Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Quick Lime in an Outhouse?

I've been told, quick lime will reduce the amount in the outhouse pit. Anyone heard this, or done it?

Lime will help control odor by neutralizing ammonia.

It's not going to reduce the amount of what goes in.

Sawdust will also reduce odors.

"Reduce" being the operative word, as opposed to eliminate; ain't nothing going to turn the experience into an olfactory delight.

John, there is a difference between lime, and quick lime. The visit to the old outhouse is a trade off, need I say more?

The first thing quicklime will do is react with any water/moisture and dry out the waste, which will reduce effectiveness of the "normal" processes that breakdown the waste, will not reduce volume of waste. Also a great way to get chemical burns if you're not careful.

Hydrated or agricultural lime will help reduce odor and control insects, but adds additional solids and will also slow down normal decomposition. Fairly easy to get and inexpensive, but will still burn your ass if you get it on the seat!

Chlorinated lime is more of the same, but a little better at odor control. Harder to find these days and more expensive. Still adds volume and slow decomp, doesn't reduce volume. Don't try to use pool chlorine, bleach, calcium hypochlorate or other similar stuff to control odors. You can end up with explosive gases (more than normal ) or spontaneous combustion.

We use hydrated lime occasionally in our hunting camp outhouse when odor gets bad in warmer weather, but not often.

We just dump a bit of wood stove ash in ours.

We just flush ours...

i think that was the old school way of doing it. but it stops the natural bacterial action of decomposition. you want to speed it up. i would suggest buying a half dozen packs of cheap bread yeast and mixing it with 5 gallons of water and dumping it in and see what that does. that is basically what i do with my septic tank but i do it with my leftover yeast from beer making.

Adding yeast isn't necessary.

When you use the outhouse for it's intended purpose, you've already introduced all the bacteria you need.

Make sure you have a good ventilation system and that will help more than additives

They can be high maintenance.

No doubt!

When I was in high school, I worked for a guy for a summer job that had a ranch outside Pagosa Springs, CO. The homestead there had an outhouse. Being young, I didn't know why he kept a 30-30 in the outhouse...

I found out why.

HS kids trying to tip it over?

Bars!

Ha! Now we are off on the old tipping over the outhouse. The pranksters would sneak down the ally at night, so the victim-to-be would move the house forward, leaving the pit ally side.

No additives allowed, I let the pit work a natural process, but I have signage to warn the faint of heart.

How is a person supposed to get his ass pinched when you finish off the wood like that?!

John, ever use the outdoor privy at say, minus 40C?

I have not. My experiences with them at the relatives were always in the plus 90F range with the accompanying flying insects and profound aroma.

Sounds like a democratic convention.

At 40 below of either scale blue foam is your best friend.

bender, we both know that, I was trying to throw a scare into poor old John. I wrapped my foam toilet seat with plastic, it seemed to be more sanitary?

Blue foam pipe insulation, a five gallon bucket and a trash bag. Assembled properly and you have a portable outhouse and can drop a nasty wherever ya want with minimal stinking. Pitch the trash bag appropriately and smile at the convenience.

I must say that is one fine looking chitter

You got that right Crow, I'd be to scared to "use", it.

I bet it takes more than that to scare 'poor old John'!

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.