Comments on: What sewage system for me?

By: Mary-Jane

Mary-Jane — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 05:20:06 +0000

I am in a similar position to others, we are building on a rural block and I am looking for an effective & sustainable on site sewerage treatment. We will be having a flushing toilet, mainly for resale purposes, although we have no plans of selling. We have a small composting toilet in a shed on the property and it has been great, no smells or issues, although it only gets intermittent use.
I would like to treat water to a level where I could recycle to the loo & washing. We are restricted to where we can drain treated water because we are close to a dam and two gullies that lead to a creek. The systems with membrane filters seem expensive and I read somewhere that Michael had used a sand filter instead. If we wanted to use a sand filter would we have to build the system ourselves? and is it cheaper? Or can you recommend some reasonable priced alternatives

Mary-Jane

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 23:44:30 +0000

Yes i too have been researching for a waste system for my bush retreat. Most people are addicted to flushing but dry composting appears better accept having to explain to guest how to use the compost loo.

By: Rory

Rory — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 15:18:14 +0000

Hi Tracy,

Not sure if you’re interested but there’s a system I’ve found called Aquatron that combines a flushing toilet with a composting loo. It works by using a fairly basic looking centrifugal separator to separate solids and water. As its reasonably low-tech it looks really quite promising, but I haven’t looked into it seriously in terms of owner feedback, track record, importing into Oz, etc (think they are a Swedish company). So, this is definitely not a recommendation, I’m just forwarding on something I’ve come across FWIW. In case anyone wants to take a look, the website is http://www.aquatron.se/index-2.php.

Regards

Rory

By: Lizandhercat

Lizandhercat — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 21:39:19 +0000

Would be very grateful for info re pros and cons of various systems as we are in the process of purchasing an old cottage in Canberra with the plan to retrofit, extend and create a low energy house and sustainable food production garden. One toilet or 2? Clivus? Ecolet? Worm based system? Other options?
Read about Biolytix last night and it sounded perfect, then more searching revealed the company imploded and many people had expensive problems. So info re potential pitfalls of various systems also welcome.

Thanks

By: Tracy

Tracy — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 19:37:42 +0000

Hi All. We are in a similar situation. We have a small farm a weekender, in the Lower Hunter. We have about 8 acres of cleared flat land and 32 acres of beautiful forest. The cleared land is predominantly sandy (and I mean Predominantly! It can look like sand dunes after a flood!). I am desperate to find ways to improve the soil and using properly treated human waste seems like a great option. We currently have a pit toilet and a composting toilet. The composting toilet works really well and is currently inside the house. When we rebuild (with hempcrete wow) I want to put the compost toilet outside (weekend renters struggle with compost toilets) and put a flushing toilet inside (not my choice but it feel it is necessary). So I want to make the most of this waste.

The pit toilet is kind of useless because it all drops into a big hole and doesn’t seem to filter into the surrounding earth to provide any benefit. I look down into the pit toilet sometimes and think “what a waste!”.

By: cilantron

cilantron — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 14:16:58 +0000

I’m looking forward to your response to Rory’s query as mine is very similar to his.
I’m wondering if the water, once it is treated, causes any problems after long term use on plants or trees?
a friend had a worm waste water unit and sporadically had problems with the worms drowning and dying. Once she realized it wasn’t working, she them had to have it pumped out, buy new worms and start again. Is this a problem with current worm systems? What are the options in Australia for commercial worm waste management?

regards
cilantron

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 05:09:17 +0000

How do worm systems deal with variation in demand? We are barely at home during the week but on the weekend washing machines, loos, showers, etc all get used.