Drainage failure after ~3 years - Maintenance http://www.vermicompostingtoilets.net/community/maintenance/drainage-failure-after-3-years/ Vermicomposting Toilets Discussion Board en-GB Thu, 21 May 2026 16:31:02 +0000 wpForo 60 RE: Drainage failure after ~3 years http://www.vermicompostingtoilets.net/community/maintenance/drainage-failure-after-3-years/#post-532 Thu, 21 Aug 2025 13:54:59 +0000 Yes failure can be sudden. It's entirely dependent on the unique circumstances with every tank, so hard to say what caused it. Personally I would add far more of a well mixed and varied assembly of organic material to each tank. Easier to pre-mix than do it in the tank. They both look much too low. It makes them more vulnerable with less material. Maybe consider topping up more regularly?

]]> Maintenance Wendy Howard http://www.vermicompostingtoilets.net/community/maintenance/drainage-failure-after-3-years/#post-532 Drainage failure after ~3 years http://www.vermicompostingtoilets.net/community/maintenance/drainage-failure-after-3-years/#post-531 Mon, 18 Aug 2025 10:11:49 +0000 Hi Wendy, All,

I built my vermitoilet using your design, I've started using it (family of 6) early 2023, it has been good so far but 2 days ago, I found out all my worms were dead, the drainage is not working anymore, they were all drown. See picture below

https://i.postimg.cc/Gt0J8R7b/IBC-drainage-issue.jpg

I have 2 IBC tanks, the other one was never used yet, I'll call it passive tank. I had a lot of tree branches and large wood pieces for slow carbon release in the active tank, see picture below showing the other passive tank were I moved all the branches from active tank. Initially when I set up my tank, I added a lot of quick release carbon, wood chip, cardboard but it got depleted most likely, and because all the branches, I couldn't mix it up.

https://i.postimg.cc/VLtMr2nN/IBC-other-tank-wood.jpg

I think my system failed as the tank was lacking fast release wood chip to mix up with the rest, without it / carbon, it becomes too thick and blocked the drainage. Slow release carbon is fine but my branches were too long, preventing to mix it with new coarse wood piece.

The interesting bit, is on the 1st of June 2025, so not long ago, I saved all my worms from drowning, I had a blocked pipe, I fixed it and the water in the IBC tank flushed perfectly! I was really happy not having to dig into it more ... which I am doing now. So between 1st of June 2025 perfect drainage and now total failure, something happened. It was warmer than usual in Ireland, I guess it speed up the process of decomposition and led to this situation.

My plan is to:

1. Add more wood chip, the easiest to get in Ireland, to bring back the tank to a good consistency, good ratio carbon/poo & vermicast.
2. I will cut in small piece now my slow release carbon and may keep only one large for worms in case of, so I can mix the fast release carbon correctly. 
3. I will start using the 2 tanks, I will switch between the 2 tanks every 6 months, something like this.

What do you think?


Thanks a mill,
J

 

]]> Maintenance julien http://www.vermicompostingtoilets.net/community/maintenance/drainage-failure-after-3-years/#post-531