I wonder about having a toilet with an exhaust fan in a tightly sealed house. Would make-up air need to be provided? Does your house smell like poop when the power goes out?
makeup air would need to be provided. often the exhaust is run through a heat recovery ventilator.and yes, your house will smell like poop when the power goes out, they had that problem at the Bullitt Center. the fans aren't huge; maybe there should be backup power.
Bathroom of the future? Mine would be a large walk-in tub (due to injuries), a shower stall large enough to fit a wheel chair (or at least transfer from wheel chair to stool and back), a wall mounted toilet so that I could have a higher and more comfortable seat and not only an ERV fan, but also an auxiliary heater keep the bathroom warm for the baths or extended showers. It would also be nice to have space for a wheelchair plus.
As for the infrastructure, I think a grey water holding tank and blackwater septic tank are mandatory and should be coded into new homes.
But I guess my future vision is more closer-termed than others.
Backcountry Yosemite, there was a solar-powered compost pit toilet. Best-smelling outhouse I ever used. The small solar panel powered an exhaust or drying fan and (I think I recall) a mixing wand for aeration. A ranger came up with his mule while we were hanging around. (It actually smelled fine in the vicinity so we had no problem eating our lunch there, unlike every other pit toilet in a national park.) He came up once a week or so, emptied the powdery-dry stuff into two special panniers. Packed it back down to the ranger station, where it was composted for a long time, then used for ornamental landscaping. This was maybe 15 years ago. I’ve been fascinated ever since, and if we ever (finally!) build a house on some land, there will be a composting toilet system and full greywater re-use, so no septic. I love your divided bathroom plan above.
Municipal water should cost 10 times as much as it does, reflecting its true value. This would be great incentive to minimize water use which in turn would mean that water and waste distribution and treatment could be downsized enormously.
"Municipal water should cost 10 times as much as it does, reflecting its true value"
Upon reflection, how do you compute that water should be priced 10X than what it is to determine it's "true value"? What is your methodology in determining that?
Further, if you were to get your wish, what are the second and tertiary outcomes of jacking up the price of drinking water and sewage processing, especially on the poor?
We already have a lot of low income families having to juggle their bills between rent, electric, gas, water, food, fuel, etc. and they often rotate which ones they pay and which ones they skip paying. The *actual* cost of water (at least in Phoenix) is very low; it’s all the delivery fees and taxes that add up. But one has to wonder if the fees and taxes would scale up as the price of water increases—and how already poor people will be able to pay for the increased cost if they can’t pay for it NOW.
The only way to get everyone to pay is to get the price down. We’re wasting TRILLIONS of gallons of water due to leaks in old, outdated water pipes but we’re not going after that infrastructure problem because waste isn’t taken seriously by the people who provide the resource. I find it disingenuous to say we need to pay 10x more for water if none of that extra revenue will be used to fix the delivery system.
This is always the crux of the problem when folks like Geoff throw out "10X higher" for ideological reason (I deliberately use that word because this movement has gone WAY past the actual aim "environmentalism" of the 1970s that I grew accustomed to - and agreed with.
The crux, to get back on point, is what I alluded to in my reply - "what are the ACTUAL RESULTS of the intention"? That is, opposed to what was intended.
Take the example of Chelmsford, MA (USA) from a few years ago. They made beaver trapping illegal a few years ago. The environmentalists and the no-hunting folks forgot that they had already altered the environment such that there were no more apex predators to keep the beaver population down. What was the result?
A couple of years later, massive flooding in town due to all the beaver dams that had been built up by said beavers that were ruining the conservation lands. So the environmentalists, as I recall, started dismantling them. The result water flow caused lots of home damages. No, I didn't live in Chelmsford at the time but had lived there for a few years before moving to central NH.
This is the age old issue of "systems malpractice" - make a change here and see a bad outcome somewhere else in the system. Too few people not understanding all the little details that go into a large system (like even small Chelmsford) demanding changes with all the hubris in thinking that they actually did.
Or lately, with the dam destruction on the Klamath River, ostensibly to save salmon, killed hundreds of thousands of new salmon fry because a "little human built detail" was ignored. A case of "let's kill the salmon to save the salmon!" - yes, a bit of dark humor but reinforces my point - even "experts" can't know enough about large dynamic systems to get things right.
First thought on the composting toilet was how much garden space would I loose?
Second thought was the advantage of separating g urine, as urea powered microbial biocrete is of high interest, if we can source the urea.
Third thought was that the water companies might want to support this. Dwr Cymru is at no risk of running out of water, but to achieve net zero they want to significantly reduce energy spent on cleaning water and cleaning sewage. Volume reduction is an easy goal, which also helpful in reducing high capital work to increase system capacity with population growth
During the pandemic I found myself watching hours of YouTube videos from narrowboaters as they roamed the canal network of the UK. Among their live aboard conveniences were a range of toilet solutions from pump outs to composting showing a range of ways for removing the waste from the boat. Very interesting to hear their preferences on the available solutions in a relatively tiny space.
I got into the UK narrowboat videos shortly before the pandemic but for other reasons: I loved the scenery and slow pace of constant canal travel. The only problem for me is that at 198cm height, I couldn’t fit inside one without hunching over.
I wonder about having a toilet with an exhaust fan in a tightly sealed house. Would make-up air need to be provided? Does your house smell like poop when the power goes out?
makeup air would need to be provided. often the exhaust is run through a heat recovery ventilator.and yes, your house will smell like poop when the power goes out, they had that problem at the Bullitt Center. the fans aren't huge; maybe there should be backup power.
Bathroom of the future? Mine would be a large walk-in tub (due to injuries), a shower stall large enough to fit a wheel chair (or at least transfer from wheel chair to stool and back), a wall mounted toilet so that I could have a higher and more comfortable seat and not only an ERV fan, but also an auxiliary heater keep the bathroom warm for the baths or extended showers. It would also be nice to have space for a wheelchair plus.
As for the infrastructure, I think a grey water holding tank and blackwater septic tank are mandatory and should be coded into new homes.
But I guess my future vision is more closer-termed than others.
Backcountry Yosemite, there was a solar-powered compost pit toilet. Best-smelling outhouse I ever used. The small solar panel powered an exhaust or drying fan and (I think I recall) a mixing wand for aeration. A ranger came up with his mule while we were hanging around. (It actually smelled fine in the vicinity so we had no problem eating our lunch there, unlike every other pit toilet in a national park.) He came up once a week or so, emptied the powdery-dry stuff into two special panniers. Packed it back down to the ranger station, where it was composted for a long time, then used for ornamental landscaping. This was maybe 15 years ago. I’ve been fascinated ever since, and if we ever (finally!) build a house on some land, there will be a composting toilet system and full greywater re-use, so no septic. I love your divided bathroom plan above.
Municipal water should cost 10 times as much as it does, reflecting its true value. This would be great incentive to minimize water use which in turn would mean that water and waste distribution and treatment could be downsized enormously.
In that case, glad I have my own well and septic system.
"Municipal water should cost 10 times as much as it does, reflecting its true value"
Upon reflection, how do you compute that water should be priced 10X than what it is to determine it's "true value"? What is your methodology in determining that?
Further, if you were to get your wish, what are the second and tertiary outcomes of jacking up the price of drinking water and sewage processing, especially on the poor?
Great question, Grok.
We already have a lot of low income families having to juggle their bills between rent, electric, gas, water, food, fuel, etc. and they often rotate which ones they pay and which ones they skip paying. The *actual* cost of water (at least in Phoenix) is very low; it’s all the delivery fees and taxes that add up. But one has to wonder if the fees and taxes would scale up as the price of water increases—and how already poor people will be able to pay for the increased cost if they can’t pay for it NOW.
The only way to get everyone to pay is to get the price down. We’re wasting TRILLIONS of gallons of water due to leaks in old, outdated water pipes but we’re not going after that infrastructure problem because waste isn’t taken seriously by the people who provide the resource. I find it disingenuous to say we need to pay 10x more for water if none of that extra revenue will be used to fix the delivery system.
This is always the crux of the problem when folks like Geoff throw out "10X higher" for ideological reason (I deliberately use that word because this movement has gone WAY past the actual aim "environmentalism" of the 1970s that I grew accustomed to - and agreed with.
The crux, to get back on point, is what I alluded to in my reply - "what are the ACTUAL RESULTS of the intention"? That is, opposed to what was intended.
Take the example of Chelmsford, MA (USA) from a few years ago. They made beaver trapping illegal a few years ago. The environmentalists and the no-hunting folks forgot that they had already altered the environment such that there were no more apex predators to keep the beaver population down. What was the result?
A couple of years later, massive flooding in town due to all the beaver dams that had been built up by said beavers that were ruining the conservation lands. So the environmentalists, as I recall, started dismantling them. The result water flow caused lots of home damages. No, I didn't live in Chelmsford at the time but had lived there for a few years before moving to central NH.
This is the age old issue of "systems malpractice" - make a change here and see a bad outcome somewhere else in the system. Too few people not understanding all the little details that go into a large system (like even small Chelmsford) demanding changes with all the hubris in thinking that they actually did.
Or lately, with the dam destruction on the Klamath River, ostensibly to save salmon, killed hundreds of thousands of new salmon fry because a "little human built detail" was ignored. A case of "let's kill the salmon to save the salmon!" - yes, a bit of dark humor but reinforces my point - even "experts" can't know enough about large dynamic systems to get things right.
First thought on the composting toilet was how much garden space would I loose?
Second thought was the advantage of separating g urine, as urea powered microbial biocrete is of high interest, if we can source the urea.
Third thought was that the water companies might want to support this. Dwr Cymru is at no risk of running out of water, but to achieve net zero they want to significantly reduce energy spent on cleaning water and cleaning sewage. Volume reduction is an easy goal, which also helpful in reducing high capital work to increase system capacity with population growth
During the pandemic I found myself watching hours of YouTube videos from narrowboaters as they roamed the canal network of the UK. Among their live aboard conveniences were a range of toilet solutions from pump outs to composting showing a range of ways for removing the waste from the boat. Very interesting to hear their preferences on the available solutions in a relatively tiny space.
I got into the UK narrowboat videos shortly before the pandemic but for other reasons: I loved the scenery and slow pace of constant canal travel. The only problem for me is that at 198cm height, I couldn’t fit inside one without hunching over.