When you gotta go

Thankfully, the outhouse was replaced with a small bathroom some years back, though for some reason the toilet has just a pipe curling out under the wall to the outside without going any farther.

Also, with no septic system and a nearby creek running out to a major area lake, a considerate person feels obligated to come up with an affordable yet environmentally conscious way to handle waste.

We've taken a two-pronged approach.
1) A composting toilet
2) A gray water system to handle all other drainage.

As a plumber, I can barely figure out how to plug my bathtub drain in my apartment, so I naturally presume I can work out how to remove a toilet and install a composting toilet. It turns out a toilet is rather simple, a few bolts here and there that can be removed to take the tank off the back and disconnect the bowl from the floor (no water in the system to deal with here). The bowl is a touch trickier since there will be a wax seal that keeps it water tight and keeps it stuck to the floor even after the bolts are removed. But enough tugging pulls it free, though leaving behind a protruding ring of wax. This I could cut away and throw out, though I was still left with another protruding ring of a tougher material, like molded pvc, plus a couple of long metal bolts.

I attacked the bolts with a pair of pliers and managed to rip them out of the floor. I then considered my saw and knife options for the remaining hard material. Unable to concoct a viable scheme for this, I turned to another friendly tool - a hammer. i beat the hell out of that material, forcing it back down into the pipe and pounding it flush with the floor. Then with the advice of an inventive hardware store employee, filled the hole with rags and expanding foam. The foam formed a nice little bubble up out of the floor, like something from a science fiction movie, the aliens coming up through the sewage system. I sliced the alien bubble free, then mixed some fast drying concrete to make a smooth floor again.

Next step, new toilet...