Composting toilet- still need septic?

[Astraia]

My family and I are looking at a move out to the country in the next 3-5 years- low impact housing, get a little homestead thing going, etc.

I was looking at composting toilets and am totally sold on them, but I'm wondering about the rest of the water used in the house (showers, kitchen sink, laundry, etc) and wondering where that would go. Do you need to install a septic system of waste water if you're not using a toilet?

Anyone have insight, links, etc, that can point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

[wallabi]

no time for links just at the moment (making breakfast!), but to get you started, what you want to look for is "greywater" and "greywater treatment." Some googling will turn up lots, and there is a section/chapter in the Jenkins Humanure Handbook on greywater (look up the handbook, if you donPt have it - great composting toilet resource and available to download free from Jenkins` site).

There`s the timer - gotta go.

good luck - there are lots of options outside traditional septic systems.
planning permission may vary, however

[Hedgehog Mtn]

Here neither composting toilets or graywater are allowed. We are grandfathered because this house was built to be a hunting camp and it does actually have a septic......they just never asked us if it was hooked up. Of course we can't build an outhouse either.

It would depend on the local laws, some place allow them but here we had a resident build a totally solar house and a composting toilet was allowed as long as they had septic anyways. Basically the laws were written without knowledge of composting toilets and it needs to be changed to allow for them to cause home to get the permit for residence.

So in short it will depend on the laws of your city / town.

[Astraia]

Thanks, Wallabi. Googling now! Thanks for the direction

Hedgehog Mtn- bah, never thought about what would be allowed and what wouldn't. Guess I have a lot (more) phone calls to make before we buy or build anything.

[kimmom]

We are building a cob home and live in BC Canada
SO far NOBODY at all has been allowed to build to code and have a composting toilet and no septic. We looked at being the first but it was alot of red tape, years of it.. The district also then wanted us to put in engineered greywater system which would cost WAY more than a basic type 1 gravity fed septic. SO we went ahead and put in a septic system. we are most likely going to have a flush toilet in the house. We will have a huge rainwater catchment system so the extra water our toilet uses is offset. We have had a composting humanure style toilet for 2 years. It has worked well but with a large family it is ALOT of bucket hauling!! And we are so close to net zero with our passive solar home that I am OK with having a flush toilet! ANd we have awesome animals who give us manure
What we have doe as far as house plumbing is we have plumbed the house separate for toilet water and all our other fixtures. Our shower, washer and sinks all run under the earthen floor through a greywater pipe system. The toilet goes out in its own 4 inch pipe. Outside the house we have put in a 3 way diverter valve which makes it so we can run our greywater into a separate system OR into the septic. That way in case we ever sold (which we wont) the new owners could use the septic and not have a greywater system. This passes through code and once we have occupancy we will then build our own mulch basin greywater system. Heres our blog/website www.canadianfamilyrobinson.com

[Astraia]

Ooh, I love your blog. I'd been hunting around for blogs like yours. I am very intrigued by the building-your-own-home idea, I have family with experience (brother an electrician, other brother builds "bunkies" (tiny houses) and has construction and roofing experience), I have a friend who is a framer, etc, so I feel like I could get some information from them... assuming I know which questions to ask, which I don't! I need to get some books from the library.

I've just read a bit about having your house dual plumbed (yesterday, when I started reading about greywater). The house we're "dreaming" of is small (1200 sf, max) so it should be doable. I'll start working that into my ideas.

Man, I hate when my big plans can't work out

It's weird that 5 years ago I NEVER would have thought I'd be going in this direction- composting toilets, wanting to live in the country, etc. Amazing where life takes us!

[I Fly]

As for composting toilet systems, I recommend "The Humanure Handbook" which I read online a few years ago for free. We just finished building our house, and did a regular septic because of red tape issues with the building codes. What we did do is get the smallest septic system allowable (3 BR instead of 4+ size) and buy land that perked well. That means that our system was inexpensive to install because the soil drains well and the field is downhill from the house. Our system cost less than $5,000 while some can be $20,000 or more around here.

Our plan is to compost humanure from our main bathroom, and have a 1/2 bath for guests with a low-flow toilet. Eventually, I'd like to re-plumb the kitchen sink to drain into a low-tech greywater system outside. Maybe the wash machine too. That would diminish our use of the septic system a lot, making it last longer and wasting less water and manure resources.