Friday 7 September 2012

My New Airhead Composting Toilet...




My new Airhead Composting Toilet is installed and ready to use...
Read about Airheads here...
So efficient... Uses no water... Vented with a fan so absolutely no smells.
The liquids tank in the front... The crank handle at the side.
A handle at each side for lifting out when it needs emptying...
After 80 uses... That's about 3 months...




V

Here is the inside of the toilet pan...
You can see how the shape separates liquids from solids...
This is the principal of composting...
And it is only when the two are combined that 'smells' occur.


The vent manually opens for solids when required.
Inside half the holding tank is filled with peat dampened with about 1 cup of water.


You can see the metal mixer inside the tank. It is connected to the crank handle.
Each time a deposit is made you turn the handle once.
The liquids tank attaches with a plastic bracket and screw each side...
Is easy to take off to empty...
For me... about every 4 days.
The question I have been asked the most...
Where do I empty it.
The liquids I empty in a garden or under a tree or on the grass...
Yuck I can hear you saying... It's good compost... Drains into the ground.
The solids... apart from the last deposits is composted...
The pathogens are destroyed by both low and high temperatures...
So it can go into a compost bin, be dug into the garden, or a hole dug under a tree when appropriate.
If nowhere else it can be tipped into a rubbish bag... And end up at the land fill...
Just like all other organic waste.
I don't have a probem with any of this but some people do... So this toilet is not for them.
If this toilet was installed on a boat... The contents would all be tipped overboard...

This is in my house bus bathroom. I'm absolutely delighted. All the mess and clutter has gone.
The round container on the right is my shower water container with a bilge pump at the bottom.
I have a new mat, vinyl and slightly raised off the floor to allow water to drain but the top keeps dry.



Here is my old marine toilet with a hand pump and clutter everywhere...



 The old toilet taken out and on the grass...


The empty space... Ready for the new toilet.
The two pipes are the fresh water inlet and the black water outlet.
They were cut off at floor level... Sealed off and a small panel of ply wood glued and screwed over the top.
It now needs a coat of paint.



Next the vent...
This is David... He imports the Airheads from America and installed it for me.
Find him here...



The vent goes right through the bus wall to the outside...



Hosing and vent cowling all ready...


And here it is all done. The tubing is attached to the side of the toilet...
This is easily detatched at the toilet end when the tank needs emptying and at the wall end when the filter occasionally needs cleaning.

So what do you think?
The old or the new...
For me I researched toilets for small spaces for a long time and this is the only one that uses no water and doesn't have smelly cassettes or black tanks that frequently need emptying.
It's the way to go to be self sufficient and live off-grid.
The small black tube  houses the 12 volt wiring...
The fan goes 24/7 and uses about 0.1amps of power... Virtually nothing.

ADDED NOTE - I see from the date of this post I have had my composting
toilet for three years now. This has consistently been my most looked
at post. I have had a few 'teething' issues, most of whigh have been 
overcome. I am due for a new CSC early next year and wonder how it will
pass that.  Has anybody else installed one since reading this?
I would be very interested in your experiences and comments. 

2 comments:

  1. We are considering installing one, but would like to view one in situ. Any chance of this? We are based in Tauranga.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Toilet is an indispensable item in every family, so your article is very meaningful to me. thank you for sharing.
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    ReplyDelete