you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Zapped 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I want to install a DIY urinal in my detached garage shop and have heard that you can run the drain straight into a compost barrel. do you have any advice for that, or is just that simple?

[–]RelianceTrust[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Pretty much just that simple. Make sure there is plenty of Carbon Rich organic matter to soak up and retain all that Nitrigen Rich urine (and phosphorus, and potassium). Carbon attracts nitrogen as it decays, turns into long term time-release fertilizer. A gallon of urine has about 30g of Urea Nitrate and another 30g of each phosphorus and potassium. that's quite a bit. Over an oz of pure organic nitrate fertilizer. Assists the carbon rich compost with "Heating up".

The extra carbon also prevents smells. If you smell manure/sewage/garbage smell from your compost, you need to add on more carbon-rich material like leaves C;N 50;1, wood chips 60:1, coffee grounds 20;1. Any carbon ratio below 10:1 will start to have that manure smell. You can actually gauge how ready your compost is and what its ratio of Nitrogen is by how much it smells like Manure. Manure is about 7:1 C:N. You are shooting for about 9:1 for rapid strong green growth. Forest soil is around 20:1 give or take like the coffee grounds. The more carbon, the more fungal dominated, the more nitrogen, the more bacterial dominated. Thats where the smells come from! Around 10:1 is peak competition, the most natural ideal, and the least smell of any really.

[–]Zapped 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Thanks so much. I'll try to work on this project this weekend.

[–]RelianceTrust[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Any time brother

[–]Zapped 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

More advice, if you don't mind. I have access to as much horse manure as I want, but I don't know how useful it is.

[–]RelianceTrust[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Horse manure is excellent once composted. retains water pretty well. Its essentially grass clippings but more bio-active. Decently high in nitrogen. Good mixed with woody material and amended with blood meal and fish emulsion etc