Any experience of using or running a composting toilet?

[greengrass53]

Hi, we have just bought a property that has a holiday let business attached to it. The letting/advertising strategy of the previous owner was aimed at sensible/mature women reunions and hen week ends who want to get into the outdoor scene (sleeps 12) - lots of woods on my property and plenty of hill walking round here. I plan to continue this (definitely don't want stag parties or student groups). The property has 3 good bathrooms but I want to make a garden loo so that we can accommodate tents and extend the outdoor theme for party/barbecue in the woods/gardens. I'm looking at a basic composting loo like this www.littlehouse.co/shop/separett-privy-501/
and www.littlehouse.co/2015/12/community-garden-in-wales-builds-own-compost-toilet/
Have you ever used such a facility and what did you think?
Have you ever run one? How much work is there and how difficult is it? Did you provide water to flush the urine channel (I'm concerned it will smell if not flushed through regularly)

I'm planning to run the urine feed with rain run-off to a fenced off meadow plot and putting the solids/sawdust to a dug pit with soil/sand infill. I'm kind of hoping that it will mainly get used for wee only (party time and middle of the night use only). I'm even thinking of saying no pooping and calling it a girls urinal - is that practical and would you be OK if faced with that? (better than weeing in the woods which I have found evidence that the guests do now).

Thanks for any feedback GG

[Ditsy4]

Yes I have used one. I thought it was fine. Will pm you the details.

[britnay]

We have built one up at our stables for customers to use. its basically a large heavy duty plastic bucket, built into a wooden box with a loo seat over the top. Next to this we have a bucket filled with sawdust and a scoop, and toilet roll.

You start it off with a few layers of sawdust at the very bottom. After you've done your business, just add one scoop for wees and two (or more if required!) for poos, making sure that everything is covered. It doesn't smell bad at all, smells even better if you get very nice sawdust (but we just use the stuff that we get free from the sawmill down the road).

It gets emptied roughly when its about 2/3 full. We are lucky that we already have large compost heaps on the property, so it just gets emptied onto those and it all breaks down very quickly.