Best way to tie down an outhouse?

[Erin]

We're getting going on our house and project #1 is to get a functional "bathroom."

The outhouse I grew up with had a nice, concrete foundation/floor. It would have taken some serious effort to get it over. But DH and I don't want anything quite that permanent.
However, we don't want a stiff breeze toppling it over, either.

We're considering just having a square of railroad ties for our foundation (like our chicken coop). But the center of gravity will be higher than that of our coop, so we're thinking we need to stake it down somehow.


Thoughts?

[glenn kangiser]

RR ties.  Just what I was going to suggest.  They are pretty heavy by themselves and will likely hold but if you don't trust them to, then drill a couple holes in an x pattern at each end of them and drive heavy rebar pins into the ground below.  I'd prefer at least 5/8 but 1/2 might work.  Maybe 3 feet or more depending on your soil.

A hole the same size as the rebar will grip the tie also. IE: a 1/2 inch hole for 1/2 inch rebar.  It will be tight to drive in.

[ScottA]

That would do it.

[Erin]

Oooh.  Rebar!  Of couse. 
Thanks glen.  I think that's exactly what we'll go. 
95% of the time, just the RR ties would be fine I think.  but now and again we have days where we have sustained high winds that tend to wreak all kinds of havoc...

[glenn kangiser]

There you go, Erin.  I'd hate to see that thing go tumbling along the sandhills of Nebraska with you in it and no seatbelt.

[jb52761]

As I picture being blown down a hill inside an outhouse, I sure hope the toilet paper is still intact when I get to my stopping point....quite sure I'll need it again before crawling out..... ...jb

[Jumpinfrog]

That and a pressure washer!

[Redoverfarm]

You could also use those screw in dog chain anchors and some strapping to the house base.  The wind might not be your only problem.  I posted this before but I still think it's funny.

THE OUTHOUSE

Once there was a little boy that lived in the
country. They had to use an outhouse, and the little boy hated it because it
was hot in the summer and cold in the winter and stank all the time.

The outhouse was sitting on the bank of a creek and
the boy determined  that one day he would push that outhouse into the
creek.

One day after a spring rain, the creek was swollen
so the little boy decided today was the day to push the outhouse into
the creek. So he got a large stick and started pushing. Finally, the
outhouse toppled into the creek and floated away.

That night his dad told him they were going to the
woodshed after supper. Knowing that meant a spanking, the little boy asked why.

The dad replied, "Someone pushed the outhouse into the creek today.

It was you, wasn't it son?"

The boy answered yes.

Then he thought a moment and said, "Dad, I read in
school today that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and
didn't get into trouble because he told the truth."

The dad replied, "Well, son, George Washington's
father wasn't in the cherry tree."

[harry51]

Our experience has been that if a person will keep a container of lime in the outhouse, and add a cup or so after each #2 visit, it will keep the area relatively "sweet" and mostly free of flies, etc...... BTW, ashes from the woodstove work well, too.

[OldDog]

Screw in anchors.

You need red cobs, white cobs and a sears catalogue

[Erin]

I'll think we'll go with Charmin. 

BTW, ashes from the woodstove work well, too.

This is what my folks have always done. After properly cooled, of course!  lol
We only used ours on the weekends, but even so, dumping ashes about once a month in the burning seasons seemed to keep the privvy not "sweet" necessarily, but certainly not offensive...

[cordwood]

 Rebar or steel concrete form stakes have always worked on the ones I have had over the years.
The cheap dollar store 33 gal. trash cans with the bottom cut out works well for a "Directional Aid" from seat to grade elevation .

[Whitlock]

You can have my mother In-Law to sit in it for you.

[glenn kangiser]

Sorry guys and gals, but I think it's time to post this again.

  Ode To The Little Brown Shack Outback

Whitlock - you weren't the guy down the hole in the yellow rain jacket were you? hmm

[glenn kangiser]

Nope -- I guess it was someone else - other side of the US

http://www.wmur.com/news/4662061/detail.html

Man, I had a hard time finding that one.

[Redoverfarm]

I would say that after the police got him that he was " In deep s#*t"  Well maybe that was before.

[glenn kangiser]

You never picked up one like that, John? hmm

[Erin]

Rebar or steel concrete form stakes have always worked on the ones I have had over the years.
The cheap dollar store 33 gal. trash cans with the bottom cut out works well for a "Directional Aid" from seat to grade elevation .

As does a 55 gal. drum with the ends lopped off.
We've already got the hole dug and lined. Just need to put a house over top.    

Sorry guys and gals, but I think it's time to post this again.

lol
As soon as I clicked the link it started playing. 
DH perked up from his computer on the other side of the room; "Hey-- the Outhouse Song!"

[firefox]

I love the song!

Another idea for the tie down. If you look at how a phone pole is guyed down you will see a rod going into the ground at the end of the cable that goes to the top of the pole. What good does that do you ask?
What you don't see is that they dig another hole at right angles to the rod
so that it intersects the rod a few feet down. Then they slip a large metal plate which has a slot in it down the hole such that it slips over the rod and sits in front of a big nut or bulge on the rod. Now the rod is trying to pull this large plate through hard packed ground.

So to add a little quick fix to your outhouse, get two cables long enough to throw over the outhouse and come down at a 45 deg angle on both sides. The rest you will need to improvise with what you have around, but it should be pretty easy.
Bruce

[Erin]

Now the rod is trying to pull this large plate through hard packed ground.

That's a deadman.  (Very common method used for bracing fence corner posts in my part of the world.) 
I had a 6th grader one time admit that he used to think it was actually a body they buried for the deadman.  lol  Ya know--Grandpa continuing to be useful even though he's now in Glory. 

We've pretty much decided against deadmen, though. 
Don't want any obstacles when someone is trooping out to the necessary in the dark... 

[Redoverfarm]

No Glenn I was never that fortunate.  I have had plenty that I thought they had fell in but most were just self originators.  The alcoholics were the worse. 

[glenn kangiser]

Oh man John.... I don't really want to even think about that....

[Whitlock]

Had a girl friend use my outhouse at a party we were having. She started screaming and running out into the woods with her shorts down. I couldn't figure what was going on so I ran after her.
Well come to find out when she went to pull up her shorts one of the tree frogs that were in the out house thought that her behind looked like a good place to be and jumped on.
I never could get her to use the out house after that.

[MountainDon]

Better that than a black widow on the.. uh... family jewels.

[MountainDon]

The venom of black widow spiders is a neurotoxin (poisonous to the nervous system). Bites from adult females are the most toxic. The adult female is jet black with two reddish markings (often in the shape of an hourglass) on the underside of her body. These spiders are not very big - their body size is about 1 cm and their leg span about 5 cm. Bites occur mostly in the summer and early autumn, usually if the spider is provoked or if her web is disturbed. These spiders build their webs under logs, plants, or rocks, or in dark places in garages and outhouses.

http://www.healthyontario.com/ConditionDetails.aspx?disease_id=297


In an online article posted by a doctor in the nearby town of Grants, NM, he confirmed that he treats a number of black widow bites every year, with most of them having occurred in outhouses.
http://robingallup.com/2008/07/03/the-outhouse/