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We have just started using our compost toilet

got any good soak recipes

My favourite it 1part dried soil, 1 part builders lime and 1 part wood/peat ash

Most people I know around here use either wood shavings or dried leaves / leaf mould with a sprinkling of slaked lime.

I think a little ash is good for the carbon and its smell absorbibg properties

I suppose that - chemically - there are similarities between wood ash & lime: both are strongly alkaline. Perhaps that's it.

I'm not sure of the science behind it, but I had been told, by a well-travelled WOOFer, that ash is preferable in hotter climes, while the wood shaving option is more suited in the colder north.

[quote="doofaloofa"]We have just started using our compost toilet

We have used a small compost toilet for 3 years and just used wood shavings when we lived in a caravan

We just moved back into our house that we restored with its 1960's septic tank, we haven't registered it yet but probably will next year. Leitrim has no percolation and there have been quotes of up to 20,000 euro to put in soil scrubbers to upgrade tanks which don't seem to work, if Big Phil Hogan comes knocking at our door, we won't be able to afford to upgrade so it may be back to the compost toilet, although I am not sure what happens with the grey water, regulations say it has to go through a water treatment plant. Starting to make our blood boil here with the feckin regulations and scare tactic

diggernotdreamer wrote:

doofaloofa wrote:We have just started using our compost toilet

We have used a small compost toilet for 3 years and just used wood shavings when we lived in a caravan

We just moved back into our house that we restored with its 1960's septic tank, we haven't registered it yet but probably will next year. Leitrim has no percolation and there have been quotes of up to 20,000 euro to put in soil scrubbers to upgrade tanks which don't seem to work, if Big Phil Hogan comes knocking at our door, we won't be able to afford to upgrade so it may be back to the compost toilet, although I am not sure what happens with the grey water, regulations say it has to go through a water treatment plant. Starting to make our blood boil here with the feckin regulations and scare tactic

The whole septic tank issue does suck, especially for systems that were compliant to the regs at the time

My solution (though I'm sure our STS is compliant with current regs) is to convert the ST into a Biogas digester.

A ST is after all just a digester with no vessel to capture gas, and with a little convertion will provide free gas for cooking, heating, turbine...i think