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Off Grid Composting Toilets with Ariel McGlothlin – 3009

The Survival Podcast Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:40:28 — 23.0MB)

Ariel, along with her husband Clay, their dogs, and some poultry, lives in a tiny house on wheels in the mountains of western Wyoming and they are working on setting up their own new little homestead. She’s been living this lifestyle since 2014 and her wonderful partner has joined her more recently. They collect and split wood for heat, source water from a gravity feed out of a natural spring, use a composting toilet, have a small solar setup, and attempt to grow, hunt, or forage as much of their own food as possible between the weather and wildlife.

Living a little over 6000 feet above sea level tucked into the mountains means it’s a somewhat harsh and cold climate with snow on the ground 8 or more months a year and potential frost, freezes, and even snow flurries all summer long. Ariel loves to garden, cook, can/freeze/ferment/dehydrate food, hike and backpack in the mountains, and photograph the tame and wild animals she is surrounded by. And share the skills she has learned with others.

Ariel returns to TSP today to discuss composting toilets. For emergencies or full time daily life. We have discussed the option a few times but we have never done a whole episode devoted to the practice.  Ariel has used several styles full time for the past eight years and thought she might be able to encourage some others to give it a try and answer some questions many folks have.

Resources for today’s show…

 

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Ariel’s Links

 

Video Version of this Podcast

 

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.

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Comments

Off Grid Composting Toilets with Ariel McGlothlin – 3009 — 4 Comments

  1. Septic systems are great until they aren’t. My system is 60 years old now and has been giving us problems for a few years. Finally it was time to address this.

    I’m $4k in the hole now and there has been exactly zero septic work done. Had to have a 4′ Poplar tree removed and pay an engineer to design and submit the plans to the department of making you sad and wait months for them to approve the plans.

    Now I just have to wait for a licensed septic company to do the install, $10k. And if your system is not working at all you will have to only dump at work for months because all the septic contractors around here are 4 months behind.

    I’m just glad that I have enough room for a conventional system because the alternate systems are twice as expensive. Sometimes I do wish I had a public sewer connection.

    • So great example of it depends.

      Say I did not live on a rock slab and had to do what you do.

      The tanks would be fine, I’d pay 500 for a new permit and any qualified installer would be able to do the work, done. Also once I have the permit, I could literally have anyone do it and the state is never coming back.

      So I could keep the simple leech field design and pretty much do the new job for about 2K.

      That design is not right for here though and likely no one would do it, so my estimate when I have to redo things is about 7500 all in, 7K to the system and 500 to the state.

      I am all for shitting in a bucket if we ever get there! Don’t know if I can get D on board with it though. I may set up a field shitter just to test this all out though. March-Nov anyway.

      Aint nobody got time for being bare ass on a bucket when it be 21 degrees out!

  2. Our county in NE Texas has relaxed enforcement. We’ve got a guy who will install our gravity septic for $4K including tanks and pipe with a separate gray water outlet into whatever we want.
    I’ve also got a HomeBiogas.com unit to generate methane from our waste to use for cooking, etc., and that digests the waste down to the direct-application level which will either go into our septic or…if it is as processed as they say…may put it out into the landscape.
    PS: Hi J&D from Barb and Sam

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