I Built A Outhouse

a few years ago I built a outhouse. I used poles for the frame, tin for the roof and cedar board for the skin. Pretty much built it with stuff I scrounged. The boards came from a "boiler for boards" trade.

anyhoo in my world a picture is worth a thousand words

 

Nice work........

 

Yes, it is nice work.

Randy, everything I have seen you do is top quality.


The wood is gorgeous. It looks like there's a ton of room inside of those walls for insulation, or...?


.

 

no need for insulation, if the out house is too comfortable there would be dilly dallying going on, can't have that LOL

 

I have a outhouse tip that really needs sharing, it may be well known. Put the wood shed between the house and the outhouse. That way the trip to the outhouse can be multi tasking and a arm load of wood can be brought back on the return trip.

 

That there is a right nice lookin shitter...

 

My out house doesn't even have a door . I just faced the door opening in a direction to give privacy . Seldom used I just built it for when SHTF . I think you can have a good clue as to who is a serious prepper and who is not by the fact as to whether they have a out house or not . Building one in their front yard would be a good way for city folks to pi-- off their neighbors .

 

I contemplated not having a door but figured a door was needed to keep the porcupines out.

 

Sorry for asking stupid question here, I just not familiar with it. What is the purpose of outhouse, is it for somekind of storage or something else?

 

a outhouse is a latrine

here's a bit more info

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outhouse

 

i have build two out house in my life . the first one was 4 ft x 4ft by 8 feet high. i dug the hole 6 ft deep. eventually (25 years later ) the hole was filled. so i dug a new hole and built a new one.same as before. my advice for those of you in the north climate is to get a piece of high
density foam house insulation and cut a hole the same as a toilet seat . in the winter remove the normal toilet seat and put the foam over the hole. even if it is sub zero outside the second you sit down on the foam it feels warm. try it you will like it .

 

Randy, very nice work sir.

Just an FYI for those that live in warm climates where snakes exist. LOOK DOWN BEFORE SITTING!

Dale

 

An area of definite cultural differences between Asia and North America. I don't remember seeing an outhouse anywhere in any of the Asian countries I've visited.

Dale

 

Great work. Very high quality. I have to admit, I would not have put so much effort into an outhouse. Kudos.

 

Very nice! When I was a kid ours had skids on the bottom so that when the pit was about filled to within a couple of feet of the surface we would dig a new pit drag the outhouse to the new location and use the dirt from the new hole to fill in the old one. There were some little tomatoes that were called outhouse tomatoes that we would then plant where the outhouse had been Those tomatoes would produce in clusters like grapes and were the best.

 

It's all about finesse, anything worth doing is worth doing right...LOL I have seen "path baths" that would make mine seem crude.

When I lived in Kentucky, black widow spiders were a concern on a outhouse visit.

 

a old outhouse prank although not funny is to move it back a few feet and cover the hole up with sticks and leaves. I reckon it was a devils night prank.

 

some of you may know that I'm a master plumber, I tell people that I'm number one in the number two business, perhaps it shows with the outhouse too.

 

You should mount a toilet handle to the wall just to mess with people...

 

Mine is often crawling with mice and redback voles, down in the pit.

In the winter a sharp pointed mountain of waste slowly rises as waste freezes on contact.

 

Sourdough, So, your watching for snow snakes. LOL! Also sounds like sitting down to fast in the winter can get you to the point of a problem, way to fast. LOL!

Dale

 

Looks great, love the cedar.

 

Can I share this story here. It would be better placed in jokes and humor, but this is the right theme.

Little Johnnie lived in the country. The common practice for pulling a prank was to go knock over their outhouse. Johnnie and his friends all thought it was funny. One night Johnnie came home, and his father was waiting up for him. Johnnie knew right away he was in trouble.

The father asked " Have you been out knocking over outhouses? " Johnnie was thinking. He said " Is it true that when George Washington told the truth about chopping down the cherry tree he didn't get in trouble? " The father said " Yes, that is true." So Johnnie said " Yes. I have been out knocking over outhouses."

The father proceeds to give him the whipping of his life. Absolutely blistered his behind. Through his tears Johnnie says " I thought when George Washington told the truth he didn't get in trouble?"

The father says " George Washington's father wasn't sitting in the cherry tree when he chopped it down."

Randyt: Nice job on the outhouse. You really do quality work.

 

The outhouse on the old family farm was a two holer. I guess when you have 17 kids you needed more facilities. In the winter you covered the other hole if you were alone or it was a bit drafty. In the old days, they put a Sears and Roebucks catalog in the outhouse both for reading material and toilet paper. That was before they started using slick paper in the catalogs.

 

If someone is truly planning to try to survive for months and perhaps years with not any indoor plumbing that has running water they should have a plan for human waste . It can be as nice as the one Randy t built or something cheaper from scrap and scrounged material . If someone is living isolated enough even the bucket system that LoneWolf utilized would work . It simply would be easier to make something before SHTF than wait until after SHTF . This is not something that money would likely make too far out of reach for most people to do . I just don't have much hope for a prepper if they can't even build a outhouse .

 

when I first started this thread it was really about rustic building methods, although the cedar boards are a nice touch.

It became a interesting thread about outhouses.

what we haven't talked about is waste disposal during a blizzard or some such event. Will a chamber pot suffice in the interim? Will a brave soul brave the elements and trek to the outhouse?

 

Up north for real blizzards, run a rope from the house to the outhouse until the temps get low enough to be dangerous. Here in WV we get snow, sometimes deep but seldom in the negative temps. A 5 gallon bucket will work fine when too cold to go out. When headed out, put your shoes on. My mom used to tell a story about grandpa catching her coming back from the outhouse in the snow without her shoes. He tanned her hide with a razor strap and she never went without shoe again. LOL! Tough times make for tough people . I was a teenager before my granny ever got running water in the house. I've drawn many a bucket of well water.

Another tip: Always keep a piece of stiff wire in the outhouse, just in case the lock board gets turned accidently or by someone.
A fly swatter is nice in there too in warm weather, especially for stinging guest or spiders.

Dale

 

there is a composting system called humanure. Basically the business is done in a bucket and then covered with sawdust, so on and so forth. Then the bucket is dumped in a compost area. This is the method Tim Smith uses at the Jack Mountain Bushcraft field school.

 

Tex damn, just so you know i am a plumber , anyway the city of toronto does sewage treatment, and the one thing the human body can not break down is tomatoes seeds. there is a field north of toronto where they spray the effluent and tomatoes just grow naturally. no one harvest the tomatoes that grow in this field

 

Unless much has changed, most of Asia uses human waste for fertilizer, often fresh from the source while working the fields. The things you see.

Dale

 

The outhouses were where you did most of your business during the day but at night in the dead of winter, you pulled the thunder mug out from under the bed rather than get dressed.

 

I have some mid 1950's Muzzle Blasts magazines in some of the letters to the editor Hacker Martin one of the last old time Appalachian gunsmiths talked about using chamber lye in his browning mixes.

 

I reckon that goes back to the old saying about not having a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out. Those are some fancy chamber pots

 

No need for an outhouse given that the men and women simply relieve themselves on the roadsides in front of passing traffic.

 

I hear that is becoming commonplace in places like san francisco

 

Yep, that was the same. Or in the rice fields. or where ever.

Dale

 

Didn't remember that from 30 years ago. LOL! Socialism Sickness....Destroys countries.

Dale

 

Isn't Milorganite fertilizer basically human waste? The city of Milwaukee has been making this stuff for almost a hundred years. Maybe it is a little cleaner since it is made from sewage, and processed, but it seems like the same stuff to me.

 

Sewage sludge is the churned and oxygenated waste that has had the un-natural elements (plastics, etc.) skimmed from them and usually in the second stage of the nitrogen cycle. It often depends on the size and complexity of the sewage treatment plant. The things you learn as a park ranger. The project I worked last had 3 sewage treatment plants and the effluent was disposed of by traditional dumping off site. Some places release into natural wetlands to finish the nitrogen cycle.

Dale