Regarding the chemical action of lime in a privy, not all of the facts have
been listed.  Lime is Ca(OH)2 (the "2" should be a subscript).  It will
neutralize the acids in the privy resulting in water and calcium salts
(which would generally be odorless).  If there is more lime than acids, then
the excess lime will remain, and this is likely.  The lingering odor after
treatment with lime is most likely due to organic compounds, and gases &
byproducts resulting from microbial decay of these compounds.  The excess
lime will kill most microbes and retard microbial activity.

Allen Vegotsky
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel H. Weiskotten <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: Privies


>Ned Heite wrote:
>>Privies are unlikely to be found immediately adjacent to houses in
>>rural settings.
>
>
>Of course that depends on location.
>
>Up in Central New York, and most of New England, where snow got to more
>than a few feet deep and the temps into the double digits below zero, many
>farms had the privy attached or within the house.  Often it was in the
>corner of the woodshed or at the end of the string of connected buildings.
>
>See Thomas C. Hubka (1984), _Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The
>Connected Farm Buildings of New England_ University Press of New England,
>Hanover, NH
>
>Most of these situations did not have pits under them but had boxes that
>collected the stuff.  When needed the night soil man would come around and
>drag the box out and dump it elsewhere or the farmer could do it himself
>and dump it on the fields as fertilizer - that's one reason we find broken
>bits of glass and ceram. spread across fields when we do survey work.
>
>The house I grew up in had a winter privy in the woodshed (also used by the
>old folks that lived there in the 1880s) and another was detached about 20
>feet away - only 30 feet and uphill from the well, but since they both had
>boxes it didn't matter.  My neighbor's house had one which was attached to
>her kitchen and I think had its own door right into the kitchen.  It sat
>atop the big cistern and about 40 feet from the well but it too had a box
>underneath.  I can recall that about 10 of the neighbors had attached
>privies and only one had a detached one (detached may not have survived to
>my time - late 1960s +).  I know of a double-decker privy in the village
>that is at the end of the shed so the user didn't have to go all the way
>down stairs in the night - and it has a square wooden vent.
>
>In the village there is a good mix of houses with attached or freestanding
>privies and they are a good mix of box and vault privies.  The several
>larger properties and houses in country and village had servants to take
>care of the stuff but still had privies within the woodshed and not free
>standing where they could be seen.
>
>Once plumbing came in (rural electricity in the 1930s) these attached
>privies were knocked out or converted to storage rooms for garden tools,
>firewood, etc.  Bathroms were moved into the house where pipes were less
>likely to freeze - although that always was and still is a problem.
>
>As for the stench, we've got to remember that these people also used
>chamber pots - I do not recall a rural excavation that I have done or read
>about that did not find fragments - and if you think privies smell bad try
>out a chamber pot.  No, I have not used a chamber pot, but my imagination
>fills in the gaps on that one.
>
>        Dan W.
>