I've been told, quick lime will reduce the amount in the outhouse pit. Anyone heard this, or done it?
The answer is yes, I've heard of it. No it does not work that way. Lime is used to lower the PH to allow less obnoxious bacteria do the work and do it more efficiently. I've got an outhouse on the back of the property. We have a flush toilet at the house, but keep the outhouse near our campsite a half-mile from the house. It's also strategically placed near a couple of my treestands. Nature does the work in ours. We load it up a few weekends a year. By the time we use it again, there's nothing in the pit.
1) Keep urine out. That does more to keep the smell down than anything else.
2) If you've got a dry pit, use saw dust or peat moss.
3) Ventilate well. If you've got a cloud of stink that can't go anywhere, that's no fun for anyone.
In regards to #3, I used a privy with an ingenious design a number of years ago. The fellow had built a 6 inch air space on the back wall and situated it so the back wall had a southern exposure. The privy was painted white except for the back wall which was black.
The air space conducted heated air up from under the seat and drew it up so that it vented out under the roof. The hotter it got, the better it worked. He also had his privy built on skids so he could move it around to a new hole. If I remember he was moving it about every 6 months or so.
