Liz Falk

hi folks,
Just curious if anybody has resources or experience to share on adding black locust saw dust to the compost bin. Obviously a rot resistant wood so would decay slower, but that could give more loft to the bin until it breaks down - which it will... Besides that, can the black locust be a problem in the bin? We don't have a ton of it, but some. It would be used in a composting bucket toilet then added to a larger bin of various browns including leaves, straw, paper, etc. so if it takes longer to breakdown, I'm not that concerned, since we let the humanure bin site for 3 years anyway.

Thanks folks. The yurt is not moveable - it's on a black locust deck and hopefully never going anywhere. I'll look into the hand pumps and the barn tank looks great. We think we are going to go with an RV style heater that can be drained when cold. I hear you about keeping it simple for hot water, but for us, moving to the yurt, living off grid and happily giving up many amenities and doing much of what we can do be sustainable we are so excited about but our one requirement - hot showers with good pressure. We all have our weak spots I guess

Thanks again.

I have a 2-3 part question/challenge. Not sure this is the right forum for posting this, but there's no "water" section that I saw.

We recently moved to 7 acres here in Upstate NY. We built a yurt, off grid, we have solar power and a composting toilet. We are trying to figure out a water solution, hot water & frost free proof.

Challenge 1: Water Source -
- We live next to our friends who have 30 acres and whom we share a 2.2 acre pond with that is about 400 feet from our yurt. The pond, as most around here, has ecoli and other things we may be able to treat to make potable.
- We tried to dig a well, but hit clay at 90 feet and stopped, hoping we have another, more affordable and clearer solution. Our neighbor friends have a good well and have told us we could dig a well on their land, but that would be about 1500 feet from our yurt - a far way to bury a water line below frost.
- We collect rainwater from the yurt's roof. This is used to give our ducks water, but is not collected into a large cistern at this time.
Currently we use our truck to bring water from the pond to a 300gallon tank outside the yurt and pump that into a sink and outdoor shower. We haul in drinking water.
Our long term thought, we plan to swale the land, capture current pond overflow and probably dig another pond or 2 on our land.
?? Should we use the pond, get a cistern, dig a well, other?
?? Any great filters people recommend? Sand, katahdin, other?

Challenge 2: Freezing Water
?? Whether we dig a well, use the pond, etc. How shall we keep the water from freezing and get it to our yurt? We can have frost anytime from October-May.
We have thought about burying a cistern under frost line, then from there into our yurt water lines wrapped in insulating/heat tape. Or perhaps bury a cistern inside a greenhouse and then bring it to the yurt.
- we have a frost free hydrant in the ground outside the yurt, currently not connected to anything. We have a grey water line out from our sink and outdoor shower and a 4 foot deep line under the yurt ready to connect to our source.

Challenge 3: Hot water
We would like to have hot water shower and sink. Currently we use a little propane RV heater and have an outdoor shower. We'd like to avoid propane, but either way can't use this inside without ventilation - challenging from inside a yurt. Are there electric hot water heaters that use very little or even DC electric?