In most months we have news worthy of posting but we don’t always get around to putting it up – as you can readily see by viewing the dates below!
If you know something about a NatSol toilet which seems worthy of a post on this page please let us know.
Open Air magazine published an article, Call of Nature, by Andrew Warren and Kate de Selincourt in their June 2016 edition. The magazine is sold to businesses carrying on outdoor activities such as glamping, outdoor events and al fresco weddings.
The article takes a broad look at waterless toilets and provides a checklist of things you should find out if you are thinking of buying one.
Visit the Open Air website here.
We are delighted to have supplied a remote waterless toilet for an exclusive golf club near Ascot. On a large course you can be some distance from the club house. Interrupting play to ‘pay a visit’ is almost certainly undesirable. Installing a NatSol composting toilet by the ninth hole could be the solution you were looking for. No water, no power, no freezing risk, no odours, low maintenance and very low running costs.
Aware that our compost toilet instruction booklet shows our old MK 1 pedestal, we decided to visit Hollow Ash Shepherd’s Hut Holidays for a photoshoot now that their peak camping season is over.
It is always good to have an excuse to visit installations and to meet our customers for feedback. We also like to see what people have done to customise their toilets and this is a fine example!
The shepherd hut based toilet building is looking great after two seasons of campers.
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NatSol Director Andy Warren goes on tour to see how users of our compost loos are getting along. He visits a church, allotment, glamping site and private household.
In 2012 NatSol was chosen to design a toilet system for a new accessible facility in the Isabella Plantation, Richmond Park, London. The toilets opened to the public in Sept 2014 and are working well. We are monitoring performance and are looking to develop this approach for other high use sites.
The Isabella Plantation is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) with high ground water and heavy clay soil where no foul discharge to ground is permitted. Waterless toilets seemed like the obvious choice but we have long held reservations about composting toilets as an appropriate technology for very high use public sites because of the need to manually remove compost. This has not been a problem on lower use sites. Even busy allotments produce surprisingly little solid waste thanks to the twin vault process.
In consultation with The Royal Parks (TRP) and the design team of engineers and architects we developed a waterless system with individual tanks beneath the toilet pedestals. These can be emptied by tanker four or five times a year.
The waterless toilets are ventilated via the specially designed stainless steel pedestals removing odour at source. The air is drawn through a biological odour filter developed by NatSol. The filter was included to ensure odour-free operation in an area sheltered by trees. The extra resistance of the filter meant that we needed to use an energy efficient fan rather than our usual passive vent chimney that has proved so successful on our dry composting toilets.
In addition to the five toilet pedestals the gents includes AIRFLUSH® Urinals developed by NatSol Technical Director Nick Grant and supplied by the Green Building Store. GBS also provided help with the efficient ventilation design.
The design fulfils TRP’s requirement for a low water use toilet block with excellent odour control, no site discharges, low management requirement and infrequent emptying.
Download a short Case Study.
Now that we have recovered from the shock of how fast 10 years can fly by we are enjoying this important milestone. During this period we have been pleased to provide wheelchair accessible toilet facilities for an increasingly diverse range of off-mains sites from allotments and village churches to public parks. After ten years and over 400 compost toilet installations, we are very confident in the concept, which remains largely unchanged.
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A full access NatSol compost toilet forms the base for a very lovely new installation for a luxury camping (glamping) set up in Herefordshire. We are always pleased when customers want to design their own building and we have designed the vault so that it forms the foundations and floor to make this a relatively simple option. As you can see, this is a particularly fine example by Jeremy Harris of Hollow Ash Shepherd’s Huts.
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The new Compact dry toilet with stainless steel pedestal is becoming popular for shepherd’s huts, garden studios and other low use situations. The one shown here is installed at our main offices and is used by staff thereby reducing our water use and enabling some recycling of organic material. Odour free and having a silent flush it is regularly used in preference to the flush toilets.
The Compact compost toilet uses the same high quality urine separating pedestal as our full access models. This solves the usual problem of smaller waterless toilets being flooded if usage is particularly high due to visitors such as during a party.
For full details of the product go to: Compact Product page
We are always happy to discuss your requirements without obligation. Please call us on 01686 412653.
The Loo at The Light is the composting toilet that was built in the walker’s car park at Stoerhead Lighthouse, Assynt this summer. After the success of the toilet’s first few weeks (it raised £805 to be donated to the community) it was decided to enter it in the Loo of the Year awards for 2013.
The Loo of the Year competition is in its 26th year and is run across the whole of the UK. It has hundreds of entries (over 1400 in 2013) every year in 60 different categories. All entries are individually inspected and given a grade based on various criteria. High standards are expected and competition is stiff.
After its inspection The Loo at the Light was given a ‘Gold’ grading which gave it instant entry into the National and UK wide competition for the 2 categories in which it was entered: Best Car Park Toilet and Best Eco Friendly Toilet.
The awards ceremony was on Friday 6th December and the Loo at the Light won 2 national awards:
Best Scottish Car Park Toilet and Best Scottish Eco Friendly toilet
Not bad for what might be the remotest loo on the UK mainland!
NatSol took a stand at the Farm Business Innovation Show in Olympia, London and were overwhelmed by the interest in our products, particularly by those looking for a high quality toilet solution for glamping sites and rural retreats.
We generally prefer designing and making stuff to selling it and Nick had argued against us doing the show. Indeed we both had modest expectations but decided to try it. In the end we were more or less besieged by enquirers for two days. Many people had already researched the subject in depth and came prepared with intelligent questions. To our surprise no one seemed to turn their nose up at the idea of a compost toilet and a number of people said they had seen our loos in use and were amazed by the lack of smell. Only one delegate said she thought toilets were boring and I’m not sure that we managed to convince her otherwise!
Of particular interest was the new Compact toilet with stainless steel pedestal. Delegates quickly recognised its potential to provide an odour free loo for shepherd’s huts, safari tents, tree-houses and other types of high quality ‘glamping’ accommodation. One fellow exhibitor, ECHO, a maker of very crisply designed and finely crafted off grid buildings described the new pedestal as ‘a beautiful object’ and saw it as the ideal solution for a current project on Crete.
We also had a a lot of interest in our full access toilets for campsites, riding stables, fishing lakes, allotments, churches and other off-mains locations.
Although we had no time to see any of the seminars, a string of people asked us if we had paid Alastair Sawday to promote our compost toilets as he had waxed lyrical about us in his seminar and sent people to our stand! We were able to thank him later and will hopefully work together at some point.
Overall we found the show to be a very worthwhile experience with lots of pleasant surprises.
