Elizabeth 0:00

You actually can stand and pee and I was skeptical that it would really work. Well. I don't know how obviously, I'm not tasting that myself. I'm not equipped. We built our DIY version of the throne with the diverter. And my husband confirms Yes, you can, you can stand up and pee and it doesn't splash back and flow into the wrong locations.

Ethan Waldman 0:21

Welcome to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast The show where you learn how to plan, build and live the tiny lifestyle. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman, and this is episode 291. Today I'll be talking with Elizabeth, one of the team members behind a new and innovative entry into the world of compost toilets. The Throne composting toilet, Throne offers both a ready made and DIY solution to the traditional compost toilet that promises ease and simplicity we'll delve into the nuts and bolts of building your own compost toilet using Thrones DIY kit, tackle common problems with existing designs and explore the benefits and drawbacks of different styles of compost toilet. Our guest, Elizabeth lived full time with her family in their self built skoolie and went through three different compost toilet designs before finally settling on the Throne. Whether or not you're currently in the market for a compost toilet, stay tuned as Elizabeth shares wisdom from life on the road and the do's and don'ts for a successful compost toilet in your home. Really quick before we get started, I hope you enjoy the interview. And if you are interested in the Throne Compost Toilet, head over to thetinyhouse.net/throne that'll bring you over to their website. They are currently doing $100 off sale. And you can upgrade to one of seven colors for free. There's also a coupon code just for Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast listeners. That is THPBOOK. That will get you a free copy of Joseph Jenkins' Compost Toilet Handbook over at thetinyhouse.net/throne. The coupon code THPBOOK expires on April 15 2024. All right, let's get into the interview.

All right, I am here with Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a member of the tiny living community who had a problem. A throne composting toilet was the solution. If you've been in the bus life scene in the last five years, there's a good chance you've crossed paths with Elizabeth and her family in their self built skoolie. It's easy to notice their huge roof - raised bus. What you won't see right away is that they're on their third composting toilet. We'll get into the nitty gritty of what it's like to live with a composting toilet. Why most popular options stink and how she got into the business of high class toilet humor. Elizabeth, welcome to the show.

Elizabeth 3:01

Thank you.

Ethan Waldman 3:03

So yeah, we were just chatting before we started rolling, you have just a fascinating journey of, you know, doing this bus and now building a beautiful timber framed house. But we're going to talk about Throne composting toilets today, which is kind of a fresh face in the in the compost toilet world. But why don't we start out with you know, like, what is a Throne compost toilet.

Elizabeth 3:29

So Throne is the brand. It's, it's a new compost toilet, which really just combines a lot of experience. I think we calculated it on our team and among our folks on our team, we have 50 years experience using compost toilets. And there's, there's just there's so great in so many ways. But if you've ever used one, if you've ever owned one, you also know that a lot of them have a lot of challenges that typically lead to lots of fun conversations around the campfire when you meet other people with compost toilets. But we felt that we could make major improvements to those so that the freedom provided by a composting toilet wouldn't have to come with quite so many downsides.

Ethan Waldman 4:17

Nice. And what are some of the those downsides that you were trying to set out? Or maybe? Like, what was the biggest? What was the biggest one that you're trying to tackle?

Elizabeth 4:27

Who I think the diverter so and I've had multiple compost toilets, and also you know, folks on our team have had other ones that I haven't used myself and I, you know, I don't want to like trash talk any competitors. So we don't need to get into specifics, but a lot of them the diverters just Don't divert the way you want them to.

Ethan Waldman 4:48

And also for those who are listening a diverter is a urine diverter that kind of carries the liquid to a different place than the solids, right?

Elizabeth 4:58

Yes, yeah. So when you sit down the toilet let you go. Number one, it flows into one chamber, you go number two, it falls into another chamber. And the reason for that there's many reasons such as you know, ease of disposal and odor control, we can get into that later if we want to. But the problem that I've had and a lot of others have had is that a lot of diverters they have this very narrow, very small lip dividing the solids from liquids, locations. And when you have a vigorous tea, it's easy to forget to just like swirl around the bowl and pour right into the solids container. And that's not a that's not a big problem. If you're using enough cover material, you know, something such as like sawdust, to put in the solids bin, but a lot easier to manage the odors, if you can keep the liquids out of that solids bin . So the diverters in a lot of compost toilets, they just they could be improved by having a much deeper, a much deeper liquids bowl with a much steeper wall on it. So yeah, there's, there's none of that splashback, those, the liquids don't just swirl around the bowl and then blow into the solids. Then when you're peeing quickly

Ethan Waldman 6:23

got it? So I was I'll say my listeners probably know this. So my tiny house has your classic style bucket toilet. I've never personally owned a urine diverter I've certainly used urine diverting toilets. And one of the things that is notable about them is that everybody needs to sit down to pee on most urine diverting toilets, just because I'm guessing because of the issues of slash back, and those such things are on the Throne. Are you free to stand and pee? Or is it is it also a sit down and pee situation for all users?

Elizabeth 7:01

You actually can stand and pee and I was I was skeptical that it would really work. Obviously, I'm, well, I don't know how obviously, I'm not testing that myself. I'm not equipped. But we built our DIY version of the Throne with the diverter. And my husband confirms Yes, you can. He can stand up and pee and it doesn't splash back. It doesn't flow into the wrong locations. And one of our previous compost was we had, he had bought a long funnel at the hardware store thinking well, hey, maybe this could be kind of like a solution. I can just stick it in the diverter and the end of this. Then comes the challenge of this dripping funnel that you have to put somewhere when you're done. Yes, you want to actually stand and pee without getting splashed back with the throne. diverter. Right. It's because of the steeper wall on the backside.

Ethan Waldman 7:50

Got it? Yeah. Okay, so we've we've tackled the urine diverter. What, what's kind of another problem that that you're trying to solve with Throne?

Elizabeth 7:58

Well, I guess it's also related to the urine diverter but the opening for the solids. Okay, so you said that you've got kind of the classic? Yeah, it's essentially a seat over a bucket. Yes. You can make them as pretty or as basic as you want. But you've got a big open hole, and you go in it right now. No issues. Right. When you added diverter to a toilet, they're suddenly smaller targets to hit. Yeah. And some composting toilets have very small targets, when people don't have a lot of experience and training with aiming their number two. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, a much larger opening for the solids was another big important piece, just to make it easy to use. Got it. So people who aren't as conscientious, like, children. Yeah, guests don't really want to be using your compost toilet anyway, who are kind of afraid of it. I worked at a I worked at a hostel and campground that had compost toilets, and those needed to be much easier to use.

Ethan Waldman 9:01

They had like urine diverting compost toilets, and

Elizabeth 9:05

yes urine diverting compost toilets, and they were small and the people using them to experience or know how to use them. So obviously stuff went where it wasn't supposed to go and

Ethan Waldman 9:15

yeah, you know, the staff. Yeah. handled that. Yeah, I've I've definitely heard horror stories, especially from people who maybe have a tiny house that they host on Airbnb, where they have Airbnb guests different, you know, coming in, who don't necessarily want to read a set of instructions before they use the toilet, they just want to use the toilet and the ensuing mess.

Elizabeth 9:42

Yeah, one of our one of our team members said, most people don't know where their asshole is. Because we don't have to deal with most toilets. You sit down and you go, and so if you're not used to it, you don't really realize the positioning. So you have to pay attention to positioning on with any diverter even Throne diverter don't need to be in the right location. If you parked on the front, you're you're pooping in the wrong hole.

Ethan Waldman 10:07

Right? So the, the throne, you know, it's it's a free standing toilet. It comes in, I think like seven colors that's fun that it's not just like white. Yeah. But there's also this DIY bundle. And I think you mentioned the DIY option. What's you know who's that for? And what does that let you do?

Elizabeth 10:31

Yeah, so we've been working on this toilet for quite a long time. And that linchpin item really was the diverter. And so developing that diverter. And getting it perfect, was the first thing we did before developing the rest of the toilet. Okay, and so it was the first thing we put on the market and offered was a diverter, along with a free set of plans for building your own compost toilet. So it's really great, because there's so many different ways you can make an excellent compost toilet. And it can be buying the full toilet that comes with the plastic toilet base, and all in the different colors. It's really nice looking and clean and sleek for your bathroom, it comes with the six gallon solid bins that comes with the three gallon liquid jug with the level alarm. And that's a really great option for a lot of people. But if you're more budget conscious, you can still build essentially the same toilet for a lot less, it's not going to look quite as nice and sleek, it's going to require a lot more DIY skills. But the diverter allows you to build your own toilet. And then you can kind of mix and match what other components you want. We sell the solid six gallon solids bin outside as well as the liquids jugs, the ventilation fans, and the plans come free with every diverter purchase. So you can mix and match and choose what you need and build some really cool unique toilets. We've seen a lot of great toilets that our customers have built.

Ethan Waldman 11:59

And it would seem that you could also if you wanted your toilet to have a more built in look like my toilet in my house kind of its kind of in its own cabinet. There's kind of like a bench top. And it's all you know, I use the same wood as the ceiling underneath the loft. So it all kind of is matchy matchy. So I would imagine that the DIY kit would allow somebody to do like essentially a built in toilet.

Elizabeth 12:24

Yeah, so we've got and we've had some customers do those, one of our team members, she lives in an RV. And when she was replacing her old compost toilet, she did a built in kind of a bench style and on one side of the bench and even opens up to a large storage container for their cover material where they keep the scoop, yes. And it's just really customized for their needs. Yes, actually, you can plumb the diverter directly down into a larger tank if you want. So you know a lot of people may want to avoid having to empty the liquid. Yep, as often and so might plummet into a larger tank underneath a bus or an RV or maybe plummet into some sort of grey water leach system just depending on what your property has. You've got that option to plumb directly down as well.

Ethan Waldman 13:12

Yep. Well let's talk so we've we've covered the liquids pretty well. So let's talk solids bin you know different compost toilets have some of them have an agar for mixing things. Some of them have a fan for drying things and chimney to ventilate what's what's the design for Throne.

Elizabeth 13:30

So Throne is trying to keep it simple and functional and easy. You mentioned the your compost toilet is built on the the Joseph Jenkins model and I really like his theories about compost toilets in his system because it is just simple. It's not complicated. There's no cranks and augers and that's what we're trying to accomplish here. Because we know that a composting toilet can have no odors, even if you don't divert the liquids. And so we don't feel like you needed all those complicated things. Everything you add into a compost toilet is something else you have to clean and something else that can break. Got it. So I found with the toilets with the cranks to stir it up. You know they do ensure that the cover material comes in contact with all of the solids which that can help with odors. But what I've found is it gets really hard to turn those cranks my kids could never turn them except when we had just freshly empty the toilet. Once it was about half full, I couldn't turn it anymore and so we found ourselves calling my husband and to crank the toilet for us. So keeping it simple it is a just an an empty smooth bin where your solids go. And you can line it with a bag if you want. So if your method of disposal is in a conventional waste stream, back in line the toilets So you just have to remove that bag. And we recommend Double bagging, when you dispose of it. Just, I've had some horror stories shared with me from other folks who've had bags burst in their house. Yeah, so it's, it's a, if you don't, if you're composting that you just dump it out like you would any other compost toilet except the differences, you just pull it out of the toilet, you lift it out with a handle, and you don't have to up into the entire toilet inside your house, which is scary, or some kind of composting toilets require there's no nooks and crannies to kind of scrape bits off of. It's just a simple, simple bucket.

Ethan Waldman 14:03

Nice. Yeah, and I I've definitely found I don't dispose of my waste in a in a in the conventional way stream. It gets composted, but adding a you know, a six gallon composting bag to my bucket as made clean up much, much easier and faster. And now as an Airbnb host, kind of crucial. For just quick, easy cleaning of of the facilities.

Elizabeth 16:14

Yeah, it makes it a lot easier just to dump it into the compost pile and not have to hose down the bed every time. Yeah.

Ethan Waldman 16:21

And is there a fan at all on the on the Throne?

Elizabeth 16:25

Yes. So we in the if you buy the Throne toilet, it comes included with a fan, a ventilation fan, okay, it's a four inch fan. That vents out a two and a half inch pipe. Okay, and it's all on the toilet on the backside, you can actually drill a hole anywhere on the toilet body you want if you want to move it to another location. Yeah, then it's not really necessary. But I'm sure you found when you first started compost using your composting toilet, it can take a little time to kind of figure out get everything right, you know, yeah. Am I putting the right amount of cover material in? Is my cover material too large, too dry, too wet. Just kind of as you kind of work out what type of cover material is going to function best and how much you need. It's nice to have a fan just to sort of be a backup. What's that? Oh, sorry. It's helpful to have a fan as like a backup for when things are going. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I was debating like, just adding additional toilet humor in design.

Ethan Waldman 17:32

Feel free to throw it in. I mean, okay,

Elizabeth 17:34

the fan. It takes takes the stink straight off the log. Nice.

Ethan Waldman 17:40

Love it. So does do you need to use I'm guessing you still need to use cover material with Throne.

Elizabeth 17:49

Yeah, we recommend it. If you're using the fan, you can probably get away with using cover material. But it helps. Yeah, it's Yeah, I think cover material is great for a lot of reasons. One is it just eliminates smells by itself when used properly. Yeah. And then two are composting it, you've already got all this great carbon material sitting right in there. And you can just dump it straight in your compost pile. Yep. Then if you are disposing of it in a conventional waste stream, it does add bulk. So it means you're going to have to empty it more frequently. So you could experiment with, you know, how much cover material do I really need if I'm utilizing that fan, but it also soaks up extra moisture. So it's great if you are getting some people going in the wrong location from time to time.

Ethan Waldman 18:36

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, my experience with my compost has always been stationary. You know, I've always wherever my tiny house has been parked, I've built a compost bin out of four pallets and some hardware cloth and I've been able to do all my composting on site. What's it like living with a compost toilet? On the road? You know, as you did with the skoolie? And how does the Throne try to guessing it kind of tries to work for both applications?

Elizabeth 19:10

I think there's a few differences that I've found, you know, living on the road versus living stationary in what the compost toilet provides for us. But yeah, the biggest, the biggest thing it gives us freedom, and that's going to be similar whether you're traveling or whether you're stationary, you know, when you're traveling, it gives you the freedom to you know camp without needing water or a flush toilet. It gives you you know, longer periods of time you can go without having to empty it if you know we were really wanting to camp. We wanted to be out on public lands and BLM lands and not you know, not near paved roads and not near facilities. And so it gave us that ability to be away for longer. If you don't use the fan, it doesn't use any electricity if you do use the fan it uses small amount Electricity and it's affordable. You know, compost toilets. You know, I remember when I first started learning about them, the price tag was kind of shocking the a lot of commercial compost toilets are $1,000 Plus, yeah, this comes in lower than that at 728 for the full on toilet, but then you can be more budget conscious by picking and choosing the the pieces you want and buying those ala carte and building your own. So it gives you give you affordability that suits your budget. Nice, just depending on what your needs are. I think, you know, the thing I struggled with a lot on the road and it wasn't. It was the misconception that I found among the nomadic community. Yeah, that the stuff you dumped out of your compost toilet was compost. And, I mean, I was shocked how many times people tell me like, I love this. I mean, I can just dump it under a tree. And you're, you're dumping a bucket of poop on the ground on public lands. This is maybe a lack of education. I don't know if it's the marketing material, maybe it's too rosy around what a composting toilet really is. But that was that was a surprising misconception on the road. And I felt like that needed to be my mission to re educate everybody that a composting toilet gives you a receptacle to hold your waste until it can be composted, right. That's not doing the composting. It's just just there that you can compost.

Ethan Waldman 21:40

When I interviewed Joe Jenkins and see that was something that he has a personal kind of vendetta about, you know, which is that it's not a composting toilet. It's a composting toilet. Like because the composting doesn't happen inside of the toilet.

Elizabeth 21:57

Yeah. It's a compost supporter. Yeah. That was sort of a tangent for like, what it's like living on there. I just was so shocked when I started hearing that over and over that. That misconception was out there that it was just ready to be put on the dirt. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I then moving on to our property here in Vermont. It gave us again, it gave us freedom, in that it allowed us to settle down on this piece of land that didn't have any anything on it yet. We drove our bus in here, one spring, rolled it down the driveway and said, Well, we're not getting out of here until we pay to have this driveway fixed because it was really in really bad shape. And we were planning the bus anyway. So we just said let's go for it. And the freedom with the compost toilet was that we could we could again continue to dispose of it in a conventional waste stream like we needed to do on the road. But pretty quickly, I was stoked the setup a compost bin. Yeah. And that, just the how I noticed the amount of trash that we took out decrease when we could turn all of our food scraps, all of our toilet contents, every bit of that all those nutrients could just go back into the land. That was pretty amazing. And I love that it reduced our reduce our waste significantly. Yeah, yeah. And it is really amazing how much you know how much of what comes out of the kitchen is

Ethan Waldman 23:33

compostable? And how little trash you make when you don't my my parents are like, life not lifelong. But we had a compost bin growing up. I feel like they were like very cutting edge. They've been composting for like 40 years. And they don't even use like a trash bag liner in their trash can. Because like nothing they throw out in their kitchen trash like is really all that like, dirty. It's just like, you know, it's like the plastic wrapper that the like bagels came in and it's like, is it most everything that's kind of like dirty is food or stuff that would make a mess goes into the compost?

Elizabeth 24:16

Yeah, that's pretty exciting. So excited. Yeah, I mean, in the trash. If you find yourself in a situation where your trash for a long time. Yep. Yeah, sometimes on the road, I think you're always looking for the next trash can. And you know, you might be storing trash for a while. It doesn't smell it. That's pretty amazing. I actually did a little bit of composting on the road. I found this. I can't remember the name of the company, but there's a company that has a map that you can put yourself on there and say we accept compost scraps. Oh, and so when we were traveling, I would we'd go to a new location. I'd say I go to that map and I'd see you around here accepts compost scraps and then I'd contact them and I had a big bin under my bus that I just kind of collected in until it filled up. Yep. And then I would go dump it in someone's compost pile. And now that I've got my own compost pile, I realized how much of a gift that is to be able to get extra material into your compost pile. Yeah. I don't think anyone's doing that for toilet contents yet. But that's pretty cool that there are there is there is a, an effort out there to allow people to compost who don't actually want to do it themselves.

Ethan Waldman 25:28

Yeah, that's awesome. So can you can you take us through your three compost toilets that you had on your bus? And why and kind of why you decided to move on from each one?

Elizabeth 25:40

Yeah, so first compost toilet I mentioned was the one that had the crank arm, okay. struggles we had with that one was the lip between the solids and liquids, locations was very small. So we were constantly overflowing into the solids, it was really hard to turn the crank after that once it got about half full, which was a family of four was less than a week. Right? We felt that same pretty quickly. Yeah, the other struggles we had with it, I think the biggest problem for me was that I couldn't lift the entire thing up and turn it upside down to dump it into a bag, it was a terrifying thing to do. And that's how you had to do it. To empty it, you had to you have to take the top half off the toilet and the whole bottom had to be turned upside down into a bag to empty it.

Ethan Waldman 26:30

So we would

Elizabeth 26:31

take it outside. So that means carrying your toilet through your house. Yeah, take it out door, try to fit a bag over it, dump it without it falling off. And then you know, there's just all these like little bits stuck in there everywhere with the crank arm and all the little nooks and crannies. Another issue we had didn't notice this at first, but over time, as you know a lot. I think a lot of compost toilet users are aware urine scale builds up anywhere that urine is allowed to sit for any period of time and dry. Okay. It's, it's, it's hard to clean off once it's dried, and it does continue to build up. And so this toilet also had in the diverter it diverted into this area that then flowed into the liquids jug. But you couldn't access that little area. There's no way to get inside that little area to clean it. Okay, or to get things. So, you know, barretts would get dropped. My kids for rats would get dropped in there when they were little and I was fishing them out. You know, with tweezers. I've tried to dig inside there with a toothbrush. Okay, I've heard people trying to sand it down to clean it, but you just can't get in there. Okay, financially, I sold the toilet to somebody who was, you know, happy to get a really good discount. And, you know, had full disclosure that I couldn't get it fully clean. Before I gave it to them. I took a to a carwash with those hoses and I pressure one thing, and I still couldn't get that clean. Yeah, urine scale is pretty hard to get off and so inaccessible areas, nooks and crannies dumping a toilet upside down and a diverter. That wasn't working for us were the main reasons we got rid of that one.

Ethan Waldman 28:15

Sounds pretty bad.

Elizabeth 28:17

Yeah, second compost toilet, we actually were really excited about this one, because instead of going into a two gallon jug, our liquids would be funneled into a large tank under our bus. So we got a old grey tank off or some sort of tank off an old RV and added it underneath the bus that was we call it our yellow tank. Because it just went. And so that gave us a lot longer, we could go between emptying and we could just open up a drain and drain it with a hose into either a dump station or onto you know, public lands in small doses, I found out the drain that whole thing that was really nice. In theory, in practice, there was a lot of benefits to that to the second compost toilet also had a much stronger fan, which was nice to help with smells. And, you know, their instruction said you don't need to use cover material. And I'll vouch for that a strong fan. You don't have to use Governor material. It's totally fine. I would not vented out the side of my bus again. Because if you walked by that side of the bus, you can imagine what that smelled like. Yeah, we got rid of that one after some issues with the drain the urine drain. So it was a very narrow line that drained it, okay. And again, urine scale. Urine scale builds up. And because it wasn't actually exposed to air, it wasn't fully drying out in there but it kind of became this sludge that clogged up and the only way to clean it was the snake it with like a really narrow brush? Drain snake. Okay, I had to do it from underneath the bus. And it got everywhere. I mean, it was sludge coming out of the urine drain. Yep. falling on me out all running up my arms. It was awful. It was awful experience. So we did that twice. And then they've never never again, it was just well, it's out here. I think the drain if the drain line had been like a larger diameter, it would have been a lot more manageable. Yeah. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with draining to a larger tank, especially if it's like a one inch diameter. Totally fine. But this was like maybe a quarter inch diameter tubing that just clogged up nasty.

Ethan Waldman 30:47

Wow.

Elizabeth 30:48

Yeah. So yeah, then we at that point, I was working for tiny woodstove, who is the same people who are doing Throne and composting toilet and we were just getting ready to release the diverter onto the market. And I was also very ready to get rid of that old toilet. And I had recently read the Humanure handbook too, and was just, I was all about the humanuring and looking for something simpler than what we were using. So I got the diverter I used the plans that we developed to go along with it and built my toilet. It's been really nice. It is really nice in its simplicity. I think the one thing I don't love right now is I built mine, you know, out of wood and plywood. And so if I do overflow, the liquids jug, it's into a absorbent material. I I've got the level alarm on mine. So hopefully, that that's not going to be something that happens but a wooden toilet always has a little bit of fear with that.

Ethan Waldman 31:54

And so that level alarm that'll actually beep at you. If the level of liquids in the liquid container gets above a certain point.

Elizabeth 32:04

A red light comes on And it comes down to the diverter. And the diverter itself is white, but it's translucent. Okay, so it makes the whole glow red.

Ethan Waldman 32:14

Okay,so when that light is on, does that mean it's like you're gonna overflow it? Or is it kind of like, have this one last pee and then empty it?

Elizabeth 32:22

You've got you've got three to four well hydrated pees to go. Okay, so it's not right. You can make it through the night. Okay, though. I mean, we stuck at that level intentionally because you don't want to, like suddenly have to stop midstream and come empty your toilet . Yeah, yeah. I like to know that through the night that was all that was always the reason I would overflow my liquids jugs in the past and I've done it many times. Because like, we can make it we can make it through the night. We don't have to take this out in the middle of the night. You usually can't. If you think again. Yeah, yeah.

Ethan Waldman 32:57

So what are you now that you are in a stationary location and you're you're composting? are you pouring the the urine onto the compost pile? Or are you using it to fertilize plants elsewhere?

Elizabeth 33:11

A little bit of both. So I know that compost piles, they really like plenty of moisture. And so I like adding it for that. Yeah, plus, I know all nutrients in the in the urine is going to be hanging out in my compost for when I'm ready to use it. But I've also used it whenever I'm watering plants. I'll dilute it with water and then water the plants with it. Nice. So it goes in one of those two locations. I'm either watering plants or putting it in the compost pile. Got it? Got

Ethan Waldman 33:37

it and the compost pile is feeding future plants.

Elizabeth 33:42

Yeah, yeah, I it's I think it's definitely a learning experience. Yeah, doing you know, a humanure compost because you want to be really sure you did a really good job. My first year I was using hay as like the cover material,

Ethan Waldman 33:57

For inside.

Elizabeth 33:58

No, no. That was when we were using our previous compost that we weren't putting cover material into. Yeah, so I was using hay outside and it's big. It's fluffy. It's like looks like you're putting a lot of stuff in there. But yeah, there's a lot of content to it. Because I got after the pile had been sitting a year I dug into it to say like where are we at or am I ready to use this and it was just it was fudge it was it I didn't feel comfortable with it. So I added a bunch of sawdust that I got from a local mill. Yeah, and left it another year and it looks amazing. I can't wait to use it this spring so nice. I think it takes some time to get it right. But yeah, we compost toilet or compost pile is doing really great now.

Ethan Waldman 34:41

Awesome. And are you using a compost toilet inside the the timber frame home that you built?

Elizabeth 34:47

Yes. Much to the dismay of my teenage daughter so we we got it we had to we got a loan for building a house. Okay, and When you have a construction loan, the bank gets to tell you what to do. So we were required to put in a septic system we were required to put it in a flush toilet. Okay, I did my bathroom though intentionally with a spot for a compost toilet too. So our bathroom has two toilets. Nice, which is now a new conversation piece.

Ethan Waldman 35:19

To do D Yeah. So when a guest comes to your house, and they need to use the bathroom, give me give me your spiel. What do you say?

Elizabeth 35:26

Well, so when we're in the bus, we, you know, we had enough guests over and then one time, I had a really big party on our property, and I decided I needed to make a sign for it. So we made a sign that we just taped inside the toilet lid, and it says, you know, you know, pee, poop. And then what's next? Yeah, that up in the front poop in the back. And for guests, we just say like pee in the poop. Pee in the front poop in the back. Your toilet paper goes in the back and then cover it with cover material we have like a plastic cereal container. That is where we keep our cover material. So you can just kind of shake it in, which we've dubbed poopoo sprinkles. So you always got to put your poopoo sprinkles on and you're done. Nice. Yeah, that's our Spiel with guests. Now that we have other options, we have a flush toilet too. We say like, Hey, you can use you can use the flush toilet or you can use the compost toilet here. There's instructions inside the lid. It's really not that hard.

Ethan Waldman 36:23

You can use the flush toilet if you want your waste to go into a broken system that doesn't.

Elizabeth 36:31

Really? Yeah. Do you prefer to put your waste in our drinking water or use our compost toilet? Yeah.

Ethan Waldman 36:41

Excellent. Excellent. Well, so for my wedding in 2016. I built two outbuildings, and set up humanure toilets for like 170 people, including my 90 year old grandmother. So if she can do it, anyone can.

Elizabeth 36:59

Yeah, it's really not that hard. You just have to sit down and go just like a regular toilet.

Ethan Waldman 37:03

Yeah, exactly. So Throne is like just launching now like the DIY the diverter has been available for a little while. But tell me about you know about the launch. What what's going on this will this episode will be out. I believe before before the end of the presale. So for anyone listening right when this comes out, you know, listen up.

Elizabeth 37:28

Yeah,

so the diverter. And a lot of the components have been out for a while now. But we are just now starting to take pre orders for the Throne toilet. And we're doing this special color sale. So like you mentioned earlier in the show, we're offering them in seven different colors. Because why not, it's fun, maybe you want your toilet to match your bathroom. We've also got it in white, or the classic look. And we're during this sale, it's running through the end of March. So it's a pretty short sale, but we're offering $100 off a free. So $100 off the toilet price, which takes it down to $628. Okay. Oh my gosh. Huge amount of snow just slid off my roof.

Ethan Waldman 38:13

I heard that. That's amazing.

Elizabeth 38:17

Yeah, so $100 off the toilet. We're also offering the color upgrade is free. We aren't charging any extra for the upgrade to colored colorful toilet. Nice. We are also doing free shipping to the lower 48 states. Nice. What else do we have? Sorry? I'm looking at some notes here. Make sure I told you all the goods. Yeah, yeah. So during this pre order sale, we're offering $100 off the toilet, which brings the cost down $628. Yeah, we're also offering a free upgrade to a color. So you can you can choose the white color as well. But we also aren't charging any addition for the colorful toilet. Nice. We're doing free shipping to the lower 48 states. And all of that runs through the end of March only. So it's a pretty short term of offering. And as soon as we get to the end of March, that's when we're going to be starting manufacturing. So we expect all of the toilets to be manufactured and ready to ship by mid July. But we're going to have they're going to start trickling, trickling in before then and so some of the some of them will be able to ship sooner but mid July is our our final shipping for all toilets should be able to go out.

Ethan Waldman 39:39

And awesome. And I think you mentioned that there's there's a coupon code for podcast listeners here. THPBOOK.

Elizabeth 39:47

That's right. Yes. So we've talked about Joseph Jenkins multiple times today because he's just the godfather of compost toilets. Yep. written a couple of really great informative books and And we're offering that coupon code will give you a free copy of his compost toilet handbook. It's a full color book that just has so much information about different types of compost toilets, how they work, how you can troubleshoot issues you might be having with them how you can build around, there's, there's a lot of really great information in that book. And it was something it was really inspiring to me when we settled down on our land and I started composting.

Ethan Waldman 40:25

Awesome. Alright, so yeah, so that coupon code is THPBOOK. And the website is thronecompostingtoilet.com I'll put links in the show notes for this episode. And I'm psyched. It's always great to, you know, the new products getting getting developed to try to address some of the pain points of tiny living. Yeah,

Elizabeth 40:52

I really think that this toilet just, it just kind of keeps it simple. It's easy to clean, and it's easy to use. And I mean that's that's generally what you're looking for. You're not looking for something complicated, and those are the struggles that I know a lot of folks have had with some composting toilets is just they ended up doing more work than they bargained for.

Ethan Waldman 41:11

Throne composting toilet. It's the shit. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. Well, isn't it thank you so much for being a guest on the show today. It was it was really fun to meet you and hear all about Throne.

Elizabeth 41:28

Yeah, thankyou. I really appreciate you inviting me to join

Ethan Waldman 41:32

Cool.

Thank you so much to Elizabeth for being a guest on the show today. You can find the show notes including a link out to Throne compost toilets at thetinyhouse.net/291. If you are interested in pre ordering a Throne, go to thetinyhouse.net/throne. And don't forget to use the coupon code THPBOOK. That's THPBOOK at check out to get a free copy of Joseph Jenkins Compost Toilet Handbook. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net/throne Well, that's all for this week. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman. And I'll be back next week with another episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast.