Timber Frame Outhouse Plans

[Rooster]

Um,...it's a "two-seater"?

Or with an interior partisan it will be divided for "Roosters" and "Hens/Chicks"?

[Brian_Weekley]

Move to the left, move to the right, stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!

[Jim_Rogers]

If that is a 8' tall ladder, it most likely is a two seater but it's an over and under.......

The downstairs person doesn't have the best seat in the house...... :D

[Brad_bb]

I think that's a 4' step ladder.  If that were an 8 footer, that wouuld give a whole different perspective on that picture.  I want to hear Ballen tell us.  I think those corner posts are about 4X5inches, substantial for an outhouse.

[ballen]

:-) Hadn't thought of a 2 story outhouse:-)

The step ladder in the picture is a 4 footer.  I have just under 83" under the front tie beam.  Just enough for a 2" floor and a regular door frame.
Brad, the posts and sills are 4x6 but very rough....one barely had 5 1/2" so there is very little housing on that one.  All the wood was salvaged from an old barn that fell near me...it's already 100 years old...reuse, recycle, repurpose!  I thought of using 4x6 for the tie beams but didn't have enough.  All the rest is 4x4...very rough...had to use square rule to get it all to work.

No need to worry about the floor joist interfering with...um...business.  I will be using a self contained composting toilet.

This will also be an experiment in passive heating.  NE PA tends to be cold...I will be putting a solar air heater on the south side and thermal mass in the "attic" (2 liter bottles full of water) and under the floor (rocks) and will circulate hot air during the day.  I will be putting a layer of wood, then 2 layers of rigid foam then wood siding with lots of overhang and gable.  It will be the worlds fist Passive House outhouse:-)  In fact, I hope it will be so tight that I will need to supply make up air for the exhaust fan in the toilet.  I plan to do an earth tube to precondition the incoming air....maybe even some kind of home made heat exchanger....

Will run power to it for now but will eventually put a PV panel on the roof.  A fun experiment.

Thanks to everyone for teaching me timber framing.  I learned everything on this forum or the guild documentation. Did it all with a one inch chisel and antique boring machine Jim sold me.

Best,
Bill

[Brad_bb]

That's awesome Bill!

[dpoisson]

Howdy,
     I was wondering if this outhouse could be constructed using all the same joints, but using nothing other than dimension lumber (4x4`s). I'd really love to wet my beak sort to speak and start gaining a bit of experience with TF structures and that's the only thing I'd have available. I'm looking at 4'x4'.

Cheers!

[witterbound]

Timber framing with dried 4x4s will be frustrating, IMO.  Find a sawmill to mill you some timbers.

[razor]

Outhouses are fun to do.
Here's two I did a while back. One is pine with split ash bracing. The other is western red cedar finished in Landark.

  

 

[bic]

Just finished this one last fall, I give up....check my gallery, if you want to see it, I can't seem to be able to post it

bic

[thecfarm]

This should do it for pictures,


I like to go to whatever post or start a new topic first to include a picture.Go to your gallery,it will open in a new window.Click onto your album,then click onto whatever picture you want,it will get bigger,than scroll down a little to find,Insert Image In Post,click onto that,click Yes and that is it. Some have to copy/paste the link to work.I like to hit the enter key at least once or twice to move the picture down away from what I am typing. The enter key really helps to leave some white space if posting more than one picture. Somewheres I think it says to add 10,000 to your user number or something like that to make a clickable icon to your gallery under your user name. Use the preview button to see how it looks and modify it if needed.

[bic]

 
hope this works



 





 

[bic]

thanks very much for taking the time to help thecfarm

bic

[thecfarm]

I was helped by Tom many moons ago. I just pass on the helping hand that he gave me. DanG was in there too as I remember.

[Jeff]

hope this works


 

Holy CRAP! That's an outhouse!

[r.man]

I once built a frame five by five by eight ft outhouse from rough green two by fours sheathed in rough full 1 inch board and batten. Had to move it with the front end loader and install the shed roof on site because of the weight. Lots of room inside for the six foot nine owner.

[shinnlinger]

This is "Shinn's $¥!\er."  A few years back, my building construction class built a 16X20 timberframe for the town forest.  As a warm up activity, we built this little unit first.  It has a tie beam and an eve tie because that it what the larger structure had albeit they were offset to create eve overhang.  6X6 posts were what I had laying in the pile and an old outhouse on the property provided the seats...

[D L Bahler]

Since there was a collection of outhouse stories on here earlier,

In Switzerland, you have what you call the 'Abort' or the outhouse. Rather than being built over a hole somewhere and moved around every so often, it is built in the rear of the structure, adjoining the barn. The toilet is open to the cesspit for the manure and waste from washing the stall, so it gets blended together. Once or twice a year, the pit gets emptied out and spread on the pasture. Usually the cesspit is covered over with wood planks that can be taken up to clean it out, so you then have a nice wooden walkway from the house to the toilet.

In many houses, there is a hallway between the second story of the house -the sleeping quarters- and the hay loft over the stall. This hallway is sometimes called the 'Schiisgang' or 'Scheisgang' Gang being a hallway and Schiis being, well...
It has this colorful name because you keep a bucket here, so you don't have to go the the outhouse in the middle of the night...