composting toilet design [RE-wrenches]

[Doug Pratt]

Hi Windy,

I fielded more composter questions than I want to remember back at Real
Goods. First off...you want to stay away from Sun-Mar and the other major
brands of ready-made residential composters. They're okay for small to
average families, but none of them will come close to handling the 10-20
people per unit full-time that you're looking at.

Composting Toilet Systems (http://www.comtoilet.com/) in Newport Washington
does larger institutional units, as does Clivus Multrum. CTS has some
off-the-shelf large designs, Clivus tends toward custom engineering.

In your winter climate you'll need to A: use heaters of some kind, or B:
install the composter in conditioned space, or C: stop using it during the
winter. When the pile temperature drops below 60F, your friendly biological
community basically goes into hibernation...and it's not too active between
60 & 70F either. Your buggy critters like it warm! You'll get some low-grade
heat off the pile, but not nearly enough to keep it happy when air temps
drop under 50F consistently.

Cheers,
Doug Pratt

-----Original Message-----
From: Windy Dankoff [mailto:windydankoff at mac.com] 
Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 7:31 PM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: composting toilet design [RE-wrenches]


Wrenches (shovels?),

We have a school here in Santa Fe called Ecoversity. They are on a  
formerly residential property with an inadequate septic system. They  
are renting porta-potties, and they are an eco-school!

I'm trying to find them a good design for a composting toilet system  
that can handle daily use of 10-20 people in our climate (cold winters).

Thanks,
Windy


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