Wyatt Barnes

Hello Joe it has been a while. I am at 5 1/2 years without a flush toilet in my house, after replacing my septic system two years before that, so I feel qualified to comment on this topic. I found that all of the statements in the book about odour, covering and composting proved to be accurate in practise. I highly recommend the book as a resource for anyone wanting an alternative to traditional sanitary solutions. I also found that the portability of the toilet was handy during renovation and sickness as well as during hydro outages. It is amazing how little water is needed in a house on any given period of time without a flush toilet. Not a system for everyone but it has worked well for me. Thanks Joe for the enlightenment.

Since I don't have blackwater, or a flushable toilet in my house, it would be very easy for me to tap into outgoing greywater. Unfortunately I am also on a small town lot and use very little outside plant water so at this point there is no reason to. I do like the concept though and for very little extra piping a future diverter could be allowed for in a new drain system. Oddly enough unlike most people I would consider urine safe for food plants but not greywater.

Compost everything in the humanure pile a la Joe Jenkins. Nothing has bothered mine in 4 years and I add any bones, scraps fat or rodents that the household produces.

I try to do my part, today I killed134 deer flies. I dont count one unless I see a dead body. About 120 of these were killed in my truck cab in two go's. They follow me in to the cab, I roll up the drivers window and don't stop killing until it is just me in there. Not very practical but if you have ever tried to work around them using both hands you will know how satisfying it is to me.

Hmmmm elephant. A long journey starts with a single step and lots of farming tasks are repetative over periods of time to compensate for undersized equipment and workforces.

I have wondered about a grid of pipes just under the driveway surface to carry water from a submerged tank pushed by a small sump pump. The tank would need to be below frost and the pipes would have to be self draining. Ground temps are 45 to 50 F so circulating that temp under the driveway would thaw snow...eventually. What I don't know is how big the tank would need to be to absorb that much cold without freezing and have enough surface area to shed it before the next use. Or maybe like a ground source heat pump there would need to be deep buried pipes to spread the cold out.

Insulating your arch would save fuel, but for speed you either need to increase pan area or increase burn temps. Without a lot of work or money pan size area is the way to go, longer arch, more pans and only have the fire at the front with a limited amount of depth below the back pans so the smoke/heat has to rise and contact the pan surface instead of sneaking by to the chimney. I would avoid a water heater for boiling for toxicity sake. Saving time however can mean just not being there when it is boiling. On my setup I use deep pans and a large firebox. I am rarely near my boil more than 15 minutes per loading. I fill my pans, fill my firebox and leave to repeat either hours later or the next day. This does not give me a good gallons per hour boiling rate overall but my rate for boiling per hour I am there is decent.  My ideal is at least two fires per day, the first heats everything up and removes some liquid, the second while everything is hot removes much more in the pans overall. My rig is remote to my house so this works best if I am doing some other chores nearby like cutting firewood. Fire, cut wood for a couple of hours, repeat. On a day where I can fire four times I boil off quite a bit and only spend about an hour doing it. My pans are homemade stainless steel, about 8 inches deep and the stove has a firebox that will hold a small wheelbarrow of wood.

Excellent news thanks for sharing. I too am a firm believer in making authorities quote the details for a decision, very often they have misinterpreted or misapplied a rule and cannot justify their initial reaction with facts. At other times they misspeak and should be saying " we don't want you to do this " instead of " you are not allowed to do this."

Sorry but I didn't understand the term " leftover roast ", I am not sure I have ever heard that said.

I use to climb hydro poles, which are easier to climb than trees, and I have pruned from the ground and from a ladder and my advice is use a long ladder tied off at shoulder height and then at the top first time up if you have to prune. Having been around dying and iffy trees though my preference is to drop the whole thing and even then many safety precautions are needed. Any chance you could trade off a personal skill for an foresters time? Technically you don't even need a forester, just a feller, and no that is not a typo.