Building a outhouse At Hunt Camp is Not as easy as it looks.
- You have to start by finding the right location.
- Your outhouse needs to be close enough to camp to be able to crawl there in a drunken stupor at 3:00 in the morning and puke your guts out without waking up all the hunt club guests your trying to impress with your hunting prowess yet far enough away so that you can take a moment to look up at the stars since they are there and you might as well since your not doing anything important anyways .
- Make sure that terrain slopes away from camp and off into woods for proper drainage if you intend to have a water supplied flush toilet and sink .
- The reason for this is that unless you intend to bring out a backhoe and install a full sized septic tank you are going to have to improvise and build a mini septic system for the outhouse which means your septic tanks will most likely be 2-50 gallon drums laid on their side with the excess waste water leaching out into a small trenched area downhill from the septic system . If you have accidentally built your outhouse and waste system above your camp then your going to wake up in the middle of the night wondering what that smell is as the waste will be leaching out of the ground at some point like after a heavy rain, too many people at camp using the toilet , a clog in the system , etc..
- You need to run a water line , preferably underground to help prevent freezing lines that will need to be repaired .
- You may also want 110 volt ac electric but make sure to run it in a separate trench a few feet away from water line trench .
- If you don’t absolutely need 110 volt ac then go for a small solar panel on top of outhouse and a car battery to store the power ,This system works well and can power a small fan as well as a light.
- For a fan we used a 12 volt dc auto oscillating fan that just blew air around in the outhouse but was a pleasant reminder of civilized life brought to the backwoods of South Georgia.
- It worked better to keep the mosquitoes off but was also needed to cool down the outhouse since in the middle of summer in South Georgia it is close to or above 100 degrees heat range.
Building Your Outhouse
- I recommend using pressure treated wood for all the framing and especially the sub-floor .
- You should consider building the structure totally enclosed with a full sized metal clad exterior door and a nice south facing window to let in light .
- The main reason to build an enclosed structure is to keep the vermin out. You will typically be leaving camp to the elements for long periods of time and if your outhouse design has openings you will come back to find wasps nests, squirrel nests, bumble bees drilling holes , bird nests, Raccoons having been using the toilet seat as a hang out to eat dinner at , Multiple spider webs , and then there’s the damage equation of the effects of weathering.
- If you have an open design then when it rains the interior will get wet but then the sun will come out and suddenly the wood will start to dry which squeezes the nails out from the wood so they no longer hold fast and then there,s the effects of wind on a wet structure which will cause all connections to loosen up at a faster rate than if they were “Dryed In”-Add up all the costs and 1 year in and it already looks like you need to start considering building a newer – new outhouse as this new one is going down the drain fast.
- I like the idea of a shed roof design with a transom over the front door to let light in , with this design you can position the outhouse to face in a southerly direction in winter to help heat up the interior and this will also help reduce the risk of toilet and plumbing freezing .
- A dark colored south facing exterior will help to heat up the outhouse even more and also painting the south facing interior walls a dark color to get them to absorb heat as well. Another trick if you have room in the interior is to put as many dark heavy dense objects as will fit that will also be positioned in the sunlight shining through the south window , { Possibly clay planters painted flat black,with some small flowers for a romantically inclined camp crapper ?} These will absorb heat and release it slowly throughout the night keeping the outhouse warm all night so that you can take a nice comfy crap first thing in the morning before you race off to shoot that imaginary 12 point buck your hunt camp friends keep laughing at you about.
