Maggots in our composting Toilet

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by christianshearer, Dec 1, 2006.

  1. PermaGuinea

    PermaGuinea Junior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2011
    Messages:
    53
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Ours is a natureloo, too. We get the smell as soon as the fan goes off, and when the chambers are being changed over (because the fan pipe gets disconnected to do that). The smell is mostly ammonia and I think it comes mainly from the encrustation on the walls of the pipe down to the chamber. After changing the chambers it takes a few hours for the fan to suck the rest of the old smell away from the room again.

    We thought of getting the whirly-bird wind pump but were wondering what happens on a still day. While the fan is running there is never any smell - and ours is powered 100% by the sun.
     
  2. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

    Joined:
    May 14, 2004
    Messages:
    3,464
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    ok i see,

    we ran our drums as a dry system so all but incidental urine went into the toilet, the seperate collection of urine was used in gardens etc.,. they run well as dry sytems. do you use the enzime provided by n/l? so we also used no power and no elect fan that wears out and needs replacing, they did supply one but i either sold it or gave it away. we kept our out of service full bin connected to the vent can't say it was ever needed. now to make the vent work better with just air they say painting the top meter and spinner black this will cause air to flow. also we never had any flow in the council compulsory outflow to soakage pit (would have seen that as a waste of resource).

    we also switched from the somewhat expesnive enzime (tried an after market one as well can't say if it worked? all cost), we opted for composting worms, missed the fly maggots as n/l replaced our toilet seat with a new model that sealed off so the black flies could no longer get in, but they definately did the best job. worms work well, always stared new bin with some material from recent full bin now empty, this helps with bacteria and worms, and add more more worms in later, they all live in our garden and easy to harvest. would have been good had i ripped the seat seal off and replaced with those plastic stops, let the flies back in. our toilet had a lot of window space and no fly screens. picture of it in our eco' home feature on our site, great views.

    our bins where ready for use about 6-7 months. any juice in the bottom was worm wee and some water i would sprinkle in to keep crust moist.

    would we use one again? in a heart beat, we like n/l it is a simple system that works, though next time (soon maybe) we might use one of the smaller floor units for inside the house.

    len
     
  3. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 9, 2005
    Messages:
    1,536
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    38
    Christian, the flies may be black soldier flies, which have no mouth during the fliying part of their life. We hve a compost toilet which they have been in, (not anymore), but raise them intentionally in our compost bins for chicken food. Black soldier flies are great decomposers, breaking down food, and they love tea leaves, coffee grounds, onion skins, banana peels, etc. Once they climb up out of the yuck, the compost or shit, they are self cleaning and then become flies, and go forth, without a mouth to eat, to mate. Giving them a ramp to climb up onto, and a jar to drop into, you can easily harvest them to feed to chickens. While I understand peoples concerns, they metabolize and pass things very quickly, and will not have shit in them anymore by the time you feed them to your chickens. They are very high in protein and high in fat content.
     

Share This Page

-->