Crappy subject

[McAlpine]

Hi Guys,

Just built an outhouse up at the lake and was wondering if anyone knows the best stuff to apply every once in awhile to help break it down. Buddy told me Lime, make sense???
Thanks

[SJ]

Here is some helpful info.

http://answers.google.com/answers/ma...dview&id=99263

sj

[McAlpine]

Thanks Steve, I'll go with Lime.

Scott

[dpearce]

If you run out of lime you can use baking yeast. Mix it in some warm water and dump it in. Have used it during the summer for years. At the end of the summer dump in some lime as a lot of the yeast bacteria gets killed by the colder over the winter.

[marinelubricants]

Use wood ashes after each use and apply hydrated lime every few days of use. Jerry McCammon

[arecit]

Hi Guys,
Just built an outhouse up at the lake and was wondering if anyone knows the best stuff to apply every once in awhile to help break it down. Buddy told me Lime, make sense???Thanks

McAlpine... the lime works as an anti-bacterial germ killer and it's other main use here was to reduce the ph- remove the acidic smell; eventually the lime over time kills most of the good bacteria and the hole fills up anyway. One of the most common types used in outhouses is calcuim hypochlorite.

[StewartB]

From my experience if you want to mask the waste, use lime. If you want to eliminate the waste, use a waste digesting bacteria product like Superbugs or Bioguard Plus, which are probably just yeast like dpearce described. The digester products only work if it's warm out, but they work well. I flood the hole with a garden hose first, add the premixed bugs/warm water mixture, leave for the city for the week, and the next weekend the waste is very significantly reduced. I do the treatment twice every summer.

http://www.bioguardplus.com/index.php

Greenhouses sell compost accelerators that will do the same thing.

Stewart

[jk]

Too cold in Alaska for the bugs to survive from year to year. Lime it, or move the house over and apply 3 gals of diesel and a spark. I don't do this for those of you at DEC. Learned this trick as a kid growing up in S.E.A. Remember to be up wind though........
jk

[T-28]

IF THERE IS ONE THING THAT I KNOW ABOUT, IT'S S _ _ _.
Plant and animal life that we use for food is made up of protein, fat, and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates ferment, fat gets rancid, ...but protein decomposes to it's amino acid and atomic state.
Protein is made up of lots of stuff... carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus.... all at the atom level. Upon decomposition, lots of electron bonding is broken, and individual elements are released. Hydrogen and oxygen bond together to form water. Hydrogen and sulfur bond together in exactly the same way to form H2S ... STINK. WHEW !!!!!! SMELLS LIKE S _ _ _ . Is where it gets its smell. So the lime chemically cooks the protein (denatures it) so that it won't decompose and form H2S (hydrogen sulfide). Sooooo, no stink. Wood ash is potash, lye, and does exactly the same thing.
Grew up in the hills with an outhouse (and kerosene lamps). The bad stink was in the summer when the ground warmed (and the contents of the pit warmed). My mother poured buttermilk in the pit (for the cultured bacteria. the same stuff that you have in your gut, but she didn't know that) every week or two. NO STINK..... but only during the warm season, didn't work in the winter.

[Jerry Gaston]

By far the best thing to add to the outhouse for solids reduction is yogurt. So go to your local dairy supplier and get the out dated stuff and you will be amazed what that stuff can do. (any flavor).

[flat country pilot]

Lime with gin or tequila. And there are much better places to pour this blend than down the outhouse hole. Sip it around a camp fire and when you go to the outhouse, the smell won't matter.

Bill

[Gary Reeves]

Three things.

1. Don't do #1 in the outhouse where you do do #2. Makes quite a difference.

2. I have had good luck with the bacteria and enzymes from Gemplers. I think they call it farm digestant and use it to clear holding ponds.

3. Cut back on the toilet paper especially if the ladies are ignoring #1.
Burn as much of the paper as resonable and the rest will compost better.

GR

[StalledOut]

I am in a swamp where you can't dig a hole 'cause it just fills up with water as fast as you dig.

So I took a 55 gallon plastic drum, took the "lid" off and built the outhouse over it. I built it such that the barrel can come out, have the sealed lid put back on and be transported.

The outhouse only see's steady use in June, the rest of the year it's quite infrequent.

With lime added, it pretty much stays decent. It composts down nicely.

I figure it if it ever gets full enough to need to empty, I will wait until those cold dark days in January, put it in a snowmachine sled, pull it to a cabin at the far end of the lake where the snow drifts are nasty, dig a hole in the snow and bury it there. The next day, with the drifting snow, you'd never know anything occured.

Of course I'd only do this to the bastard that put sugar in my 4 wheelers gas tank a few years back.

Proper revenge takes time.