Consider taking 1-2 tower rooms and converting them into bathrooms? Perhaps to a separate “tank septic” type system?
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This is what my husband was thinking.
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Maybe convert one of the bedrooms halfway up to a bathroom for the other bedrooms? You could get a modern composting loo - they are really good and almost look like a real toilet. Is there water there already?
If the 2nd floor and the 5th floor were turned into bathrooms, no one would be more than one floor from a bathroom.
I saw the pics & it looks beautiful. There’s clientele out there who will overlook the inconvenience of the outdoor bathroom etc. Maybe offer it as a mini-convention setting for Historical Romance authors or Lord of the Rings fan club etc. Good luck!
@jaquo
That could have been me, while married, mom-ing and teaching full-time. Hubby wouldn’t help out so, rather than fight about it, delegated it. It was wonderful to have a clean home - without seething resentment!
I do most of the cleaning now that I’m retired- don’t mind it a bit. And, BTW, new partner helps out!
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There is a fire escape
It sounds like you have lots of ideas but very little research.
Composting toilets have to be emptied. Personally, I wouldn’t want to deal with that in a multistory building. They can also not work well without proper care. And I think, if you have a toilet, you should also have a sink with running water.
Second, there is no way the health department will let you install outhouses. Not an option.
A household septic system cost $30,00-$40,000 in washington where I live, one big enough for a wedding would be six figures - if you can actually do it all on your property. If the property isn’t good for septic it can cost a lot more – ours is having problems and if we can’t repair it but instead have to replace it, it would cost $60,000 because our soil is low perc glacial till, and that’s for a single household of four people on two acres. For that matter, your current septic might not be adequate to handle guests at all; they’re generally sized for single family.
From the airbnb perspective, I think there are people who don’t mind having the bathroom on another level, I’m guessing that more people would be turned off by having to share a bathroom with strangers. Likewise I personally wouldn’t book a wedding venue with port a potties, but other parties maybe. If people are reserving your space, they’re going to want your help with that, so you should know what rental options are, what they cost, and how many people you can host, etc.
There are small sewage treatment plants about 3 feet square that work far better than septic tanks but they do require power to run the agitator motor, and they do require a drain field, and have to be emptied about every 3 years.
That may be true where you live, but isn’t some universal truth everywhere in the world.
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That was a guess based on my experience an epidemiologist specializing in food and water borne disease in the U.S. Outhouses are legal in Michigan, but in her county they’re only allowed at places where there is no plumbing and they’re explicitly prohibited at food establishments.
I lived in the 8th (many many years ago), just one block from the Arc de Triomphe where I sub-let a small 7th floor maids room for 5 months. I was lucky to share the hall bathroom with only one other room. There was NO elevator, and you had to keep pressing the light switch/button on each floor to make sure the light stayed on. Unfortunately, the timing it was set to turn off was short, so I had to really hustle to make it to the next floor or I’d end up climbing in the dark…you can believe that kept me in shape!
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