If you keep an eye on our website, you might have noticed a new product slip in recently – the Alectura Premium by Nature Loo.

You can read all about the product in our shop, but I wanted to cover some technical aspects and features in a bit more detail in this blog post – the sort of stuff that might be a bit too much for the sales page.

So what is the Alectura and who are Nature Loo?

Firstly Nature Loo is an Australian company that have been designing and manufacturing composting toilets for many years. They’ve designed sold their larger systems under the Clivus Multrum brand (this is not the same Clivus Multrum as found in Europe or the USA: similar, but not the same!).

They were looking at creating a composting toilet for the emerging ‘tiny house’ market – something that presented a regular looking porcelain toilet pedestal (with no urine diverter), was simple to use, odourless, and took all the ‘waste’ outside and composted it with minimal intervention. It also needed to be off-grid (low power consumption from either 12v or mains) used no water and created a safe compost as the end product. The tricky issue was that most ‘tiny houses’ were built onto a trailer chassis and had limited space between the ground and the floor.

The first version was called the Clivus Multrum LP (low profile) and required just under 50cm clearance. Nature Loo then went on to refine the design – removing the wheels from the composting chamber gave it more capacity, and the compost mixing/aeration blade was redesigned (more on these and what they do later on), along with a whole host of improvements to make it easier, safer and more functional.

Although the UK and Ireland hasn’t (yet) experienced a similar boom in ‘Tiny Houses’, we know the Alectura will be a perfect fit for Shepherds Huts, wagons, buildings, caravans, lodges and glamping pods. You just need at least 49cm clearance to the underside of the chassis or floor and the Alectura will fit. Now you can have the luxury of a simple to use, porcelain toilet pedestal without the need for water or sewage connections.

With an improved design, they wanted a new name, and so the Alectura was born. The Alec-what-ra?

The Alectura was born

Alectura is the colloquial name for the Australian Brush Turkey. The males build large nests by collecting leaves – they can get up to 1.5m high and 4m across. The female lays an egg which is incubated by the heat of the composting leaves – very clever, and hence an appropriate name for a composting toilet!

What’s in the Alectura Premium Starter Kit?

The starter kit was created to give you almost everything you need to install the Alectura, provided you have at least 49cm clearance under the building.

It comes with a stylish porcelain toilet pedestal, two collection/composting chambers with mixing blades, connection chute sections to connect the pedestal to the chamber, the EZlift trolley to help swap the containers over, a ventilation fan (12v or mains), a leachate drain pipe and other fittings.

You’ll need to provide the vent pipe (110mm) which is commonly available at builders merchants and DIY stores. The vent pipe can run up the outside of your building, or can be run through a service duct if you prefer.

How does the Alectura composting toilet work?

The Alectura is sometimes referred to as a split or batch composting toilet. This means that the toilet pedestal is separate or split from the collection/composting chamber. Batch composting means that composting will commence within the collection chamber – when it’s full, you swap it for an empty chamber (two are provided in the starter kit) and set the original one aside to continue composting.

The pedestal is a drop through design, so everything you pass will drop through into the chamber below. There’s no urine separator, so it’s easy to use and easy to keep clean and doesn’t require special instructions for users.

Without a urine separator or diverter, you might be wondering how it doesn’t turn into a chamber of slurry. The Alectura works on a similar principle to the WooWoo GT – the base enables excess liquid to pass down into a lower reservoir. However, a lot of the liquid (up to 90% depending on the ambient temperature) will be consumed in the composting process, or evaporated through the ventilation system – any excess liquid is drained out as a leachate into a leachate drain or soakaway pit.

The key to the Alectura, like the WooWoo GT is that the composting process (which will start to happen naturally within the chamber) is encouraged and sustained. This massively reduces the odours (the bacteria that initiate composting will eliminate the odour as they consume the contents) and will also reduce some of the bulk.

The base has a wicking system to also allow liquid to be drawn up from the reservoir if the composting mass above starts to get too dry. If the reservoir fills up with leachate, it runs out through a tube and into a leachate drain (soakaway pit).

When you put the first collection/composting chamber in place, you will add a layer of wood shavings. These provide a source of carbon that will work with the nitrogen in faeces and urine to facilitate the composting process. A small scoop of wood shavings is added after each poo use, or an amount can be added weekly if that’s easier.

Once a week, turn the mixing blades with the supplied handle – this will flatten the heap (it will naturally create a ‘mountain’ of material in the centre) and aerate the contents – again, promoting composting throughout the chamber.

Servicing the Alectura

When the first container is full, it’s time to swap in the next one.

Add some cover material to ensure the last use is covered up. Disconnect the vent pipe and leachate pipes. Remove the stainless steel locking ring around the chamber and slide the cover up the waste chute.

You can now manoeuvre the EZLift trolly and remove the full container. Place the lid on it and install the bug screens and dust covers on the vent hole and leachate outlet. This container can be placed out of the way (ideally in a sunny place to get as much warmth as possible) to continue it’s composting journey.

The empty chamber has a layer of wood shavings placed in the base and can be moved into position. The lid is lowered down the chute and the locking ring placed correctly. Finally, reconnect the vent pipe and leachate drain.

Capacities

The maximum capacity of each of the chambers is 90 litres, although this translates to around 75 litres of useable space. It’s difficult to give precise answers on how that translates to the amount of urine and faeces it can hold as that will depend on several factors, including the ambient temperature, the number of uses, the frequency of uses, the amount of cover material and so on. As guide, we estimate that each chamber will provide around 120 ‘poo’ uses.

Speed of composting

Within a very short time, the contents (including toilet paper) will look very different – typically within a month to six weeks, depending on the temperature. However, the whole composting journey will take around a year to ensure that all of the bad stuff is completely transformed into a safe and nutritious compost.

As you are likely to want to bring the chamber back into service before it’s completely ready, it’s useful to have an area to empty the chamber after a while. The humanure compost can be allowed to ‘mature’ and after 12-24 months, can then be used as a mulch.

Robust construction: built to last

The Alectura is built to last and to stay looking good. The use of appropriate and durable materials means it comes with an impressive warranty of 10 years on the chambers and 5 years on the porcelain pedestal.

The collection/composting chamber is made from Moulded Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate (ASA) a thermoplastic polymer that is known for its durability, UV resistance, and ability to withstand a range of temperatures and chemicals.

The toilet pedestals are hand made from sanitary porcelain and feature a soft close seat. You can secure the pedestal to the floor as well as using a silicone sealant.

Find out more

If you want to know even more, you can download the installation manual from the product page. If you are looking for a similar product, but with greater capacity, take a look at the WooWoo GT LUX.

And WooWoo staff are on hand to answer any other questions you might have…