When we came to look at this house we had made a list of all the things our dream house would have: between 5-10 acres, within 10 minutes to town, tank water and a 3 bedroom brick house ( termite proof) with a huge deck , lots of forest and a long driveway so the house is away from other houses and the road. So we come and look at this house the first and only house we looked at and sure enough it fits the bill perfectly. It needed a lot of work- but we loved it instantly and knew that it had waitied for us- it had been for sale for a year because the driveway was so bad and the internal colour scheme simply horrendous- yellow and peach eeeeeeeeewwwwwwww, plus a wall that needed to be knocked down, a dodgy driveway etc. But chef and I had the same vision and saw the land and the forest and it was perfect. So we have a look around and outside is a little wooden shed with a kind of camp toilet looking thing - you know the metal tim with the toilet lid on top? one of those... so we assume its a long drop- naturally we didn't open it to see if it was.
We buy the house, move in as tennants for 6 weeks before the sale goes through and I go out to use the toilet I open the door and there is nothing there- arather - ther is no toilet - just a shed, with a floor where we thought there was a long drop/ pit ... naturally I do what most women would do in this situation and I LOOSE it!!!
And so begins the journey of our life without a proper toilet. There were many incarnations and variations of pits and holes and the look on peoples faces when we told them we didn't really have a toilet.....hehehehe... but it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
We had always wanted a composting toilet so this was the perfect opportunity to build the most amazing water less composting toilet ever:
it works like this:
There are two chambers. See the blue plastic thing in the bottom picture- that is the toilet- you use it in the normal way but you don't flush as there is no water- you put sawdust shavings down to help it break down. When one chamber is full ( it would never really fill up as it bereaks down so quickly) you swap the blue toilet over to the other side of the structure- then cover the hole your aren't using. See how there are two wooden doors on the bottom on the outside they are the two chambers. You can empty it out by taking off a wooden door and scooping out what literally breaks down into a bucket full on dirt/ soil. We never have we just leave it then after ayear swap it back. So there is always one chamber breaking down.
So simple. AND not a drop of water.
And most importantly it doesn't smell. I can see people often think it will be gross but it truely isn't.
We often wonder WHY aren't they building them in developing countries?????
addition: the real estate were horrified when they found out and becasue the sale hadn't gone though we managed to get $2500 off the sale - which pretty much paid for the toilet.
