Karen Hansen

We make our coffee by bring 8 cups of water to boil- add 6 heaping teaspoons of ground coffee , lower flame. Definitely cowboy coffee. I play with bringing out different flavors in the coffee by playing with the temperature and the time that the coffee is left at that temperature. We are living in an 18 ft trailer after CA fire in 2020 so stove is crappy. One of these days I will take notes on my experiments. We use so much less coffee doing it this way and the coffee tastes better than Melina drip

Thank you for the reply- We did have a septic in before the fire that was never used . I have no idea how this post fire thing will ultimately play out. No one in our community can get permits as I mentioned before. Out of approx 1000 burnt homes 60 permits have been issued. We are not holding our breath.

The worms in the toilet are manure worms - They eat the manure. Lots of info in the articles I attached. Biggest problem is getting enough worms to keep up with the human manure. I started a worm bed as soon as we could get back on property after fire. I had red wiggler  fishing type worms in garden beds and started collecting them and putting them in a box and bring food from refugee camp we were staying in after fire. We were in refuge camp at fair grounds for 7 months after fire so the worms had a chance to multiply . The Tiger toilet was ready when we could finally move back to property. I hope this answers your question

I wrote about the Tiger  Toilet under the 'leach field' topic but wanted to bring it to the attention of other folks who live off grid. The toilet was developed to use in India originally for the many folks who have no other access to safe toilet facilities. We came across the information that I have attached to this post while working with our county in Calif after the fires in 2019. We live off grid and were completely burnt out, houses, barns , workshop etc etc.  Many folks in our off grid community have tried to work with our county to enable us to be permitted. My husband and daughter wrote the Class K - owner builder code using the most liberal codes used in other counties in California. I researched sanitary papers from around the world and found the papers for  Tiger Toilets.  Because of Calif department of Fire and the new roads required to be built and the millions it would cost to bring them up to Cal fire standards we gave up trying for permits.

Tiger toilets are worm composting toilets that use the tiger worm or other types of composting worms like 'red wigglers'  to process the feces.  Before we moved back to the property from the refugee trailer park we were living in, I started gathering up and propagating the worms. Anyway read  the paperwork I have attached if you are interested. If you find other interesting articles that folks might use to get these toilets permitted  please let up all know.

I have attached the Tiger Toilet manual - There is quite a bit of information online about this type of toilet - I hole this is helpful

This is in reply to a question about ‘Tiger Toilets ‘ being permitted in Calif. We didn’t even try to get a permit for the toilet - because of state fire regulations and the multi- millions of dollars to bring the community roads up to present day fire standards and to buy right of way for second official , deeded second road out of community our community of a couple hundred people are just living our lives- We would also need a third road out through the State park for folks living further back- not likely to happen- We have had folks living back here for over 80 years now. My daughter and husband worked with the county building department to write up a classK - owner builder code that did pass into the county code though  . For example you can have a composting toilet but still need a septic system and would need your alternative system tested on a regular basis at a high cost to home owners- same for septic systems -regular pumping required at high cost to owner - Hope this answers your question

Look up “Tiger Toilet”  This is an OXFam / Bill Gate foundation designed toilet system . It was designed for third world countries . We are fire victims of CZU fire in Calif and have been using one for about 8 months now. Living rough in a dinky trailer. There is a lot of information available online including bacterial tests . No leach field used but broken bricks - broken dishes etc on bottom so urine is separated from feces. This is a worm composting system . I also put kitchen compost in there to help keep my worm friends happy. Let me know if you are interested in more detail.