Compost toilet for a village house with very little garden

Hello everybody,

We just bought a village house with a small garden behind the house. There is no front garden as the house is in a very small street (ruelle) in the center of the village. The garden is 50 square meters and closed by stone walls. I always thought I would have a compost toilet in my next house but I wonder how we will manage ! There is a flush toilet on the groundfloor that we may keep for the visitors. We are to live there my companion and I. We have allready experienced compost toilet in various places. We thought a basic compost-toilet with a bucket and sawdust would be convenient in the bathroom (upstairs). We will make a compost bin in the garden for all organic waste.
But I wonder about the volume of waste. I guess we won't let it compost 2 years in the compost bin. As the garden is small, we will have to evacuate the compost (rather fresh than mature compost) out of the house and bring it to another garden to finish the process (probably in a farm where my companion works) - which means using the car... It won't be the most practical as when you have a big garden next to your house... Even with only the kitchen waste, we would have to evacuate the compost because it would be too much volume to put in the garden. The groundfloor level is 50cm below the garden level so we surely won't make raised beds as we want to have the light and sunshine coming into the house.

Would you have any suggestions ?

I think a willow feeder would suit you very well.

Basically you use a barrel, actually several barrels, and the poop is stored in it for two years so that it is pathogen free and can then be put safely on the ground.

This video might explain it a bit better.



If you use a barrel the right size for you to be able to physically transport it, when it's full you can just take it to the farm you mentioned and stash it out of the way until it's ready to empty. You'll end up with several barrels, so make sure they're labelled with the date they can be safely emptied.

Here's my thread on our experiments making and using one - Experimenting with the willow feeder idea...

Thank you Burra for your suggestion. I think the barrel would be huge and not pretty in our bathroom ! We would need maybe a 30 l barrels to make it practical to get down the stairs and out of the house.  But maybe we could replace the flushtoilet by this willow feeder - because the toilet is on the groundfloor down the corridor in front of the entrance door. But what about the urine ? would it to be sent into the sewage system ? Still the information about the volume and time is interesting - if 5 people fill a 120l barrel in 3 months, then 2 persons would fill 120 l barrel in 71/2 months or 2 x 60 l barrels or 4 x 30 l barrels... But the volume are different with a compost toilet which does not separate the urine...

Kali De Keyser wrote: But what about the urine ? would it to be sent into the sewage system ?

Paul's system involves peeing outside where possible, as does mine. Though I have a bucket for me personally to use just in case a passenger train goes past at the wrong moment... I think you'd have to figure out a system for the pee that suits your own needs. Can your garden use all your pee? Will the neighbours complain if they notice?

Still the information about the volume and time is interesting - if 5 people fill a 120l barrel in 3 months, then 2 persons would fill 120 l barrel in 71/2 months or 2 x 60 l barrels or 4 x 30 l barrels... But the volume are different with a compost toilet which does not separate the urine...

Check out my thread as a few people have put some ideas there. It seems that different households need quite vastly different volumes of barrel space. Also there seems be quite a big saving if you use bigger barrels - I think it compacts over the course of a few weeks. Hard and fast rules don't seem to apply.

Well surely a 50 square meter garden cannot receive all the urine of two persons. It would be much too much for the plants and soil.
As for the barrels big ones are too unpratical to carry - we are in our sixties and won't be getting younger
i'll try to find other ideas of volumes.

Hi Kali,
too much compost. What a nice problem to have.
I think you’ll be surprised about how fast the compost will loose volume, especially when you have a bin system combining kitchen scraps and humanure.
If you can make 2 bins roughly 1x1x1m I think you should be fine with 2 people. This means you can let the compost rest for a full year and you don’t have to interact with fresh humanure.

If you have any garden surface you would also be surprised how much compost can be integrated into the soil.
For example: you have 50m2, you spread compost on half of it, and let’s just presume you make 1m3 a year in compost that’s just 4cm of compost on the surface. And it’ll be incorporated by worms etc

I don’t think there is such a thing as too much urine if you have brown matter, like sawdust, wood shavings, wood chips, biochar, or other materials to soak it up. I would definitely start off by taking it to the farm if you have to, anything to prevent it from being wasted, but maybe you will figure out a better system.

Hello Benjamin,
The soil in the garden is already quite rich and some plants prefer not too rich soils (vegetables like humus rich soil but not all plants do). From my experience soil builds up and the level of soil rises as time goes, if soil is not worked or tilled and if old leaves and plant residues from last season are used as mulch. I wonder actually if this is not the reason why the level of the garden is higher than the floor level of the house and also the level of the neighbour's courtyard ? As the house is old and so is the garden (it is a medieval village).  

But you're right having too much compost is rather a nice situation ! And the soil at the farm certainly needs some more organic matter.
That is what we thought of building - compost bins of 1 cubic meter.

I can’t believe I’m suggesting it because it sounds so unlikely to ever happen to me, but you may want to remove soil from your garden beds. Take that soil to the farm or sell/barter/give it to neighbors that need it for their gardens. Then compost at your home. When the beds get too tall or rich in ten years or so, repeat.

Hello R Scott,
Well I'd rather move compost from a bin than remove soil - it seems easier to me and surely less disturbing to soil and plant life... the garden is full of plants : melissa, rhubarb, raspberry, redcurrant, roses, ferns and as the season advances, I will surely discover new plants.
We also plan to dig into the garden to put a water tank but that is another project...

Hello M Ljin,
I meant too much urine to spread in the garden directly. But to mix with sawdust into the compost bins is fine.
I just wonder about the quantities/volume of humanure... I guess we'll just build the compost bins and see how it goes.

Kali De Keyser wrote:Hello R Scott,
Well I'd rather move compost from a bin than remove soil - it seems easier to me and surely less disturbing to soil and plant life... the garden is full of plants : melissa, rhubarb, raspberry, redcurrant, roses, ferns and as the season advances, I will surely discover new plants.
We also plan to dig into the garden to put a water tank but that is another project...

I had annual veggie beds in my mind. It’s definitely a non starter for perennials. I just thought it could be a once a decade job instead of a once a week job. Plus you could probably get the person getting the soil to do most the heavy work.

I don't think it will be one a week's job to empty the compost bins but longer periods... but in ten years time when I'll be older it may be a good option ?
For the moment, I plan to grow mostly herbs and my favourite plants - flowers for their beauty ! and some berries - the vegetables will be at the farm...