Peat dry closet for a summer residence with your own hands

Recommendation points

• How the peat toilet works
• Containers: how to make and dig in
• Drainage system
• Dry closet ventilation
• Operation and maintenance

A small peat dry closet will become a real boon for country houses and dachas where there is no water supply, and calling a sewage disposal machine is too expensive. This explains the great popularity of “dry” peat toilets, the waste from which does not even have to be removed from the site..

How the peat toilet works

A peat dry closet is a rather interesting solution to the issue of organic waste disposal. Most of their volume and mass is occupied by water, which cannot go into the soil due to siltation of the walls of the cesspool of an ordinary street toilet. This problem is solved by separating waste into liquid and solid fractions, of which the first is freely sucked into the ground, and the second is collected in a storage tank and removed manually as needed..

Most of these dry closets are ready-to-install modular devices, the internal structure of which is hidden from view. The most tricky and difficult to reproduce detail of the filling is a complex of a filter and a separator, at the outlet of which a clarified liquid remains, suitable for discharge into the soil. Instead of a complex filtration system, a drain into a small cesspool or an anaerobic mini septic tank can also be provided.

The dry waste remaining in the storage tank is sprinkled with a small layer of special peat. It is very hygroscopic and quickly absorbs moisture, while the dry residue is mineralized. Then bacteria come into play: they release the remaining liquid that flows into the drainage system. The leftovers can be dumped into a garden compost pit or dumped with a 20 cm layer of soil anywhere: in two years they will turn into a good plant nutrition.

The entire waste processing process is remarkable for the almost complete absence of unpleasant odors. In the toilet itself, this problem is solved by an effective ventilation system, without which not a single peat toilet bowl will work as it should. In the future, due to strong and fast adsorption, the mixture completely loses its smell due to the lack of freely evaporating moisture.

Containers: how to make and dig in

Any container made of synthetic material can be used as a storage device: from paint and putty buckets to plastic waste containers. They do not have to be sealed, the conical shape is much more important – so that the same containers can be inserted into one another.

Perhaps, having familiarized yourself with the entire design, you would prefer a set from a basket inserted into a bucket for the drive, preferably with the same plastic lid. The recommended maximum volume is about 25-30 liters, otherwise the container will be difficult to remove and empty.

The accumulator is installed inside a plastic barrel for 100-200 liters, which serves as a collector of liquid and simultaneously filters the moisture released from the waste. The barrel is dug in so that the neck protrudes 400 mm above the floor level in the bathroom. You need to cut a brass “barrel” into the bottom and lock it with a nut from the inside.

From the outside of the “barrel” any press fitting or pipe fitting, silicone or rubber hose with a diameter of 32 mm or more is packed. It has a small length and is laid inside a 40 mm protective pipe made of HDPE to the center of the discharge field – a pit of 0.5×0.5×1 meter, the lower half of which is covered with large rubble, and the upper half – with soil. The pipe should be laid below the freezing depth in a trench with a total slope of at least 2 cm per meter, while the protective shell is immersed in a 15 cm bed of sand.

Drainage system

The collection drum must be used with an open (cut off) top lid. Put a bag of geotextiles inside it, and then cover it with a mixture of sand and fine granite rubble, vermiculite, expanded clay – any incompressible material with high hygroscopicity. You need to fill up to such a level that the supplied storage capacity is 150-200 mm below the neck of the barrel.

The containers must be prepared in advance. In the lower half of the walls of the external collector, we make 10 mm holes through 7-10 mm in a total of 20-25 pcs., And carry out the same manipulations with the bottom.

We measure the dimensions of the side in the upper part of the container and bend a 1.2 mm sheet of galvanized iron along this profile, forming a rectangular casing with a height of about 150 mm. In its lower part we cut the ribs by 10-15 mm, each bend inward, forming a side around the perimeter on which the inner container can lean. We fasten the casing with rivets, and they also fix it to the plastic side of the external drive so that the edges of the bent metal do not reduce the gap between the plastic sides.

We install the container with a casing, align the top 2-3 cm below the closed barrel lid. We move it closer to the front edge, about 50–70 mm from the wall. We sprinkle the receiver on all sides with sand so that the side of the casing protrudes by 30-50 mm, and the layer of sand from the surface to the first holes in the reservoir is at least 30 cm. Slightly compact and spill the sand with a little water. The second container can be inserted into the first without effort, and inside:

• replaceable bags made of geotextiles, which will be changed every time the drive is emptied;
• case made of stainless steel mesh with a cell of 0.4-0.75, which can be easily washed with water from a hose.

This element is optional, but it makes waste disposal very easy, especially on an emergency basis. If you consider it overkill, remember that the inner container with the “basket” is drilled like the outer one – with rare large holes to the middle of the height. In the absence of a primary filter, these holes are more frequent and have a diameter of no more than 1.5-2 mm.

Dry closet ventilation

First, let’s prepare the lid: draw an oval profile of the drain hole from the inside out, exactly under the existing toilet seat. Divide the resulting ellipse into 8-10 sectors and make cuts with a grinder, bending the petals inward. Roll a 150 mm loop of galvanized iron tape and fix the resulting sleeve inside the drain hole.

In the opposite part of the cover, you need to make a smaller round hole and fix a fitting for a 50 mm drain pipe in it. It can be a threaded casing, or a conventional expansion sleeve mounted on hot melt glue.

The ventilation outlet is carried out with a straight pipe through the roof to a level of 1.5 meters above the ridge of the building or higher. There is no need to install any deflectors and vacuum valves here. It turns out that with the lid closed, the air inside simply cannot go in any other way, except through the ventilation duct under the influence of traction. It remains only to install several bricks in the center so that they do not allow the lid to bend under the weight of a seated person.

Operation and maintenance

Such a toilet can be installed even inside a residential building, despite the fact that in the described version it looks quite appropriate and neat. A plastic barrel can be covered with enamel or, if you want to imitate a ceramic gloss, you can open it with a special glossy enamel, having previously prepared the surface with an acrylic putty.

It is not necessary to use any additional bacterial “powders” in such a toilet, but after each use, about two glasses of crushed peat should be poured into the drive. In practice, built-in mechanisms are not very convenient for this; it is better to install a sealed container for 20-25 kg on top of the barrel and use a small scoop. If the capacity of the internal storage is supplied with a handle by default, it is better to remove it and bend it out of the wire..

The toilet needs to be cleaned as the drive is 2/3 full. It is also recommended to periodically rinse the sand filter with water to avoid silting, although it can be replaced altogether if desired..