Toilet Project - Need Help

[2manyrocks]

I agree that the typical potty installed in an RV is not what he wants--a regular toliet would be cheaper and as has been pointed out, can be flushed with a bucket of water, too.

Of course, the unanswered question is who is going to keep it clean?

 

[ampsucker]

all good input and options.

i'll just chime in with a vote for a composting toilet which is green friendly uses water only for cleaning the bucket once a month. no septic or plumbing required. and it teaches the kids and grownups a little something about the environment. i have a set up like this in my current barn and it works great. hardly any odor at all once you get the hang of it and only dump once a month or so.

i use sawdust in mine. sawdust is usually free and one trailer load dumped outside by the barn will last you several years. do a google search for composting toilet if interested. i made mine with an old commode and 4 five gallon buckets. (one bucket for current use, one spare, two buckets of clean, dry sawdust.)

i'll also let you know that i've plumbed a toilet the way you are describing and all you need is a single lateral or leach line and a 55 gallon bucket for a septic tank. that will easily handle a single toilet as long as you aren't using a sink or shower draining into it. i have had a successful set up in a shop like this for over 8 years. every time they come to pump out the big house septic tank, we check the little 55 gallon toilet tank at the workshop and there are no solids in it. it handles a single toilet with one or two users just fine.

amp

 

[CurlyDave]

... I drove a shallow well (45ft) last summer for drinking water and lucked into a flowing well that produces at approximately 1 gallon per minute. This well sits 2 feet from my barn and I would like to add a toilet in the barn for those impromptu moments that we all have.

The barn has a concrete floor and footing. I was thinking about building a platform to put the toilet on and conceal the plumbing. Then run the black water out through the wall of the barn into a septic tank. How can I use the flowing well to "flush" the toilet?...

Lets hear your thoughts.

The toilet flushes from water in the toilet tank, If you have ~ 1 gpm at the a height higher than the top of the toliet tank, it will fill and subsequently flush with no holding tank required.

The real problem you have is that the "shallow well" is only 2' from the barn and you want the toilet in the barn. In my neck of the woods, the county requires that a septic field be at least 100' from a well, for obvious reasons of contamination. The fact that you have a shallow well makes this very important, and would place the septic field further from the well if at all possible.

IMHO a well is a lot more valuable than a toilet, and I would think about putting the septic tank much further from the well. If there is any area downhill from the well, you can run PCV pipe to a small shed you build to temporarily house the toilet.

Think about your future plans for the property. If you are going to build a house locate the septic field where it should be for the house location and put a temporary structure for the toilet nearby. Even if you have to carry water there by bucket, ruining a good well with a nearby septic field is not in your best interest.

 

[EddieWalker]

Agree with Dave. You want the drain line to go as far as possible away from your well. Just run allot of pipe to get it there!!!

You said that the water is flowing from a spring. Is it safe to assume that the height of the water is at 3ft above the floor of where the toilet will be?

I would just buy a $99 toilet kit from the box store to use. The trick is to make sure the water full line in the tank is lower then the height of your spring. Water will always seek it's own level, so if the tank is below the spring, you can fill the tank with the spring.

Just run a pipe to the bottom of the tank and let the water fill it up. It will be slower then a toilet in a house, but the water will flow uphill from it's own pressure to seek that level from where it came from. When the tank is full, the float will close the valve. It's pretty simple.

The biggest problem will the the height of that tank. If it's close, I would cut out the concrete and mount the toilet flush. You will need electricity for this, but with a generator for power, it's pretty simple to do.

I use a regular 7 1/4 inch circular saw with a diamond masonary blade in it to cut the square that I want to remove. A 3 inch pipe is all you need for a toilet drain, so make the hoe 4 inches . After you cut the cemnet, break it out. I've used cement drill bits to break up the cement and beat it with a hammer and chisel when I've had no other choice. An air hammer with a pointed chisel tip on it works too, but it's slow and noise. My SDS Max rotary hammer works the best. It's a super duper concrete drill that also has a jackhammer mode that just melts through concrete.

Once you have the hole, dig a ditch next to the foundation where you want the pipe to come out and start tunneling. In most cases, I use a water hose, but since you don't have any water pressure, you will have to do it all by hand. It's a slow process to tunnel under a slab, but you shouldn't have to go very far. Keep that in mind when you position the toilet.

I know this sounds like a fair amount of work, but it should only take a few hours if you stick with it. Most people get intimidated about doing this before even starting and end up creating a box to mount the toilet on, then hate it. I've seen this on several homes where they didn't now how to go through the concrete. I'm done with it so quickly that it's almost funny to hear the reasons why they couldn't do it.

Do it right and be proud of it, or do it wrong and regret it forever.

Eddie

 

[NonTypicalCPA]

Thanks for the help. I like the idea of running a line from the well directly to the tank and bypassing the need for a holding tank. I think the well head will be high enough to accomplish this. How do I install an overflow line in the tank? I don't want the excess water to run down the toilet as I will only be installing a septic tank, probably a 55 gallon drum as mentioned above, no drain field for the reason of sanitation mentioned above. The toilet will only get very minimal use and a 55 gallon drum should give me enough time between pump outs.

For the overflow line, can I just drill a hole into the side of the toilet tank and plumb a line into it? I'm no plumber so any help here would be appreciated.

The idea of the 5 gallon pail would be easier, but with the flowing well I want the convenience of the always full tank.

 

[EddieWalker]

Stop over thinking it. There is no overflow line on a toilet in your house or anywhere else. There is a float inside the tank. When that water in the tank gets to a certain level, that float closes a valve and stops the water from flowing into the tank. When the valved closes, the water stops flowing. No extra water, no need for an overflow line.

Lots of trailers at deer camps use a 55 gallon drum for a septic tank. It's illegal, but it gets the job done. For a leach field, hay is also used allot of the time with some slotted pipe. Again, it's illegal and not something you would ever want anybody to know about. Even here. This is just a discussion on theory, not a recommendation on what you should do.

Eddie

 

[NonTypicalCPA]

all good input and options.


i'll also let you know that i've plumbed a toilet the way you are describing and all you need is a single lateral or leach line and a 55 gallon bucket for a septic tank.

amp

Is the lateral/leach line the line that fills the tank from the well? Also, how did you connect the toilet to the 55 gallon bucket? I'm assuming the bucket had a removable lid for pump out? or did you just cut a hole in the top and cover with something when in use? Did you cut holes in the bottom of the bucket - I'm assuming this because you mentioned there were no solids in there when you checked it for pumping.

Thanks for your help. I'm trying to get this right the first time.

 

[NonTypicalCPA]

Stop over thinking it. There is no overflow line on a toilet in your house or anywhere else. There is a float inside the tank. When that water in the tank gets to a certain level, that float closes a valve and stops the water from flowing into the tank. When the valved closes, the water stops flowing. No extra water, no need for an overflow line.

Eddie

I agree that the float would cause the valve to close thus shutting off the water to the tank under a normal installation. But my well is going to continue to flow and I need a system that redirects that water once the tank is full. Any ideas?

 

[EddieWalker]

Put a "T" in the line. In a house, there is the main water line and the lines that go off of it to service each location that water is needed. With yours, it's just a cold water line. Run it to it's location and split it to where the toilet will be.

Eddie

 

[CurlyDave]

1. Before you spend a nickel on a toilet, it is time to start thinking about how you are going to winterize it.

2. The 55 gallon drum you are contemplating is a "holding tank" not a septic tank. Even if you get 48 gallons real capacity, you will need to empty it every 30 flushes (with a 1.6 gallon toilet). This is not going to be a walk through the rose garden. How are you going to get the sewage out? What are you going to do in the winter when you get a 40-50 gallon sewage ice cube in there?

3. If you use a metal 55 gallon drum, it will eventually corrode and leak sewage. This will contaminate your well. It is absolutely going to happen at some point in the future, no matter how careful you are now.

Bring in enough sewer pipe to get the toilet outflow at least 100' from the well.

Now this is probably illegal, but for occasional use you can punch holes in a 55 gallon drum, bury it and fill it with gravel. If you can get your tractor up there to dig a bigger hole, you can burry a junk car & run the sewer pipe in one window before you backfill. This is a poor man's septic tank in a lot of places.