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GBlist: Re: Sustainable Home
On 7/22/97 7:00 AM David L wrote:
>Thank you for your references to composting toilet web sites. I've seen
>these. The value of this discussion group however is in the practical real
>world advice we get from people out there who've used the various systems.
>I've done a lot of reading about the many possibilities for the variety of
>options we have for toilets, greywater systems, heating water, etc but I
>would appreciate receiving experience advice from this group.
The Sun-Mar style composting toliets don't work, except maybe in
wilderness cabin situations. I have numerous examples of dedicated green
lifestyle people who have yanked them in less than a year. The Clivus
style toliets do work well. The crux of the matter is CT's have to be
designed from the beginning into the house and the owners have to work
with them. Since they are fairly simple, the best plan is to custom
make a solar heated CT while the house is being built (needs 2 stories).
I bought plans from John Cruikshank.
As for greywater, there are as many solutions as there are code
interpretations. As I've said a few times in the past, I feel this is
more of a permit issue than a design issue; there are many great plans,
the difficulty is getting them approved. In my particular situation
(which will be different than yours), I am simply double plumbing the
house drains to an upside down "Y", and calling for inspection. After
that, we come back to the "Y", which has a gate valve, and hook the
greywater drain onto it which goes outside the house, to whatever system
I feel is best at the time. Additionally, since we have a separate drain
run from the baths, we hook up a GFX (hot water recovery unit) to the
same line.
>An earlier plea regarding the latter topic, for instance, has gone
>un-answered. ie, A group who deals in the variety of alternative heating
>systems as well as the old-fashioned gas or electric fired hot water heater
>says that the latter is the best most efficient way to do it. Any comments?
How would you like to define "efficient"? These questions can only be
considered in a wholistic context: What's the budget? What are your
design goals? How much time/skill/help do you have? What's your source
and cost of power?
>Geothermal heating. What are the precautions of which I should be aware?
Watch out for lava flows?
Have Fun!
Buzz Burrell
Bolder Building
Boulder, CO
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