Hi Carol,
Nice to see you here. Re use of the word "carousel", even though it is in the dictionary, defined as "
A circular conveyor on which objects are displayed or rotated", I suppose that, to avoid even the potential for confusion (or legal action), I should refer to it as a "turntable", or "lazy susan" (heading off to find thesaurus
![:-?](./images/smilies/icon_confused.gif)
).
The barrel system here is neat, but when we had to simplify our large-capacity system for my projects in Mexico and for a resort in Fiji, we simply used one barrel. ... It's easier for me to just wheel the barrel away when it fills.
Where do you wheel it away to, and how much does it weigh? Do you have some separate place to store barrels to allow them to complete aging? Or, in those hot climates, is the content already well decomposed? What do you do with it when you wheel it away?
I too have experimented with single barrel systems, but generally found (at least for my specific site conditions) the maintenance requirements to be more time-consuming, and a nastier, more difficult job. The barrels to be moved were very heavy, full of only partially decomoposed shit, and they needed to be moved to some other location to finish aging before they could be emptied. The 3-drum rotating turntable, combined with urine-separation (greatly improving the C/N ratio and reducing the moisture content) is an attempt to simplify that periodic maintenance, though, admittedly, at the cost of a little more initial investment and complexity.
I suppose that, on one level, I could agree with you that "It all works", but I can also say that, in my experience, every one of those choices (e.g. between dry toilet vs microflush, urine+feces vs urine-separating, etc.) has significant consequences. I have seen many installations that would be perfectly workable in some situations or acceptable to some end-users, that a different person in another situation would consider a failure. (Rural Alaska is littered with such "failures".)
Great! Thanks for the link. (I just placed an order for the Separett privy kit -- and your book.)