DIY dry toilet system for 8 Euros or $11 - Part 2 The Cabin

It's been about two and a half years since we set up our dry toilet system in the garden and it was only the other day when I was looking through the Green Lever archive that I realised we had not written a post about the cabin and the seats. These will be long posts because there is a lot to share, so without further delay here is the first, the design, construction and assembly of the cabin (pictured below).

Introduction

We've long been talking about building our own Eco-house. Much of the work we've done in restoring the 300 year old Longère in which we now live, has been experimental in trying out more environmentally-friendly techniques and using ecological materials. Our Eco-house is to be completely off-the-grid including being autonomous with our own water supply. This being the case, reducing water consumption is essential and the biggest consumer of our water is the flush toilet. We also decided to have an extra liquids only toilet in the house and so, except for offering the choice to visitors, our flush toilet became totally redundant. In Setting up a dry toilet, which we wrote back in July 2012, we posted our water bills, showing how our  consumption and thus costs, dropped by two thirds once we stopped flushing. The extra added bonus, apart from feeling a lot less wasteful, is that we can now grow beautiful flowers in what was once some very poor soil!

Design criteria for the whole system

We decided that the toilet would be located in the garden because it would be easier to empty the contents into the composting bin and also, as we spend most of our time in the garden or workshops, muddy boots would not be a problem. Thus, we needed a cabin to house the toilet, a seat and a composting bin. I also wanted a design that could be made in and transported from the workshop. Wherever the intended siting, it is always better to have something which can be fabricated inside in comfort, rather than outside in the rain. It also makes for a practical design if you want to use this system for somewhere such as; your allotment, social garden, a field or even set up a business making them for others.

The seat 
For ease of composting we decided to separate liquid and solid waste at source, hence a dual seat arrangement seemed to fit the bill. Beneath each seat would be bucket. The solid waste would be covered with sawdust after each visit and emptied into the composting bin when full. The contents of the liquid bucket would be diluted with rain water to be distributed around plants in the garden.

N.B. this latter has recently been updated in order to accommodate people who live in extreme climates and the post which covers this update can be found here: Composting urine using a straw bale
 

 
The cabin

Tall enough to stand up in, the cabin had to be wide enough to accommodate the dual seat, with enough 'leg-room' for comfort. It needed to offer privacy and protection from the elements and had to be easily transportable from the workshop to its site in the garden.

The composting bin 

For this we decided to use the same successful design that I came up with some time ago for garden/vegetable waste i.e. horizontal sliding wall planks that allow for ease of access and very easy to transport for assembly on site. For its design and construction see my post: Untreated Pallet Wood Compost Bin

Fabrication of the Cabin

I decided the cabin would comprise a modified pallet base that would be placed on a stone chipping foundation. Corner posts would be fitted to which the framing for the two side walls and rear wall would be secured. The walls for these would be vertical pallet planks slid between the frame wood (very much like the compost bin). On the front elevation would be a pre-assembled panel and a door. Cross-bracing connecting the diagonally opposite corner posts at the top would stiffen the structure and the whole would be covered with a pitched roof .

On one of my regular pallet-collection runs I obtained a non-standard sized pallet 100cm x 120cm this was perfect for the cabin base, the 100cm width was enough to fit the double seat. The first step was to fill in the gaps between the existing pallet planks with planks of the same thickness so as to make an even floor.

Turning the pallet over I then attached planking around the edge of the pallet such that about 2cm of wood protruded all the way around the pallet perimeter. 

Each corner post was made by screwing together two 210cm long pallet planks so they formed an 'L'-shape which would fit against the two outward-facing sides of the pallet's corner blocks. These posts rested on the 2cm protruding wood and were screwed to the pallet blocks. Thus all of the vertical weight of the posts, additional wall framing and roof structure, was supported by the protruding wood attached to the underside of the pallet. The screws merely stopped them from moving around. 

I cut planking and fitted it around the pallet base so as to prevent any openings that a small hen or pigeon would find 'interesting' once the cabin was erected in the garden. This planking furnished the edge upon which the wall planks would rest. 

Planks were cut to length and screwed to the outside faces so as to connect horizontally the corner posts. Six planks were required for each side wall and the rear wall, They would form the retaining rails when the wall planks were slid into place.

The vertical position of the retaining rails were; near to the 'floor', at the top of the corner posts and an intermediate rail at a height such that a standard 120cm pallet plank would be about half way up the width of the middle plank when it (the 120cm plank) was standing on the edge of the 'hen/pigeon preventer' plank. The next three retaining rails were screwed to the inner faces of the corner posts at the same vertical heights.

In addition, diagonal braces were screwed to the inside of the corner posts to stiffen the structure further. A horizontal brace in the form of an 'X' was screwed to the top of the corner posts. This skeleton structure became very rigid with the addition of the 'X' brace.

For the front elevation I made a narrow panel the full height of the cabin from three 190cm long pallet planks. The door was made to fit the space left between this panel and the corner post.

The roof on the first design of cabin was a simple rectangular frame, larger than the footprint of the cabin, to which were nailed broad laths. A heavy-duty tarpaulin was secured to the outside of the frame.

The corner posts on one side elevation were reduced in height by about 25mm so that the roof had a pitch when it was put into place,

Subsequent cabins have had a double-pitched roof requiring the construction of two triangular panels which fit onto the top of the front and rear elevation. Two rectangular panels again with laths nailed to them are attached to the sloping faces and again a heavy duty tarpaulin fitted.

Assembly of the cabin.

Once erected in the workshop and everything checked for squareness the cabin was dismantled for moving into the garden. The frames for the sidewalls were left attached to the corner posts, the position of each plank for the rear wall frame was marked with its' location prior to unscrewing from the corner posts. Hence, there were two frames for the side walls each frame had two corner posts.

The whole cabin could then be moved outside to the prepared foundation of small stone chippings tamped down so as to feel firm underfoot. Obviously, I checked this to be not only flat but also level. 

Portable toilet anyone? Loading up at a Garden Open Day in Normandie

As long as the position for each component is clearly marked, assembly is a breeze, I know this as we have shown this homemade system at several exhibitions in the Region. On one memorable occasion, we displayed the whole system at two exhibitions in two towns in two days!

So now, if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film.



Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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Two Insect Hotels & Bug Houses Designed and Made from Repurposed Materials - The Gite & The Chalet

There are so many fascinating insects living in a garden and they need both places to overwinter and somewhere to lay eggs in warmer months.

Many gardeners are fastidious in clearing away rotted wood, fallen branches, piles of leaves and herbaceous stems. This debris however, offers sought-after accommodation to a whole raft of arthropods, many of whom have kept the garden pest-free, as well as pollinating fruits and vegetables.

In order to compromise therefore, it is necessary to offer alternative accommodation. This is however not the whole story. Continued use of pesticides has severely depleted insect populations, so if you can offer a haven for them within you own garden, then you are also doing your bit to preserve the biodiversity and counteract the harm being done elsewhere

The following blog post offers two of our more simple designs, whereas the following article will share some of our more elaborate insect homes. These are all made from repurposed materials, untreated pallet wood, fruit crate wood and general garden debris. To decorate them, we use natural earth and mineral pigments, made, as the name suggests, from clays and semi-precious stones. Our article using natural pigments should help you, if you have never used them before.

The Gîte

This is one of the simplest form of solitary bee and lacewing houses, two types of insect who offer so much to the gardener. There are over 200 species of the former, one such, the Harebell bee is so small it can fit inside a wheat-straw stalk and often uses a disused woodworm burrow. When the bees find the accommodation to their liking they will stay throughout the year, using the hole as a nursery, making it the basis of an expanding colony for the garden. This is of great advantage, as it is the solitary bee, which does most of the task of pollinating our food crops. The recommended diameter of burrow to attract these bees is from 2-10 mm. You can achieve this by simply collecting suitable sized hollow stalks or you can do as we did above and drill out some of your old prunings, in our case; buddleia. The lacewing, a delicate and beautiful creature is a wonderful gardener's helper, with many of the species having a voracious appetite for aphids. This sort of accommodation can be sited anywhere you find a suitable opening but in order to attract the insects initially it is a good idea to site it where there are melliferous flowers

The Chalet

This is a nice little project and where you can use natural pigments to create some really harmonious designs as well as useful insect accommodation. They also make great gifts and can be either suspended or attached directly to walls or fences.

The chalets are made from pallet wood blocks with a piece of pallet wood planking for the backing board. They also have roof shingles cut from fruit crate wood. The roof shingles can be attached either with 15mm panel pins or, if you have it, a mechanical or electric stapler. The most difficult part is drilling the pallet wood block. I used 6 and 10mm drill bit.

If you are thinking of this as a project for a child, it could be given in kit form, even as a gift, for self-assembly and the opportunity to get creative in personal choice of decoration. From experience it is better to varnish or oil each individual element before the final assembly. You can have great fun mixing and matching the pigments and apart from being great gifts, these insect homes can make useful little items for a fund raising event or, who knows, the start of a whole new career! 

Truly the gift that keeps on giving, when we were wrapping up one of these as a birthday present, we noticed that one of the chambers was already occupied! It also makes a fascinating study to just sit and watch who comes to check out the accommodation. On the right, you can see that two holes have already been sealed. If you have leaf cutter bees, then they make for compulsive viewing.


Here is our detailed film on how to make the chalet:

A following post will share two more designs for insect hotels, again made from repurposed freely available materials, so until then, thanks for dropping by!Please feel free to share this article, comment and/or ask for further information.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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How to Make a Simple Fuelless Cooker or Hay-box - No Power? No Worries. Hot Food.

Here's a quick and easy way to use less fuel, less water and still have a tasty and nutritious meal from a cardboard box. Get one ready in case of power outages or for hot food on a journey or emergency.

The Hay-box or fuelless cooker was a popular item around the turn of the 19th to 20th century. In particular during the World Wars and the Great Depression when people were often displaced and the price of fuel rose steeply and/or was rationed. Furthermore, it provided a form of cookery which used less water and in which, precious food, cooked at an even temperature by residual heat had no chance of burning and becoming spoiled. There was also the added and important factor that nutrients were retained through the slower and lower cooking times and temperature.
 

 

We cook all our meals and heat water with our wood-burning cooker. In the colder weather it is alight most of the day heating the house as well. As we move into the milder weather we tend to eat more raw food and as we have no need of the heating so the cooker is alight just around meal times. This poses a problem in that we do need hot water for washing hands when we come in from the garden prior to preparing our food .

 

We solved this problem by using a Hay Box to keep the water, heated at meal-times, hot. We made our first box from scrap wood and filled it with organic lucerne hay which we are given by the organic dairy farmer from whom we buy our chicken grain.

The idea is not a new one, in our 1920’s copy of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management the Fuelless cooker was used to cook meals for a fraction of the fuel cost. Nowadays it is just as important to consider the fuel-saving benefits of such a system as well as bearing in mind the possibility of providing hot food during power outages in the colder weather.
 

The principle is that the heated food is placed, in its pot or saucepan, into a well-insulated box , the lid which is also insulated is put in place and that’s it! The food takes about 4 times longer to cook completely within the box and may need to be reheated prior to serving but the only  energy consumed has been that needed to get it to boiling point. Of course, the ‘box’ part of the system is only required for safety and neatness and possibly transporting, I know of others that have simply wrapped duvets around the heated pan and achieved the same end result and have a warm duvet to boot!

 
 
ORGANIC LUCERNE HAY

ORGANIC TRITICALE STRAW

ORGANIC VEGETABLE FIBRES

ORGANIC HEMP AND LINEN

HOLZFLEX WOOD FIBRE

ORGANIC SHEEP'S WOOL


I used an ecological, non-toxic insulation for my box and there are a multitude of suitable insulation you can use: fleece material, multiple layers of corrugated cardboard, hay, straw even expanded polystyrene, the choice is yours. 

The first box I’ll share is the simplest and cheapest. We are very fortunate in having a local ecological building supplies company (in fact it’s next door to our organic supermarket) and I could buy single panels of  wood wool insulation 30mm thick for around $3,00. On  the same visit to buy the insulation we popped into the organic shop and picked up two cardboard boxes of similar proportions but different sizes. 

The insulation needs to be cut to line the four sides and base of the larger box and the smaller box should fit in the cavity that remains. I was able to find cartons whose sizes differed by about 60mm hence the 30mm insulation on the inside walls of the larger carton would be sufficient to form the space for the smaller carton.

 

To make the lid to the Hay Box I cut two rectangles of cardboard to the size of the larger carton and made a ‘sandwich’ with the insulation between them. The lid was held together with broad masking tape. I adhered the tape around the perimeter of the lid so as to seal in the insulation.

And that’s it, the box is ready to go. When the saucepan is put into the box, the voids at the box corners can be filled with triangular-shaped pieces of cardboard (a bit like ‘Toblerone’ boxes) or stuffed with tea towels, ideally any kind of insulating material which will reduce heat loss due to convection currents.


Next time I’ll share  my design for a wooden hay box, more robust than the cardboard one it is more suitable for carrying hot contents in a car so you can enjoy your own hot food on a journey.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to, sit back and enjoy the film:

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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DIY Sack Truck Hand Trolley for 1 dollar/euro/pound - Repurposed Pallet Wood.

Vested Interest - Snowman and co trade up to a hand trolley.

How to make a medium duty sack truck from repurposed materials, pallet wood, old (lawn mower) wheels, screws and brackets, total cost of materials:coach bolts, screws and a little glue $1. 

Our old wheelbarrow pictured above has done sterling service. It's metal tray wore out years ago but I relined it with pallet wood and it's still going strong. Every now and then however, it would be useful to have a sack truck for moving heavy items and in particular because the wheelbarrow is often in use elsewhere in the garden.

Making the back rails and shaping the handles

 

To make the handles/back of the truck, select a suitable length of pallet wood timber 100mm x 50mm (4x2). We used one measuring 120cm (just under 4ft).

Cut in half to produce the two pieces.

Sketch an outline of the handle profile you would like.

Cut outside curve to shape and make vertical saw cuts to the line of the inside curve. 

This will allow for the easy removal of surplus wood with a chisel. However, if you have one, the profile can be cut straight out with a band saw.    

After using the saw to reduce the handle width so that it fits better in the palm of the hand, the final shaping is done with the spokeshave.   

Making and fitting the forks 

Cut the forks from a piece of pallet timber of 50mm x 50mm (2x2). I cut these with a circular saw and tapered them, so they were thickest where they were to join the back rails.

Cut the forks to length. I made mine 350mm long (14"). I sized to the fruit crate dimension because this is what I use for stocking my fire wood.

Using a sheet of plywood approx 13mm (½"), recuperated from a low-grade pallet, cut a reinforcing 'plate'. Use the rail and fork as a pattern to mark the shape of the plate.
Alternatively, you can use steel angle plates to act as the reinforcement. You could possibly also repurpose shelf brackets to do the job.   

Drill clearance holes in the plates and also through the back rail.

 
Screw backrail to fork to make sides. Just ensure that the outside angle is at 90°.

  

Glue and screw plates to truck sides. I use a waterproof PVA glue.

I made sure that the plates were on what was to become the inside face of each side.

The truck is now beginning to take shape.



   

Making and assembling the back and base panels

 

 


We are now ready to cut and assemble the three plywood panels, which form the back and base. These come from the same piece of plywood as the corner plates.

Drill screw-clearance holes in the corners of each panel.

Position, glue.....

and screw into place.




 

Fitting the Wheels

The recuperated lawnmower wheels had already been used in a small trolley to transport the roof panels for the hen house. I had recuperated some steel angle brackets from a rather ugly piece of furniture which had outlived its usefulness. 

I only needed to drill an additional hole, the diameter of the wheel mounting shaft, in the side face of each bracket. 

The wheels were attached to the brackets which were then held in place on the truck with G-clamps. This was so that the wheel positions could be checked before the bolt holes were drilled. Just check that the truck can pivot easily on the wheels when the trolley is tipped as when in use.

Remove the wheels so as to allow through holes to be drilled for the mounting bolts. Two bolts in each bracket were enough for load bearing.......

 


and a screw in the third bracket hole resisted any twisting movement but a third bolt could have been used.

I noticed that any wide load could scrape against the wheels - longer wheel brackets would have prevented this. These brackets not being available, I screwed two spacing timbers to the trolley face so that any load would be held clear.

 

Testing, Testing..........

 And now if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film.

Until next time.

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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