here in the west, we only have shallow Wells.... consequentially I would not like to take the chance of polluting my own well from the leeching of waste. I'd feel more secure with a rubber lined pit with boulders and gravel, to allow for evaporation.
Build a bio-digester system using IBC containers and collect methane fuel. ;)
Fred Tice I have a specific reason for using BSF: chickens, laying and meat. Raising without commercial feed or commodity grains, the biggest challenge is protein.
Great job. It makes so much sense!
THANK YOU!
I wanted you to know, I'm totally buying your books because of that song at the end (and cause I was already debating it but that sealed the deal) I found your stuff based on the Spring Gardener Green house review (I think i may buy one soon) and I love your content. Keep it up!
Hey - that's awesome. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing
Dude, you are a pro composter!
Did you have any trouble with anything like those bagged leaves that came from someone else’s yard? I thought about doing that but then I had concerned about whether or not those leaves were sprayed? Any thoughts?
Howdy ! Hurricane Harvey wiped out my rural septic and at first I panicked at the thought of thousands of dollars to replace... then I realized that it was the “jumping off place” ... the driving force to go ahead and do this. I got over the icky factor a couple years ago , when I began ‘ watering’ my banana trees with the golden elixir... that was the first year my trees began to make bananas. I’m sold. Great video David keep em coming ! 👍
Good work, Sue. Thank you.
I don't think I'd have a problem with this, yes it's icky but if it's WELL composted the danger & smell should not be an issue.
The only problem is IF the contributors were on medication that gets excreted in their waste, would it be broken down or remain in the produced compost? Would the plants pick it up?
Good question
Yes, but that's already in the water supply. All our meds are in the water supply.
Chemo drugs are the only hazards of which I'm aware.
Your music is the best bro. Cheers! Chris.
David this is a great video. However I need some well thought out advice please. I am in Ecuador and most plumbing systems cannot handle toilet paper. Consequently everywhere you go there are baskets beside the toilet for the paper you use. I hate gathering up the bag once a week (!) and leaving for garbage pick up. so, my question is do you think i can take the bag out to the confined compost pile, move stuff out of the way - kinda like worm composting - deposit the bag of used paper, cover it up and walk away until next week. I dont have red wigglers - they are hard to get here - but my compost piles are usually full of regular earth worms. i should mention that i have built a series of 8" high raised beds and put all compostables in one until it is full and then just leave for a month or two before planting.
Yes. I would just put them in the compost pile. Just give the pile a year to break down and all should be fine.
This is a good video.
I thought of using a Bulk food dispenser filled with sawdust and pipe to poo bucket box, as a way to controll the kids with sawdust. I couldn't find a large cheap bulk food dispenser so trialing it with a smaller one. Not ideal as it means more turns of the dispenser knob.
I have been so excited to try this out! I have a lot of access to sawdust and I have had good, non smelly, experiences with it as, you said.
...... And that rap was sick dope!
Manguy dude yep, sawdust (raw) is the best, you should go for it!
I live in a mobile home and have built a urinal separator myself with a 5 liter (small) bucket at the back, I use a decomposing plastic bag with sawdust and tie a knot and throw it out after every toilet visit, now I have bought a small house in the country and would like to use the same system, but I would like to compost my small bags in possibly with some small bags of kitchen waste too would that work in your opinion?
Very funny and love your great relaxed attitude!
Thank you, April.
if you fed me a tomato and then said you grew it with your poop i would ask for another
That is too weird even for me.
Yeah, don't ask, don't tell. Even when they beg to know "what's your secret?"
You mean another tomato grown with or without human waste? Lol
Absolutely love kind of stuff
I got three compost tiolets in my house when my plumbing goes bad or when someone is using my bathroom and i need to use it, i have no problems using a bucket and woodchips. I even have a compost tiolet in a off grid cabin i have my relative staying in my backyard. I plan on building a second tiny off grid cabin with a compost tiolet
Good work.
If anyone thinks human poo is nasty just know that the produce you buy at the store is grown with animal poo and even blood from the slaughterhouses. Great vid btw man
In North Korea, I believe Humanure is called "Night Soil" and during winter, citizens are expected to chip it out of communal lavs and reuse as fertalizer. By the way, I drive by a company called BoonJon on Rt. 40 often. Always wondered what they did. I assume it's the same company?
Striper Sniper thats also why that soldier who escaped and was shot was examined and was riddled with parasites. If your not doing it 100% right dont put it on your food
Yes! That's the guy. Sandy's place. He's awesome - you should stop in and say hi.
It's also why raw vegetables are uncommon in cultures that use sewage to fertilize.
I've read online that you shouldn't use humanure for growing food. If it is possible to do it, how is it best to do it?
Just wondering if you have tried the C-Head yet? Good video!
Would you put a composter in a greenhouse to keep plants warm? Or is does it smell? Would sawdust prevent that? If it’s that warm, it almost sounds like a good idea.
This is going to sound gross but wev been busy so iv had a compleatly full bucket in my bathroom for about a week and no ones noticed. Theres no smell but i probobly should get on that instead of watching this XD
Sam Potter lol we keep 3 or 4 of them and several outside 😉
I had a full bucket - peat moss/biochar & number 2 only - in my basement storage room for over 4 months. I dumped it last weekend, and no smell at all.
Meh, it'll be there tomorrow. Oh, you commented almost a year ago, did you ever get rid of it? 😁
I am born in Sweden on a farm 1957 and we had of course a toilet outside. So the modern toilets are very new in our human history. People say that the water toilet is the worst construction done in the whole of 1900.
If I remember correctly, the folks at Off Grid Hawaii say pee is a great fertilizer for the plants as well. Use liberally :)
Yeah, it works like a charm.
Best to dilute the pee before you use it on your plants, some people dilute at a ratio of 1:10 and some 1:15 and, just for interest, human urine is completely sterile when it comes out of your body, it is after it is generated that bacteria is created.
Ahahaaa, loved it!! We really don't want to mess around with the dreaded composting-toilet police! HA!
Twinas' Cheri lol 😉
Is boon jon the c-head one? Not a fan of those. It's too close to a bucket in a plywood box to warrant 700 dollars.
My region in Hungary is a temperate continental region that is increasingly threatened by desertification. Every flushing consumes one gallon of drinking water. This in itself is worth the effort. The added fertility is a bonus.
Did you have a urine separator? We're using the Nature's Head Composting toilet in our School bus RV conversion. Whenever we settle down, I want to build a system like your fridge to get some good use out sh... it.
No, everything just went in the bucket, then was covered.
Damn! That song at the end slaps!!!
We started our compost toilet with New Year. I like it, but woosh, we are filling our bucket pretty quickly (5 of us) round 4 days a bucket. I suppose we may be using way too much of saw dust, but if we don't, we cannot keep the smell under control.
I also have problem getting the compost really hot (where I live, it is barely freezing), getting just up to 35deg C.
I guess that it all has to do with "freshness" of the saw dust. If it was little bit aged, maybe we wouldn't have to use so much of it in our bucket, reducing C-N ratio and our compost would get hotter? Anyone any idea?
Dry sawdust or wood shavings do not have the odor-absorbing capability of moist or partially-rotted sawdust, so you have to use more. Because that material is dry and fluffy, it takes up more space in the bucket too. Jenkins recommends dumping your sawdust outside and letting it get wet and "rot" a little before you use it. If you have some moist compost handy, you can mix it with your sawdust or other material and use that as a cover material. I once used compost mixed with finely shredded leaves and that worked well.
Okay so you made your own system? I was wondering about those ones you buy. I know somebody who wants one.
i've always wondered one people do with their solid waste when they set up systems in their mobile tiny homes?
Shitting in the Fridge ? Amazing.
I loved the whole video, but the best part was the rap at the end.
You let the neighbors picnic stop you from dumping? What about the commitment!!😅
I want to start doing this as a protest against paying the city to recycle waste that I can use for my own plants.
Thank you for posting this. I've been very curious about how this could work if we really needed it to. So, this begs the question... what about cat waste? Would you have to use a special kind of cat litter?
It sounds like you have a big family, which is a blessed, wonderful thing. May I ask how many children you have?
We have eight.
I would avoid cat, due to toxoplasmosis.
Eight children. You are, indeed, blessed. Thanks for your reply.
Ima ask the tomato company thingy how they grow their tomato
i was on a permaculture course in the south of spain, and if i remember well they developed a kind of compost toilet, but it separated urine from pooh, they didn't like the urine so much mixed in. They would wait 3 years before using it on their veggies. It was wonderful, do you know of this system? (Supernatural)
You don't have to look into it very far to realise a composting toilet is by far the best solution in every way, the only downside is how its perceived, I will never own land so the composting side doesn't really apply to me but I will be doing it in my off grid truck and will skip the whole porta potty and dump station thing not to mention the expense.
Lol.... Don't ask don't tell. Reminds me of and old horror movie with award winning chili.... Lol... Great video. I was cracking up with the thought of the law kicking in the door... Lol
Thank you.
Thanku. Please show how to convert this to methane for cooking
th-cam.com/video/wULsR7BTCGA/w-d-xo.html
Ahhh, bio digesters - kool way to go - plenty of videos onnit
Hilarious. Ur one of my favorite people.