Content
Landscaping a country yard begins with the construction of a toilet, since the need for this building comes first. Despite the simplicity of the design, they install a toilet on the site, adhering to some rules. As in any construction, the beginning of work consists of creating a drawing or a simple diagram. Practice shows that the easiest way is to build a wooden toilet for a summer house, the design of which we will now consider.
Types of country toilets
Wooden toilets for summer cottages are in wide demand due to their ease of installation. Wood is the most affordable and easiest to process material. The structure of the house is a wooden frame covered with boards. Such a structure can be made even without complex drawings, following step-by-step instructions or a photo taken from the Internet. However, in addition to the wooden house itself, waste disposal will be required.According to this principle, country toilets are divided into several types.
Backlash closet
To make a wooden toilet operating on the backlash-closet principle, you will need to equip an inclined floor with a slight expansion from the toilet towards the storage pit. The waste will move by gravity along the inclined plane into the tank, from where, as it accumulates, it will be pumped out by a sewer truck.
The advantage of such a system in a summer cottage is that it is possible to install a toilet even indoors, while the cesspool itself is located outside the house. Moreover, such a bathroom does not require laying sewer pipes.
The cesspool for this system is made sealed using thermal insulation on the lid and side walls. The disadvantage of a backlash closet when installed indoors is the violation of the integrity of the load-bearing wall of the building. It is advisable to build such a toilet simultaneously with the construction of the house.
Powder closet
The simplest country toilet consists of a house installed on top of a small waste storage tank. As the layers of sewage are filled, they are sprinkled with peat, wood ash or sawdust. The purchased powder closet container is equipped with a dispenser that fills in sewage after each person’s visit. Having built such a toilet at the dacha with your own hands involves installing a bucket of powder inside the house. The entire process is done manually with a regular scoop.
The advantage of a powder closet at the dacha is the ability to use sewage for fertilizer. After filling the pit, the waste is stored in a compost heap, where it rots. There is no need to dig a deep hole and call a sewer truck for such a toilet.You can install a wooden house anywhere and quickly move it if necessary.
Dry toilet
A country dry toilet consists of the same wooden house and a waste tank. However, this system uses an unusual storage pit. A factory-made container is installed under the sewage, inside which the waste is processed. The process is carried out by adding biological products consisting of a colony of bacteria.
The advantage of a dry closet lies in the rare cleaning of processed sewage, plus they can be used instead of fertilizing a summer cottage.
Outdoor toilet with cesspool
The most common outdoor toilet in a country house is a wooden house installed on top of a cesspool. This is not the most convenient design from a comfort point of view, but it is easy to construct and does not require much expense. The essence of the system is to fill a storage pit with sewage, after which it is pumped out using a sewage disposal machine. Some summer residents practice installing a wooden house on a small pit without a bottom and without brick walls. In this case, liquid waste is partially absorbed into the soil, and after filling the pit, the wooden house is moved to another place.
The disadvantage of a portable toilet is the contamination of the soil in your area. Plus, in hot weather there is an unpleasant smell in the territory of the dacha.
Choosing a place to install an outdoor toilet
Before building a wooden toilet at your dacha, you need to familiarize yourself with a number of sanitary standards, neglect of which can lead to bad consequences.It is important to take into account the interests of neighbors, because it will be unpleasant for them to smell sewage in the yard.
Let's figure out how to make sure that an outdoor toilet in a dacha does not cause unnecessary problems:
- Many summer cottages have dug wells. They contain drinking water from the upper deposits. Liquid sewage from the cesspool can be absorbed into these same layers, so there should not be a single well within a radius of 25 m from the street toilet.
- An outdoor toilet in a country house is not built in a visible place. They try to choose a plot for it behind the house or at the end of the garden.
- According to building codes and ethical considerations, an outdoor toilet cannot be built closer than 1 m to a neighbor’s boundary. Scandals may arise in the process, and according to the law, neighbors have the right through the court to seek the demolition of the building.
- The question of how to properly build an outdoor toilet on a hilly area is considered individually according to the landscape of the area and the buildings located on it. It is optimal if the house is located on a hill, then the outdoor toilet can be located on a low ground. When choosing a place for a country toilet, it is important to observe which direction the wind blows most often. If possible, it is better to place the building so that the wind does not blow unpleasant odors into the yard.
- Even the deepest cesspool will have to be cleaned over time. Here it is necessary to provide free access for a sewage truck.
These, in principle, are all the basic rules that require mandatory compliance. In the presented photo you can see a number of additional sanitary standards using the example of two sites.
Construction of a country toilet with a wooden house and a cesspool
It just so happens that a wooden toilet house and a cesspool have become a classic in the arrangement of a summer cottage. A simple structure can be erected independently in a couple of days, and it does not require complex maintenance. When the pit is 2/3 filled with waste, it is cleaned out manually or with a sewer machine. When moving a wooden house, the old tank is simply preserved.
Construction of a cesspool
Now we will look at how to make a cesspool according to all the rules. Probably, there is no point in dwelling in detail on a simple dug hole for a portable toilet. A waste storage facility made according to all rules must be airtight. Seepage of sewage threatens to contaminate the ground and upper layers of groundwater.
The volume of the cesspool depends on the number of people living in the dacha. Usually a pit of 1.5–2 m is dug for such outdoor toilets3. If the groundwater is deep, the volume of the hole is increased due to the depth. Otherwise, the pit is dug shallow but wide.
To construct a cesspool, you can use different building materials. The easiest way is to buy a plastic container and simply install it in the pit. A reliable, but expensive tank made from concrete rings. To install them you will need lifting equipment. Alternatively, the walls of the pit can be lined with cinder block or red brick. Old tires from agricultural machinery can also be used to create a cesspool, but you will have to cut out part of the inner side to increase the volume.Sand-lime brick will not be used for masonry, as it collapses in dampness.
Before erecting the walls, the bottom of the pit is concreted. It can be lined with bricks, reinforced with reinforcing mesh and filled with concrete and crushed stone. A bottom thickness of 150 mm will be sufficient. When the concrete has hardened, construction of walls from the selected material begins. It is best to cover the top of the pit with a concrete slab with a hole cut out. Moreover, it is advisable to cover the back side of the slab with bitumen waterproofing. It will prevent the destruction of concrete.
We draw up a drawing of a wooden house and determine its dimensions
The photo below shows drawings of a wooden toilet for a summer house with your own hands, following which you can make a house. However, such a choice of shape and size is not fundamental, and each owner has the right to show his imagination.
The layout of any wooden house is almost identical. The building consists of a frame, for the manufacture of which a wooden beam with a section of 50x50 mm is used. Doors and cladding are made with boards 10–15 mm thick. Only the shape of the house can differ. Naturally, the location of some elements of the wooden frame changes in this case.
The classic wooden house called a birdhouse is considered simple to make. The dacha building is given a rectangular shape, which greatly simplifies the manufacture of the frame. The dimensions of the wooden house are selected individually, so that even obese people have enough space.
If we talk about the standard dimensions of the house, we adhere to the following dimensions:
- height – 2.2 m;
- width – 1.5 m;
- depth – 1–1.5 m.
Lovers of aesthetics can abandon the traditional rectangular house and build it in the form of a hut.The drawing shows that this wooden structure of a country toilet is slightly complicated by the addition of two inclined roof planes.
Frame construction
It's time to learn how to make a simple rectangular frame of a wooden house. It should be noted that during this period the cesspool must be fully equipped and covered.
The process of making a frame for a country toilet is simple:
- Since we are considering the construction of a non-portable toilet, it is necessary to make a foundation for the wooden house. The structure is light, so it is enough to dig four supports under it in the corners below the freezing level of the soil. A metal or asbestos-cement pipe is suitable for this. The pillars can be made of brick.
- According to the dimensions of the future house, a quadrangular frame is made from wooden beams with a cross-section of 80x80 mm. This will be the foundation of the building. The frame is laid on the foundation pillars, with a piece of roofing felt placed underneath for waterproofing.
- The frame of the house itself is assembled from timber with a section of 50x50 mm. The first to knock down two identical quadrangular frames. Vertical posts are attached to the lower frame in the corners. Moreover, the front bars are made longer than the rear ones to create a roof slope.
- The second frame is fixed strictly horizontally from above to the racks. This will be the ceiling of the house. The racks are reinforced between each other with gussets. They will add rigidity to the wooden frame. At a height of 500 mm from the lower frame, two horizontal crossbars are installed. The toilet seat will be located here.
- Since the front pillars are longer than the rear ones, they protrude higher than the frame. From them two slats are nailed to the rear pillars. The wooden elements will be sloping, forming a slope of the toilet roof.
- The top slats of the board are filled with sheathing.Its pitch depends on the selected roofing material. The gap between the roof of the house and the upper ceiling frame can be glazed with corrugated glass. For the door, two additional racks are installed from the front part of the frame.
The finished frame of the country toilet is installed on a wooden frame already standing on the foundation, and the sheathing begins.
Covering all fragments of a wooden house
To cover the walls of a country toilet, use a board treated with an antiseptic. The frame, by the way, similarly needs to be opened with a similar solution to protect the wood. The door is knocked down from a 20 mm thick board, after which it is attached to the counter with hinges. The toilet seat is covered with boards, but the floor can be tiled or made of wood. The area up to the toilet seat is covered with tiles. This is where dampness and dirt most often accumulate, carried on shoes during rain. You can cover the roof of a country toilet with any roofing material, preferably not heavy. For ease of use at night, lighting is installed inside the wooden house.
Ventilation of a country toilet
To ensure that there are fewer bad odors inside the country toilet, simple ventilation is installed. An ordinary PVC pipe with a diameter of 100 mm is attached with clamps to the back wall of a wooden house from the street side. The lower part of the pipe is buried 100 mm inside the pit, and the upper edge rises above the roof by at least 200 mm. A cap is put on the pipe to protect it from rain and snow.
The video shows the construction of a wooden toilet for a summer house:
Conclusion
The drawings and recommendations provided will allow you to quickly build an outdoor toilet made of wood at your summer cottage. And the best way to decorate a house depends on the owner’s imagination.
