Cob: Re: outdoor plumbing

[Sojourner]

Mike Carter and Carol Cannon wrote:
> 
> 3)  Flies and maggots - I thought that this was not a problem
>     with properly working composting toilets due to heat, but
>     many I have seen have them.

This ISN'T a problem with properly used and maintained composting
toilets or composting areas for the waste.  What you have seen are
obviously not properly used or maintained.

Many people add lime to privies (its supposed to reduce odor). 
Unfortunately, lime destroys the composting process so it actually
increases odors.  A properly composting privy has no smell.

When I was a kid, I could never figure out why privies at private
residences never smelled, but the ones at camp always did, even though
the "honey-dipper man" came and sucked them out on a regular basis (no
one I knew would ever dream of having their home privies emptied out
this way).

Looking back, I'm sure it was all the lime they kept dumping into the
privies at camp that made them smell so bad by interrupting the
composting process.

Don't use lime.  Add sawdust after using the privy.

Follow the rules of privy/composting toilet use and maintenance, and you
WON'T get sick using them.

If you don't, well, you're taking a risk.  The more transients you have
trooping through (as in the workshop situations described) the bigger
the risk.

What in life ISN'T that way?  If you ignore the rules of cob building,
you're taking a risk and your house may fall on you and kill you.  But
that doesn't mean building a cob house in and of itself is a risky
proposition.

Holly ;-D