the scoop on poop. @TreeHugger #biologicalfurnace #alternativeheatsource

Guess you might be wondering why there is a picture of a toilet on the MSO blog? Funny as it may sound its because I read an interesting article today.

In the article it describes how you can use the Clivus Multrum (composting toilet) to heat you house. This subject came about because of a "lively twitter discussion about composting toilets, Nick Grant of Elemental Solutions, a British passivhaus consultancy, posted a remarkable drawing. It's from Goodbye to the flush toilet, edited by Carol Hupping Stoner and published by Rodale Press in 1977."

Long before passive house existed people were experimenting with alternative hearing sources, and one idea was to use the least considered heating source of them all. POOP!

Carl Lindstrom describes the system designed by Swedish physicist Mats Wolgast:

"It has been calculated that the waste in the Clivus Mutrum [composting toilet] has an average heating value that is about the same as wood. The aerobic decomposition process gives off the same amount of BTUs that would be generated if the material was burned instead, but at a much lower temperature.... The compost process gives off an average of 1kwh/person/day. In the Wolgast house with five people, this means about 1,800 kwh/year from the composting wastes."

Referenced by Tree Hugger.