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mcc_ga

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I'm building a house, and I want to solve one of my biggest annoyances in the process - cleaning the cats' litter box. We have planned a laundry room/mud room with a drain in the center (in case of washing machine or sink overflow), and I would like to install a "toilet" for the cats in there.

I'm still in the design phase of this, so all parts are subject to change if a better way of doing it comes along. So far, the idea is to build a brick frame about 12" off the floor (to keep dachshund from eating solid waste, maybe 18" instead, but either way gravity will help water flow) with a tilted or funneled interior base with a plate made from plastic pegboard (to allow liquid waste through while retaining solid waste and protecting cat feet from water if it flows too soon or one cat gets in before it's done "flushing" from the other) and with a standard toilet tank above (float calibrated to use only about 1 liter per flush).

The liquid waste should just drain down through PVC pipe meeting up into the drain in the floor, but without water rinsing the basin, it would still stink before the first day was out, so I need to trigger water to flow on the basis of the cat using the box. It seems like the easiest way to do that would be to have it pressure-activated by springs attached to the plastic pegboard, but it would be a lot easier to do that when the cat gets in rather than when they get out, which won't work. They're scared of the water, so it needs to go in after they get out, so when pressure on the springs is released. This is where I'm getting stuck.

How do I go about getting water to flow when pressure is released on the springs? I want this to be a purely mechanical solution, not relying on electricity because power service goes out in the area with most major storms, which would put us on generator. I'm not planning on flushing solid waste, so I don't need high pressure or much worry about clogs. Solid waste will either be incinerated or composted.

Thanks for any help you can offer me in getting this from design to functional unit.
 
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