Outhouses in Virginia

Though Virginia celebrates its history almost to excess, the evolution of wastewater management is rarely acknowledged. A few historic mansion houses have restored the "necessaries" (outhouses) away from the main house. Historic house tours across Virginia exhibit old chamber pots as pristinely clean artifacts, providing little context for their normal use. Recreated historic sites, such as Williamsburg, rarely note how human waste was processed. Reenactments at Civil War battlefields have rows of modern porta-johns for use by visitors and participants, but a truly authentic experience would include an unacceptable volume of horse manure, human waste, and flies.

In a few rural areas, the privy - a round hole in a wooden bench inside an outhouse, sometimes with no toilet seat - is still in use. Pit toilets are easy and inexpensive to construct, and they isolate waste so it is out of sight, out of mind, and out of the house where people live. Most outhouses are just a shallow pit with a simple wooden house above it. If a pit is dug below the water table, users of an outhouse may hear a splash.

At Mount Vernon and Monticello, the pit toilets were designed so slaves would remove the waste at the bottom. In less-fancy houses, if a pit filled up faster than the waste decomposed, a new (perhaps deeper) pit could be dug and the outhouse moved. No complex piping or heavy construction equipment was needed to abandon one location and move to another. Archeologists find old privy sites to be rich treasure troves of historic artifacts (broken ceramics and bottlees, useful for establish dates whenn a building was occupied) that were tossed down the hole. The ancient human waste dries out to become "coprolite," with a texture similar to peat moss and with no smell.

Underneath an outhouse in regular use, the liquids will seep directly into the soil. Similar to old municipal solid waste dumps, there's no liner. The waste may be out of sight, but all of it may not stay in the pit. For a single household, even one with a large number of children, only a small zone of soil near outhouse will be affected. In karst topography, however, waste fluids may seep through the cracks in the limestone and contaminate any drinking water well nearby.

Decomposing human waste piling up underneath an outhouse may generate unpleasant odors, even if lime is thrown into the pit. In rare circumstances, however, that can make a pit toilet an attractive location. When Col. John Mosby raided the town of Fairfax on March 9, 1863 during the Civil War and captured General Stoughton, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Johnstone of the 5th New York evaded capture by hiding in the outhouse. Today that location is the Bailiwick Inn bed-and-breakfast, across the street from the historic Fairfax County courthouse.

As described in Mosby's memoirs, the colonel fled out of his bedroom and "hid in the garden."¹ The Confederates failed to notice him there. According to local tradition, however, the colonel hid underneath the bench in the outhouse. Not surprisingly, Mosby's raiders failed to look down the hole in an outhouse to find the Yankee officer. (At last report, no Civil War history buff has re-enacted that particular drama.)

Outhouses may be simple structures, but they still require basic maintenance. In August, 2000, an elderly gentleman in Carroll County fell into the pit underneath his outhouse, after the floorboards collapsed. He was unable to climb out. It took a couple of days before his rural mail carrier noticed the mail had not been picked up. He stopped to check, and heard a quiet call for help. Together with a neighbor, the mail carrier was able to rescue the elderly homeowner, though it required climbing into the pit.²

(The homeowner who fell into the outhouse finally agreed that he wanted indoor plumbing. Carroll County requires that a house meet the building code standards before issuing building permits for major improvements, however, and his home was in no better shape than his outhouse. Rural housing advocates and Virginia Tech students arranged for a new home with indoor plumbing, to replace both old structures.)³

The modern version of the pit toilet captures the waste underneath in a watertight vault, rather than allow liquids to seep into the soil. Construction sites, airplanes, many boats and recreational vehicles, and some rural parks have port-a-johns. In the simplest version, there is a direct drop from a toilet seat to a valut below. Waste accumulates - and odors increase - until the vault is emptied.

In some recreational vehicles, the blackwater from toilets is captured in one tank and the greywater from sinks/showers is captured in a separate tank. Both tanks are emptied at dump stations, and greywater may be used to rinse out the blackwater tank and sewer hose.

Recreation sites, from vista overlooks at national parks to county ballfields, attract crowds of people to locations that may be far from sewer lines. The waste from restrooms in these sites is collected in vaults, then pumped occasionally into the same "honey wagon" trucks that used used to empty septic system tanks. The trucks haul the sewage to wastewater treatment plants, serving essentially as portable sewer lines to link the sites where waste is collected to the site where waste is processed.

Staff responsible for pumping the waste from the vault to the trucks do not appreciate it when people throw soda cans or other "recycle or throw in a trash can" garbage down the pit toilets. Large items that do not decompose in the vault can clog the hoses used to pump out the tanks, and will need to be pulled out of the vault by tongs or even by hand.

Initial construction costs may be minimized by a decision to use pump-and-haul facilities rather than extending sewer pipes, but annual operating costs are increased. Some communities, such as Prince William County, have made exceptions to their normal standards on when sewer services may be extended outside the intended service area. Sewer pipe extensions may be authorized to service public facilities - such as county parks - in areas where private properties will not be offered sewer service, in order to minimize long-term operational costs for the county.

In airplanes and other facilities with fancier pit toilets, a circulating fluid may be used to carry human waste into a holding tank, similar to flush toilets in modern houses. In the 1980's the blue liquid was formaldehyde with a heavy perfume added to mask the odor and slow decomposition, until some lucky soul got to pump out the tanks and haul the waste to a treatment facility. Today, less-harardous chemicals are used for sanitizing fluids, and airplanes have implemented vacuum-assisted toileet systems to reduce the weight of the fluids in the system.

At some sites in natural areas, composting toilets have become the high-tech version of the outhouse. Aerobic bacteria and fungi break down the waste, converting it to compost without requiring water or electricity. Maintaining the correct balance between nitrogen and carbon, and ensuring sufficient ventilation, may require regular maintenance visits and the occasional introduction of wood chips/peat moss. After the microorganisms complete their digestion, urine, excrement, toilet paper in a composting toilet will decompose to 10-30% of the original volume. The remaining “humus" is hauled away to final processing at a wastewater faciility.

Links

• Colonial Williamsburg Journal: Necessary and Sufficient (Autumn 2002)
• did you know Westover Plantation had an outhouse with 5 holes, and no divider between them?
• Virginia Department of Health
  • Onsite Sewage and Water Services Division
  • Waterborne Hazards Control Division

References