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My outhouse has never smelled stinkeyl. When I clean the woodstove I put the ashes in a bucket for the outhouse. Every time I use it I dump a cupfull after meself. That's it. Besides a little essential oil on top of the paper holder.
Whoa! Now THAT'S an up-town outhouse! It's even fancier than a two-holer!
My outhouse has never smelled stinkeyl. When I clean the woodstove I put the ashes in a bucket for the outhouse. Every time I use it I dump a cupfull after meself. That's it. Besides a little essential oil on top of the paper holder.
I love your interior! What is the wallcovering in front of the base of the privy. Looks to be some type of tile or wallpaper.
You don't know what smell is until you go to the little house on a hot, summers day. Whew! It can get pretty rank! A handful of lime thrown down the hole helps, but it doesn't solve the problem.
Then, there's something else to consider...spiders and snakes LOVE outhouses! So do ants. Outhouses are cool and dark, a perfect place for insects and reptiles trying to get out of the sun.
When I was a kid, outhouses weren't like the one shown above. They were homemade by knocking together some boards. They were drafty in the winter. In the summer, we always carried a rolled up newspaper with us. We'd light the paper, open the door and wave the fire around the ceiling to cause any spiders or bugs to drop off before we entered. That was much better than having them land in your lap! Sometimes, we'd find snakes lying on the floor or up in the rafters. On occassion, they'd be down in the hole. So would spiders and you'd never see them until they crawled up on your azz.
Another problem was dogs. Our outhouse didn't have a back on the hole, so every s--t eatin' dog in the neighborhood would come around for a meal. I once crapped on my own dogs' head because I didn't know he was down there.
Go ahead and build yourself one. Having lived with the things for a decade or more, I think I'll keep my indoor plumbing.
Yes, I do remember the spider and bug thing. As a kid, both my grandparents and my family (when we lived on a farm) had an outhouse. But then again, by that time the grandparents (and we) had indoor plumbing, so we didn't HAVE to use the outhouse when we were there; but we often did anyway because as kids, it was something of a novelty. And yes, there were some mean bugs--black widows too... which still give me the creeps when I see one. And the damned hornets used to love building their nests or 'little mud huts' in every shed on the property.
Where I live you cannot use them as your primary means of waste disposal, but they cannot stop you from having one or putting one on your property. Personally, I prefer the sawdust toilet, which is 100 percent odor free.
It is my understanding that because Missouri will not allow outhouses to be the only bathroom, that many Amish folk are moving to Arkansas. Honestly, it's very disconcerting to think that the state or the county or anyone else should have the right to dictate where you POO for chrissakes.
20ysrinBranson
I agree with this. Until recently, I didn't think much about the tap water that is wasted by the bucketful every time we 'dump.' It really is kind of stupid if you think about it. At LEAST it could be crappy water (meaning untreated) we are using to flush the crap! The compost toilet seems to be a good solution to the problem.
Had a old two holer in Ne when we lived on a old farm there .. we grew the best roses ( climbers) over that thing .. .. the next place we lived we had a more modren one .. the guy had used a old drainage cylinder as the main container .. it kept the dogs from digging in under the thing thats a fact .. for some reason that one was stinky no matter what we did .. but it worked .. and yep roses on it to .. in the summer time it was awesome .. in the winter not so much so..
Had a old two holer in Ne when we lived on a old farm there .. we grew the best roses ( climbers) over that thing .. .. the next place we lived we had a more modren one .. the guy had used a old drainage cylinder as the main container .. it kept the dogs from digging in under the thing thats a fact .. for some reason that one was stinky no matter what we did .. but it worked .. and yep roses on it to .. in the summer time it was awesome .. in the winter not so much so..
The ones we used overseas in the Army were even better. They had cut-off 55 gal. drums down in the holes, a hinged flap on the back wall, and we'd be tasked to pull out the drums, mix in some diesel and gasoline and throw a match at it. Presto! No more waste problems!
Of course, I imagine the EPA would have something to say about that here. Talk about dangerous air pollution!
OK - environmental issues with outhouses: since you're crapping in a pit and then covering it up, you're creating an anaerobic decompostion cycle. Most pathogens thrive in anaerobic conditions, not in aerobic (fresh air composting). It's easy to tell the difference - anaerobic stinks and aerobic doesn't. Only s**t that is wet and deprived of oxygen stinks for more than a few minutes. It also take a lot longer for your crap and TP to breakdown in a hole sealed away from air and sunlight. So, if you live in a watershed or any place with a high water table, all your poo bugs that are now thriving in megacolonies thanks to anaerobic decomp, start leaching into the ground water (this is also a problem with septic tanks BTW). Even once the hole is full and buried, it can take a very long time to completely decompose and stop leaching. Anything you add to your pit, like lime or ashes, also has the potential to leach into the groundwater and nearby soils which can totally mess up the pH and/or create an environment for bad beasties to get out of control.
Now, I've used city sewer, septic tanks, sealed pit latrines (that have to be pumped out), au naturale outhouses, commercial composting toilets, and bucket toilets. They all have their advantages and disadvantages depending on how you look at. If you're afraid or ashamed of your own poop, using clean (or even gray) water to whisk it away out of sight and mind could be considered an advantage. Of course, even using gray water to flush a toilet makes that water BLACK water, and it can't be reused after that without some sort of treatment. Anyone who's ever had to have a septic tank or pit latrine pumped out knows the disadvantages already (it takes forever for that smell to go away!!). Anyone who's ever had relocate their othouse only to find that their new intended location has already been used and that there is still crap down there, or tried to excavate or cultivate on their land only to find an old pit, can tell you what a major inconvenience that is! Composting means you have to deal with your poop up close and personal, you have to keep those nasty dogs out of the dung heap, and you have to take a little extra care to cure the compost properly and use it properly.
So, if your main concern is the environment, using water or enshrining your s**t in a burial chamber are probably the worst options. If your main concern is health and safety, using any method that promotes anaerobic decompostion and pathogen overgrowth, and/or that contaminates the water/soil is probably the worst option.
Now, I'm sure someone would make a pretty penny figuring a way to compress and dry human feces into nice burnable biomass bricks for heat and power generation... cuz dry s**t burns REALLY well without any accelerants at all
but my opinion is that an outhouse really is fairly environmentally friendly. No? Yes?
What can be more enchanting than taking a dump on a frosty winter night under star covered sky, pondering about all kinds of eternal questions and feeling freshness on your butt? What kind of indoor plumbing can compare?
But outhouses have little to do with environmental friendliness since they remove nutrients from circulation the way septic tanks and cemeteries do. In the olden South people had designated corner of the woods instead of an outhouse. That's what I call environmentally friendly.
environmental issues with outhouses: since you're crapping in a pit and then covering it up, you're creating an anaerobic decompostion cycle. Most pathogens thrive in anaerobic
Septic tanks are 100s times more anaerobic than the most anaerobic outhouse. Outhouse is not being filled at once, it takes sometimes years. All the stuff at the bottom is well decomposed and aerated well before the final dump. Also, there are all kind of outhouses. There are outhouses without a pit, just a small dip in a ground + regular shoveling and covering up the bounty with dirt, there are potty like outhouses with a bucket instead of a large pit.
Where I live you cannot use them as your primary means of waste disposal, but they cannot stop you from having one or putting one on your property. Personally, I prefer the sawdust toilet, which is 100 percent odor free.
It is my understanding that because Missouri will not allow outhouses to be the only bathroom, that many Amish folk are moving to Arkansas. Honestly, it's very disconcerting to think that the state or the county or anyone else should have the right to dictate where you POO for chrissakes.
20ysrinBranson
Interesting, I wasn't aware of this. Is it a state "law" or code in certain cities/counties? It was my understanding that the reason Mennonites moved to Arkansas had to do with the photo requirement on the driver's license. I didn't know about the Amish/outhouse connection to the Arkansas migration.
Pretty funny thread really. Folks used to conider it "unclean" to do their business inside the house, thus outhouses remained popular just out of cleanliness even after the advent of indoor plumbing. I recall my mother telling a story of some elderly relatives being given the gift of $$ with which to add an indoor bathroom. They were aghast at the suggestion of having that dirty thing inside and instead used the money to "tile" the inside of the outhouse.....I kid you not.
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And the damned hornets used to love building their nests or 'little mud huts' in every shed on the property.
