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I just had to respond about the composting toilet idea.
I've used two kinds of composting toilets in my cabin. After 10 years of them my wife demanded that we use something else and was happy that I have a more conventional drip irrigation system.
They basically come in two types: real composters and moulderers.
With the real composters you have turn them frequently to keep the air combustion going. And they need a specific temperature to compost. So if you can't keep them in the right temperature then you need a heater for them. hmmmm. And, anyone who installs one needs to also be aware that decomposition is not totally smell free unless you can vent the odors of composition and early composition outside downwind, which really means a fan. All of this is much harder with an off-grid electrical system.
Next, you do need to clean them out. And contrary to advertising, composition is not always complete, so its good to have a place that you can get at outside and can hose down. The basement is always pictured and often can have some scary consequences, unless for some odd reason you actually like Cr@p.
Next, No 1 and No 2 don't play well together. You need to separate them when you do it. No 1 tends to slow down or stop the decomposition of no 2. So you need two separate spots one for the filtering of no 1, and one for the decomposition of no 2. Try an get your wife or girlfriend to jump up in the middle of the event and move to the hopper right next. No take it from me, you don't want to go there.
Finally, if you have a party and more than the allowed number of people use it, you could have a mess there that you won't like.
I moved to the mouldering variety. Since i had 40 acres and was there infrequently and didn't have anything but battery power, I couldn;t turn it, or keep it heated. Mouldering is just a big basket that when it fills up you take it out to the woods,and replace it with a new basket. After 6 months dump the completely composted black soil onto ground that you down need to grow edible crops from.
Women generally don't care much for Composting Toilets.
We used an incinerating toilet for 4 to 5 months a year at our camp. It was cheaper than installing a conventional septic system based on one year's expense. At about three years you break even. From there on out it is very expensive to run an incinerating toilet. I installed a conventional septic tank this year.
To my credit, when I bought the camp there was an old cedar cesspool about 20 feet from the lake. Nobody had been in the building for 16 years. I never used that system. For a short time we used a hospital type portable commode. When I installed the new septic I found the second generation septic tank. It was an old 275 gallon oil tank. I removed that and installed the new 1,000 gallon concrete sealed tank.
After all the posts, I rest my case! Bangor Hydro, I love you, even if you are high maintenance, and get your juice from New Brunswick! If I have to play in brown or black, I don't choose green.
I just had to respond about the composting toilet idea.
I've used two kinds of composting toilets in my cabin. After 10 years of them my wife demanded that we use something else and was happy that I have a more conventional drip irrigation system.
They basically come in two types: real composters and moulderers.
With the real composters you have turn them frequently to keep the air combustion going. And they need a specific temperature to compost. So if you can't keep them in the right temperature then you need a heater for them. hmmmm. And, anyone who installs one needs to also be aware that decomposition is not totally smell free unless you can vent the odors of composition and early composition outside downwind, which really means a fan. All of this is much harder with an off-grid electrical system.
Next, you do need to clean them out. And contrary to advertising, composition is not always complete, so its good to have a place that you can get at outside and can hose down. The basement is always pictured and often can have some scary consequences, unless for some odd reason you actually like Cr@p.
Next, No 1 and No 2 don't play well together. You need to separate them when you do it. No 1 tends to slow down or stop the decomposition of no 2. So you need two separate spots one for the filtering of no 1, and one for the decomposition of no 2. Try an get your wife or girlfriend to jump up in the middle of the event and move to the hopper right next. No take it from me, you don't want to go there.
Finally, if you have a party and more than the allowed number of people use it, you could have a mess there that you won't like.
I moved to the mouldering variety. Since i had 40 acres and was there infrequently and didn't have anything but battery power, I couldn;t turn it, or keep it heated. Mouldering is just a big basket that when it fills up you take it out to the woods,and replace it with a new basket. After 6 months dump the completely composted black soil onto ground that you down need to grow edible crops from.
Women generally don't care much for Composting Toilets.
RIM
My husband thinks they are a great idea.....but I vetoed for probably the same reason. I would rather "go natural" in other ways.
I was gungho on composter toilets. I read everything I could get on them and then installed two. If you have enough power to run the fan, and some way to deal with the optimum temp needed, as well as an additional filter system for gray water they can work.
However, I have a friend who has a son who is a Registered Prof Engineer, and who specializes in these things. He says that the most green is actually what is called a drip irrigation system. Apparently the people who bought my property in western PA are doing just that, having hired him. They can also be used in places where you can't use a conventional in ground or a sand mound system. They do cost about double that of a sand mound unless you own your own back hoe and trencher.
When we bought land for our new home two years ago, we bought it with the intention of being entirely off grid. The buillding site we chose is a perfect solar sight and with a 100 foot tower a wind turbine will be 30 feet about any trees within five hundred feet and have 360 degrees of clear access to the wind, which averages 14 miles per hour at that altitude year round (at least according to the gummint charts, which is as far as we have gone to date). Solar panels might come later. The key will be to economize and reduce our electrical foot print to the greatest extent possible, no mean feat fo anyone used to being in the US of A.
The real driving point for us in our decision to seriously consider being off grid was that the building site was around 1100' from the nearest power pole. In order to install a power line and for Bangor Hydro to maintain it, it would have required a 50' swath through the woods from the road. If we went underground and assuming that the ledgy terrian allowed it, we would have had to have an underground system engineered and duplex ready in order to get Bangor Hydro to accept the system, AND we would have had to have a transformer just past the mid-point.
We felt that the windturbine and guyed tower wasn't a killer cost wise considering the overall cost of a power line, and being bound to the vagaries of Bangor Hydro. Net metering in Maine is only a good deal if you do not consume more power than you can use. If you consume enough power for your own use, and at the end of the year, you have any credit remaining, the credit automatically goes to Bangor Hydro (or Central Maine Power as the case may be), and you start the meter running forward or backward fresh.
Wind power is certainly viable for off grid installations, but the critical issue is the height of the turbine rotor above any obstruction for at least 500 feet in any direction. There is a continual maintenance issue with wind turbines, and the furling method of the blades is a mechanical feature that is no more fool proof than the propellers on an airplane. Wind turbines "should" provide some years of service, but having a machine 120 feet or so in the air is a serious consideration, and I know that I for one, and disinterested in thinking about climbing a 100 foot tower to service my own machine. That leaves one to contemplate who will do the servicing?
In December, I was looking at starting construction as early as this August with the installation of a road. Then last week we got a call from a guy who is seriously intrested in buying our property. We'll know this week how interested he is, but the numbers are right, and we are now thinking that we may not build new, but buy something older and do some retrofitting: at our age, spending the next five years or so to build and settle in a new home means that there are lots of other things that we might not get to do with outlives. When I was twenty one everything was simple. Now that I have had a birthday yesterday, at twenty-two things look a bit different. (and if you believe that I am twenty-two, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you!)
We started building just before the recession hit, when homes were quite pricey. Now the opposite is true. Homes in the area have come down considerably in cost, and there are many to choose from. I would not build today - there is better value in buying an already-built home.
We used an incinerating toilet for 4 to 5 months a year at our camp. It was cheaper than installing a conventional septic system based on one year's expense. At about three years you break even. From there on out it is very expensive to run an incinerating toilet.
I have a friend who put in an incinerating toilet using propane. But he says that it produces the most disagreeable kids of odors---worse that the smell of crap. Did yours do that?
I would not build today - there is better value in buying an already-built home.
I'd like to respond to both the above quote and the original topic, "The well-insulated house: it works!"
This is my second month living in a newly constructed 800 sq' stick built house. I bought the property last May with an older home of approximately the same square footage on site. I spent one month considering whether to keep the old structure & work with it or remove it & start from scratch. While numerous details contributed to the ultimate decision to build new, the deciding moment came the day we broached the subject of jacking up the old structure to put a new foundation under it. I knew from the onset that I might well be buying a piece of land for the asking price; it was still worth it to me.
Two local, independent carpenters built the house, and small, local contractors - plumber, electrician, excavator, foundation - did the rest. I was able to be very much a part of the project, an experience that I am extremely grateful for. I have a pretty good idea of what I might expect in the coming years as far as maintenance, etc.
One of the coolest things about building new is having the opportunity to do things "right," though there are "right rights," and there are wrong rights." I'd like to think that as a committee, we made "right right" decisions. When it came to insulating the house, we considered all green and conventional alternatives. We weighed the cost and efficiency of blown in cellulose; rigid board; spray foam; structurally insulated panels; and fiberglass batts. To insulate even an 800sq' structure with anything other than fglass batts was very pricey. I would quote quotes, but I didn't hang onto them. We looked at DIY for all options, and even this wouldn't have made the "other" materials more enticing. Because it's such a small space, it was decided that the difference in R values achieved was splitting hairs. I had to educate myself in the options and compare the costs.
fiberglass insulation: $1,000
Foam-it: $100
good southern exposure: priceless
I won the honorable job of insulating with fglass. I used R19, covered w/6 mil plastic in the walls; R30 in the attic (all scraps went up there, too). I was diligent in insulating correctly - I had experience -no short cuts and no sloppy work allowed. We chased the "joint" area between studs/ sheathing with foam-it. When in question, Foam-it. I used R19/6 mil plastic between floor joists in the crawl space, and anticipate hanging blue board on the inside foundation walls this summer. I have read that fglass insulation is the least effective insulation, but it's what I've gone with. At least it won't settle very much, unlike cellulose.
I am heating solely with wood, using a Vermont Castings Vigilant. It has taken me several weeks to figure out the happy medium for heating in various weather conditions. In its favor, the house has exceptional southern exposure; the solar gain continually astounds me. I'm not tearing through a lot of wood. Before the woodstove went in in December, we used a DeLonghi recirculating oil electric heater. It heated the place, kept the water lines from freezing. The electric bill for power tools & the electric heater was $23 for the month.
So, maybe some will say my house could be better insulated. But I'm finding it well-insulated. The heat seeking cat hasn't complained. Would I have had better value in the old, "already built" home? In my case, definitely not. Obviously, each situation is unique.
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I'd like to think that as a committee, we made "right right" decisions. When it came to insulating the house, we considered all green and conventional alternatives. We weighed the cost and efficiency of blown in cellulose; rigid board; spray foam; structurally insulated panels; and fiberglass batts. To insulate even an 800sq' structure with anything other than fglass batts was very pricey. I would quote quotes, but I didn't hang onto them. We looked at DIY for all options, and even this wouldn't have made the "other" materials more enticing. Because it's such a small space, it was decided that the difference in R values achieved was splitting hairs. I had to educate myself in the options and compare the costs. 
