Building a Traditional Country Privy

The old-fashioned outhouse or privy pro vides a comfortable, inexpensive alternative to the common flush toilet. Properly built, as a lined pit topped by a small structure for privacy, it will not contaminate surface soil or water supplies, and it will be virtually odor-free. Liquids seep slowly into the ground, gases escape through a ventilation pipe, and solids de compose in the pit. Depending on its construction and maintenance, the privy will be usable for 5 to 15 years.

Many local health officials will supply free advice and plans for locating, building and maintaining approved pit privies. Generally, they recommend locations downhill from a well and at least 50’ from a house. The pit bottom should be at least 5’ above the water table.

Outhouses should not be built on a flood plain or in an area containing fissured rocks or limestone formations that can carry pollutants to distant wells. Small depressions in slightly sloping ground can become waterways every spring, flooding a privy pit and causing it to overflow. In any location, soil quality is critical in the selection of a site. The ideal soil contains roughly equal proportions of sand, silt and clay; if there is too much sand, bacteria can spread over long distances; if there is too much clay, liquids will not be absorbed.

After selecting a site, dig the pit and build a lining. A concrete floor over the pit will last indefinitely, but for occasional use, an easily built wooden floor will do almost as well.

A privy’s life span is determined in large measure by its maintenance. The better the balance of carbon and nitro gen in the pit, the more quickly wastes decompose—and the longer it takes for the pit to fill. To offset the high nitrogen content of human waste and to reduce odors, sprinkle wood ashes, straw, or sawdust into the pit after each use.

When the pit is filled to within about 18” below ground level, disassemble the house and move it to a new location; cover the old pit with a 2-foot mound of dirt.

119 Anatomy of a pit privy. Dug by hand or back-hoe, the pit above is square in this example; other designs are rectangular, and pits vary from 36 to 48” wide and from 3 to 7’ deep. To prevent cave-ins during digging, the sides must be braced with plywood. For the finished pit, the lining should be made of lumber pressure- treated with a commercial preservative so the wood will withstand constant contact with the earth for several years. The wooden floor fits over the top of the pit lining and rests upon the ground. A seat box, built of 2-by-2s and plywood, fits into a hole in the floor and is held in place by 1-by-3 strips nailed to the box and the floor.

The seat hole is covered with a light, fly-tight lid. To ventilate the pit, a 4” stovepipe, screened and capped at the top, extends down into the seat box and up above the roof.

The sides of the privy house are framed with pressure-treated 2-by-4 columns secured to the floor; 2-by-4s are also used to frame a shed roof. Screened vents are left at the top of the structure, and a self-closing door is fitted into the highest wall. The entire building is tightly sheathed and roofed. To prevent ground water from reaching the pit, a well-tamped mound of dirt extends 2’ from the floor level on all sides.

Finishing the Privy Pit

120 1. Lining the pit. After digging a square or rectangular pit, assemble an open-ended liner box 2” smaller than the pit in width and length and about 7” deeper, and lower it into the pit. To make the liner, use 4-by-4 corner uprights and side, front and back boards that are 1” thick; space the boards that will be more than a foot below the surface about ½” apart for drainage. In the top edges of the boards at the front and back of the box, cut out rectangles 1½” wide and 3½” deep, spaced at the width of the privy seat and equally distant from the center. Level the liner box, if necessary, by pushing it down into the bottom of the pit, and tamp dirt between the out side of the box and the pit walls.

2. Framing and covering the floor. Assemble a box frame of 2-by-8s 4” wider and longer than the liner box, with 2-by-4 braces, spaced the width of the privy seat and equally distant from the center, nailed between the front and back of the frame. Nail a covering of pressure treated boards, 1” thick, over the frame, leaving an opening for the seat box. Set the completed floor on top of the liner box, with the 2- by-4 braces resting in the slots of the box and the frame resting on the ground.