Friday, September 15, 2017

Running water in an Outhouse
Unknown2:52 PM


Running water in an outhouse is a pure luxury experience. It is wonderful to be able to wash your hands in clean water and grey water flows to a suitable location.
This feat was achieved when I was running PVC pipes to fill the Cowboy Hot Tub. It was a matter of making a few extra lengths that ran to some rain barrels. For now, water from the lake is pumped into the rain barrels. In the future, runoff from the metal roof we flow into the barrels.
I did have a proper "P" trap, so a coil of garden hose was used for the drain pipe. It was hooked up to a vent pipe that leads to the pit for the outhouse. At first, I was concerned the human waste odours would come up the sink, but the extra coil in the hose seems to prevent it. See pictures below for more info.
1.5" PVC pipe running from the water pump to the rain barrels

Water in one of the rain barrels. Yellow rope is just in case for movement. A 1/4 cup of bleach was added for safety. 

A simple hose bib attached a "Rain Barrel Spigot" kit from the hardware store.






About The Author Scott Symmes Scotts career is based in the Graphic Design and the home finishing industry. Afterwork, he steps away from the computer and work on random projects. On weekends, Scott and his family head out to their small 420 sq. ft. cabin in the mountains to relax and test out DIY solar panels/wind tubines projects. In the year 2011, Scott combined his love "building Stuff" and a few videos to create a YouTube channel, cedarworkshop. After a few months, the channel had over 250 subscribers and was quite popular. A few months later a web site and Blog was added for more information. P.S. Scott is more of a "do-er" than a "talk-er", so the writting or grammer may not be the best. Thank you for your patience and feel free to comment or make suggestions. Enjoy! Facebook and Twitter