Yes, i agree! It would be elegant to be able to accomplish urine diversion when the seat 'seal' is up. Some thing to work on, but it's always a trade-off between making the urine diversion part big enough to accomplish this, yet keep inadvertent feces from entering. When I have tried larger urine diversion components, I've had some testers 'miss' and then we've had to clean feces out of the urine diversion area.

We do recommend a separate urinal next to the toilet. Yet, at the same time, we're always trying to improve the design - changing the seal is a possibility to act as a stand-up urinal. Each change, however, is relatively expensive!

Thanks for the update!

One remark regarding the UD part: Seems a bit unfortunate that the design doesn't allow for urine division when the faeces compartment is open (the opening is too small to hit I think).
I do like the idea of having a lid that allows clean urine division, but the specific design doesn't allow it to be used as a standing urinal. Wouldn't it be possible to shape it in a way that there is a splash protection for the seat and with a more rounded interior that one can actually use the lid for urinating while standing?

Last but not least: do you already ship samples? What would be the approximate price?

Hi,

The attached PPT that we used in the FSM3 in Hanoi, Vietnam can be illustrative for the current status of our activities in Ecuador. We should have strong results by the mid of 2015 regarding to the technology assesment in Ecuador.

Cheers! Marcos

EA-X simply stands for (about) our tenth version of the Earth Auger - just a little designation difference to celebrate an actual production model!

Yes, I totally agree about EA-X being a hybrid. AS you know, fairly rapid composting takes place at solids percentages between 40-60; composting definitely takes place while being mixed and moved through the horizontal tube. And it's easy to tell, as the material that comes out the end has a typical musty odor of rich earth rather than a fecal smell. But drying definitely occurs as well, with end material varying between a low of 30% and a high of 90% - this is presumably dependent upon number of users and effectiveness of the urine diverter.

Air gets into the pipe via the black vent tube - as solar radiation heats up the tube, air is drawn upwards and out. as the toilet seat is not totally air tight, air enters from there and passes through the horizontal tube.

In the US I test all versions at my home in the mountains outside of Seattle. Currently I have three still available for use! EA-X is my current toilet of choice as it's attached to my house!


Then, an organization in Oregon is in the process of developing a "Go & Grow" concept - where EA-X is the centering point of a greenhouse - the 'compost' and urine/greywater is used for edible garden crops. They have four toilets.

Also, my wife and I were recently written up in the University of Washington Columns magazine www.washington.edu/alumni/columns-magazi...-2014/features/soil/
That has stirred a fair amount of interest from UW alumni and we've gotten a number of requests for toilets in our area in the US. Our plan is to choose three local sites (in addition Go & Grow) for extensive monitoring for certification of the toilet.

Why Cambodia, Nepal and South Africa in particular? Opportunity! Live and Learn from Cambodia has long been interested in the EA - because my wife and I had the conference in Hanoi (and our partner Roger joined us) we each carried a toilet US-Vietnam-Cambodia and had a wonderful visit/installation to the Angkor World Heritage site.


In South Africa, as mentioned earlier in a post, we were invited as one of five technologies for large-scale demonstration. This project may start in June this year. In Nepal we were asked to co propose for a small ADB grant that was approved, but not yet started.

The fate of Ascaris is being investigated by the University of Washington for us. As there are few incidences of Ascaris found in Ecuador, they are pursuing this by lab studies in Seattle. You are correct - we don't expect to find much reduction in the horizontal tube UNTIL compost reached the outside of the structure, where you can see it's all black (this is a new design change). Temperatures increase about 20°C above ambient due to solar radiation in the black bucket - with moderately high ambient temperatures we expect to see good results.

Dear Chuck,

Thanks for your reply.
What does EA-X stand for or is that just the name of your model?

Also on second thoughts I am wondering now if your toilet really classifies as a composting toilet or is it more of a hybrid between UDDT and composting toilet? I mean how do you ensure you have enough moisture and aeration in your composting process? How does the air geht into the pipe, just from each "flush" and addition of new material? Maybe I should rather move it to the UDDT page of Wikipedia rather than the composting page, what would you say?
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine-diverting_dry_toilet#Ecuador)

Also, could you please provide some information about composting toilets and UDDTs in general in Ecuador. Are there any, apart from yours now? (and the ones by Chris Canada which are mentioned in the Wikipedia article here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine-diverting_dry_toilet#Ecuador)

And where in the US have they been installed by now?
Why Cambodia, Nepal and South Africa in particular?

What about helminth eggs in the compost, is this something you test for regularly? I would not expect that you get much reduction there as you probably don't have much of a temperature increase in your process or do you?


Greetings,
Elisabeth

Note by moderator: This post was originally here in a thread about composting toilets on Wikipedia:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/70-com...osting-toilets#11587

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Hi Elisabeth,

Great effort! A couple modifications to the EarthAuger post... our first production run of 650 of the new injection molded model EA-X have recently been produced; 435 were delivered to Ecuador in October for installation, of which about 100 will have been installed by the end of January. Others have been installed in the US, and are planned for installation in Cambodia, Nepal and South Africa.

The pedal is pretty much fixed as to the location, however, the seat can face any of three positions. Default is forward (in line with the horizontal pipe), or it can face 90° each way from there.

Looking forward to pictures the final installation as such an "house attachment".

Is it possible to switch the foot pedal to the other side?

We're happy to say that the first 650 injection molded Earth Augers designed and manufactured by Critical Practices LLC from Washington State have recently been sent out from the factory - 435 for Fundación In Terris' implementation project in Ecuador, and the remainder to our CP home near Seattle. We're exceptionally pleased with this model!

Hi Dorothee,

Those are all questions that we will be able to answer with more precision at the end of the year or by july 2015.

We are analyzing everything: toilet, transport, inputs, fixing, replacements, etc. But we are starting the process of reducing costs through different approaches: materials, suppliers, etc. We are also approaching the local MFI's and realizing alternatives.

The same for the value chain, we are just studying the different and more cost-effective ways to do it. We can now speculate on panoramas, but we will know at the end of the year or by July 2015. Several approaches are under research; we are also developing audio-visual toolkits for installation and for O&M.

We promise you more information in the future!

Thanks Marcos for your answers.

Is the 700 US$ how your are calculating arriving at 5 cents per use (e.g. 5 people, 4 uses/day) over the 3 years?
Are you expecting any O&M costs -> e.g. for the mechanics of the “flush” system?

In the pre-fabricated units: will the “flushing” system be already installed and pre-assembled or is this something users would need to montage them self after delivering. Or are you thinking of working with a intermediate actor responsible for the “do-it-your-self” (e.g. certified artisans offering toilet installation)?

Kind regards
Dorothee

About plans for the do-it-yourselfers... Yes, we will be doing these - uh... well... when I can find the time! Actually, I think that before the end of the year I'll have plans available with options to purchase any of a variety of fabricated parts.