Sanitary Arrangements

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Our compost toilet has started playing up again.  It worked a treat through the summer, but as soon as our electricity production falls, the loo gets smelly.  Around about teatime, on a fine sunny day, just as the temperature starts to fall, so does a miasmic stink from the loo flue.  It rather spoils the moment.  So we have decided.  The loo would be great if we were on grid; off grid, we have to revert to the old Greek method of the soakaway.   Dave says we can rig it up to use rainwater from the mega-butt behind the shed, and it will leach into the ground under the big olive tree, with the addition of a few nutrients supplied by us, so everything wins.  We thought about putting a new flush toilet in the shed, but that’s a lot of work for a hopefully temporary solution.  Why not have the old-fashioned system of a loo at the bottom of the garden, and put it in the house frame – in position in the potential bathroom.  As long as we get a roof covering, we can make temporary walls and put the flush loo in situ.

The first step was to get the soakaway structure installed.  We have had a large hole dug since the first excavation.  Apparently it wasn’t quite big enough, so a digger had to be arranged to enlarge the hole and install two perforated concrete rings with a slab top.  Unfortunately, having set all this in motion, we went off in the boat as the weather was gorgeous, just before I got a call to say they were coming tomorrow.   Too late to change our plans, we just had to let them get on with it, so no photos, unfortunately. 

I’d also asked for two scrubby trees to be dug up, as they were too close to the house and would be a problem when the foundations for the trombe wall were put in.  I suggested that the last mound of earth was spread into the root hole, to level the ground in front of the house.

This didn’t happen.  For some reason the last mound of earth was spread the other way, making a bigger gash than I’d hoped.  It will have to be moved about by shovel and wheelbarrow now. 

The trees were just by the big blue bag

 

 The infilled poo-pit, with stones covering the pipe input hole

Devastation all around.  We should’ve been here.

At least Dave caught a tuna on the way back, lovely.  Tried making fish stock with the head and bones for the first time, and had a great fish soup next day.