Have you constructed and installed a vermicomposting flush toilet yourself? If so, we would love to hear from you and feature your project here so others can benefit from your experience. Please read on for more details.
If you’d like your project to be included here, please write to us and tell us about it. The more detail you go into and the more photos you can send, the better. Please tell us especially about
- • how long you’ve had the system in operation and how satisfied (or otherwise) you are with it
- • how many people’s waste the system is handling and whether you run grey water through it as well
- • how you constructed your worm tank enclosure and what materials you used
- • what mix of organic materials you’ve used for your worm tank and which have been the most successful
- • what species of worm you have in the tank and where you got them from
- • how you sized and arranged your ‘greenfilter’ areas and what you grow there
- • the unique challenges presented by your site and how you worked around them
- • any design variations you included and how successful (or otherwise) they’ve been
- • any problems you encountered and how you solved them
If you’re willing to allow people to visit your vermicomposting toilet to see one in operation for themselves, please let us know your location and how people can contact you.
Greetings,
I would like to build these on my research farm in the USA, however, I need some documentation showing that it has been approved by another local government. Can you supply such a document?
Sincerely,
– Paul
I’ll see what I can source. But this is Portugal, so i) it will be in Portuguese and ii) it will probably take months to get hold of. Have you tried contacting Anna Edey?
Paul,
I am in the USA as well and am also intrested in using this system at me farm. Did you get the documentation and if so, were you able to get approval for the system.
I’m still waiting on my local municipality coming up with documentation for Paul. Things move very slowly here. Especially since over 90% of this region was destroyed by wildfires last year and addressing this is the number one priority for the understaffed and under-resourced council.
Hello Wendy, I am from Greece. We would like to constract a vermicompost system in our farm. It would helpful also for us if you have already this document. We can translate it our own. Thank you, and we will give feedback when it will be ready.
No documentation will be forthcoming for the foreseeable future I don’t think. There were local elections and the councillor for the environment changed. The new guy has other priorities and a very different perspective.
However there is a woman working on approval in New Mexico, USA. So far it looks as if she has got conditional approval to go ahead with construction. Full approval will depend on the results from the system. I will post details when I have them with her permission.
Anyone wanting info on other jurisdictions approvals: google “worm septic Australia” or “worm septic New Zealand” — it has been approved there for years and there are several companies selling systems commercially there.
Greetings Wendy Howard,
I just found this and my other post. This site is difficult to navigate as the posts aren’t easily found/in the same area and I cannot post on the forum even though I registered.
Portuguese will be fine. I should be able to cut and paste it to Google translate.
Thank you very kindly.
Sincerely,
– Paul
I am building one of these systems “off-grid” in the US.
Will collect photos and/or video as I go and report back when I have time.
Hey Anthony! Thanks very much. I’ll look forward to it.
Thanks for your encouragement Wendy,
Our Septic Tank/Leach Field failed this Spring after 60 years. Soooo, of course I see opportunity for a project 😉
We usually have a local source of mixed wood chips but there has been a dearth all Summer, so we’re waiting for one of the Tree companies to bring in their Stump Grinder to create a supply at their composting facility.
I was going to run the Blackwater straight from the IBC straight into a Green Filter Bed but am thinking now I will add a Bio-filter Bed with some evergreen Flowering Gingers as Secondary treatment before its output then going on to the Green Filter Bed. The Gingers will also help screen the IBC from view. Maybe some Willows as well to polish.
I am leaving some space between elements of my system in case I want to experiment with adding different trenches, plants or size of element area.
Today I will cut the tank top and cut some Shade Cloth to top-off the Rock layer in the tank.
The entire hillside below our system is planted with Apple, Plum, Citrus. Berries and flowering shrubs, mostly drought resistant and needing little water, so any cleaned effluent will go to them most likely via garden hose rather than fixed, inflexible hard pipe.
My Vermi-Chamber will be 50 Meters(150′) from the house since the access driveway sits in-between, and the old Septic Tank sits next to the house.
Because of this constriction near the house, I will use a 120 Liter(30Gal) ‘Sewage Basin’ (0.7M Diam, 1M Depth)with a Sewage Pump and Float-Switch so the waste will drain into the Sewage Basin through standard 10cm(4″) sewage pipe, activating the pump when the sewage level in the Basin reaches a set-point which then Macerates and Pumps the Effluent through 5cm(2″) Pipe down-slope to the IBC Vermi-Chamber.
I inserted the pump in the system since it is a long run from our house to the IBC tank and I was afraid the Effluent might settle and dry in the pipe, perhaps clogging if left to rely upon gravity flow only. The pump will create smaller pieces so the the worms should reduce the manure and paper more quickly.
The Basin/Pump will be sub-surface and sited right next to the old concrete septic tank.
This requires some wiring for the pump and slight energy usage, but we have Grid-Tied Solar so we produce enough extra to cover the small needs of the pump. The 1/2HP pump will run only for 10-15 seconds at most each cycle.
One issue I need to deal with is that we lose grid every year from Winter storms, sometimes as long as two weeks, so I will have to move to off-grid solar (some day) or have a generator or small battery/inverter backup system or we’ll have toilet backup issues.
Some Costs($USD):
– IBC Tank $75 (local Organic Fertilizer Company, held Kelp; I now get Organic Food-Grade IBC for Free from a Food Processor, and sell them)
– $100 120L Sewage Basin (Plastic)
– $350 Sewage Pump
– $0 Chips
– $120 for 140′ 2″ Piping + 2″ Piping for Green Filter
– $0 Worms (we already have 10 Sq M of Worm Bins for home/garden)
Approx. Total = $750
Note that in our area ‘standard’ anaerobic Septic or Mound Systems can cost $20-$50k+ installed! So this Vermi-Chamber will save us from working for others this year to pay for permits and the labor of others, as we are semi-retired.
I hope the day comes when these systems are legal here. Someone told me the fines here for altering septic systems in any way are well over $5k!
Anthony
PNW America
Thanks so much for posting this Anthony! Any chance of some photos? You can send them to me at the email address on the Contact page.
Way to go, Anthony. I really appreciate your willingness to accept risk and innovate despite monopolistic practices and collusion of local governments and local “professionals”… I can understand not posting pictures of your system… especially if you live in a litigious jurisdiction that is chronically over-budget and hunting for more sources of “revenue” to scrape from individuals’ estates via fines converted to tax liens before an estate tax is even appropriate…
Hello Paul:-)
I’m very happy to have found your website! I have been intrigued by Anna Edey’s flushing compost toilet since I first read about it several years ago. I have talked with her on the phone but never got as much detail as what you have provided… so thank you for your lucid instruction!
Since I rent, I have to live vicariously through my clients. I’m finally able to build one of these systems in Southern CA! I will be interfacing the brownfilter with a rear outlet .95gpf toilet and macerating pump that will pump the material uphill where the vermicomposting “brownfilter” will be located in the shade of macadamia trees. The greenfilter will be gravity fed and will also be tied into the greywater from the lavatory and outdoor shower. I will do my best to document as much as possible. Cheers!
Hi Allan. Thanks for your comment. But who’s Paul?! This site is run by me (Wendy) with Filipa (Portuguese architect). To be honest, I don’t know how similar my system is to Anna Edey’s because the detail was absent from her accounts of it and I couldn’t get a response out of her to ask. I figured it out from what she described.
One thing to watch out for if you’re macerating the solids … it will take much longer for the liquid component to separate out of the resultant sludge so you will have this liquid sludge sitting at the top of the tank. Because it’s also more liable to spread, being semi-liquid, during periods of heavy use, you could potentially run into the situation where you create an anaerobic layer at the top of your tank. If this persists for any length of time, you will drown your worms. This is why in many ways it’s preferable to collect the filtered water at the other end of the tank and pump that up to a greenfilter instead.
The good news is that the system recovers pretty quickly once those anaerobic conditions are removed. You’ll need to replace the lost population but if it’s already been in use some time, there will be plenty of worm eggs in the organic matrix. It will benefit from being forked through to get the air in there, but you don’t need to replace the entire compost.
If you have no choice but to macerate and pump the solids, then I’d maybe consider adding some kind of intermediary containment immediately below the pump inflow to stop the sludge spreading out across the entire surface area of the tank. It would need to be freely accessible to the worms of course and also free draining. Off the top of my head, I’d maybe try a containing hoop of about 30″ diameter sunk about 6″ into the organic material and protruding about 8″-10″ above it, perforated at regular intervals with worm-sized holes below the surface and solid above the surface. This one’s up for experimentation!
Good luck! And yes – please report back! There’s a lot of people in similar situations who would find your experience valuable.
Wendy, Paul is one of the people posting comments to this article… I think he was asking about supporting documentation to provide to his local authorities since they probably have never authored anything as revolutionary as this sewage treatment solution… Some local authorities (ie, governments) are not well-read much less well-written but they still assume the title of authority and unfortunately try to monopolize the title… So a solid set of scientifically/engineered documentation (no matter where it may apply) goes a long way toward getting approval… It appeals to the personal pride of the professionals employed and delegated by the State as well as the corporate pride of the local authorities as they virtue signal to each in meetings and other formal proceedings in which they may need to vote or support your position to the others required to “sign off” on your permit or whatever form of approval is needed to keep the threat of force of the State from interrupting your plans…
Hello,
I’m doing some research on options for wastewater treatment on a cabin. However, I live in Bozeman, Montana where as of today (April 1) we have blistering winds out of the west that have dropped temperatures below freezing. I’m simply curious about whether this system would work in such a cold climate (i.e. most evenings, even in summer June -July the temperatures can be 50 degrees F or lower).
Do you have any suggestions?
Do you have worms in your soils? If so, then yes. You need to keep the tank insulated. It’s probably best in a location where it won’t freeze.
Hello Wendy,
So happy to come across this website with really great designs and information on worm toilets.
I have been struggling with a compost toilet for years primary because I can’t seem to get it to compost properly. It is a system that flushes with water and has a separate drum for collection. It is heavy on the maintenance and fairly costly to run.
The more I read and learn about worms the more I’m convinced that this may be the way to go.
I live in Nova Scotia on the Minas Basin where the temperatures are below freezing 6 months a year. I’m thinking of building the worm tank housing in the crawlspace under the cabin replacing the space that the composter takes up. Then run my soakaways down the slope into a flower garden patch. I wonder if you have any comments? When I get going, I would love to document the process for the (hopefully) benefit of your readers.
Hi Bonnie. Thanks for the comment. Hard for me to say as I personally don’t have experience of your climate. I guess it all depends on your frost depth? Does the ground freeze solid under your cabin? Regardless, the worms will slow down a LOT in the cold season. If it’s just you using the toilet, this might be OK. But guessing one of the possible reasons for your existing toilet not composting properly might be your temperatures? Worth a try – since until we collectively push against the limits of the system, we won’t find where those limits are. but I would have my doubts about cold season performance. Basically, if there are no worms active in your garden soils during the winter months, then they won’t be doing much in the worm tank either. Good luck!
Hi Wendy,
I just published our first blog post on our (conditionally) permitted build in the US. It’s at BrownKawa.com
It’s not much yet, just the briefest info about worm composting and getting the permit… we will add posts showing the build before long.
You are more than welcome to use any of this as you see fit; lord knows I have used masses of your great info!!
Anyone else reading this who wants to share info, please do, but please link back to our blog when doing so.
Cheers!
We just finished building our vermifilter septic system, and I am sharing in case others are interested.
Here is a blog post about our permitting process.
https://www.brownkawa.com/post/first-worm-septic-system-permit-in-the-usa
Here is another blog post about our build.
https://www.brownkawa.com/post/building-our-worm-septic-system
The system is still months away from being in operation, since we haven’t plumbed our house yet… but we will be taking water quality data quarterly for at least the first year to assess the effluent coming out of the tank. We were required to install a drainfield for the purposes of our permit, but are also eager to see if the effluent is suitable for irrigation.