Compost Heating System for The Garden? Is It Possible to Heat a Hoop House with Compost? Part 1 

Inoculate the chips with lignin disassembles such as actinomycetes which make so much heat they are nicknamed "fire fang". then you can use other species such as oyster mushrooms, ps. cyanescens, axurescens which will convert full size chips into a nutritive biomass that can be added right to the soil without any worries.

Old Way alchemy I love it!

Back at the ranch, Wheelers ranch, Sonoma County, we had 55gal drums with 2 filled with chicken and cow shit, used copper coil inserted into 2 55's that were elevated for a gravity shower. Temp was over 130. There was very little radiation heat at 3ft.

I'm doing something like this. I thought of it today and I'm glad to see it does work. I have a large chicken run that I put all my mowed grass in and after it builds up and gets pooped all over it is pre charged and I STRONGLY suggest EM1. It is amazing stuff. I spray it on everything. My plants and orchids thrive with that and biochar. So I put a layer of really poopy grass and spray it with EM1. Its a bottle of beneficial microbes. It revives living plants and dissolves dead ones. Fast. I have a little 7x7x4 ft quarter round greenhouse attached to a wall I built thats posts are 2 ft in the ground to fasten it to. On the backside of the wall I built walls perpendicular 7 ft out and 5 ft tall. I have a huge tarp that goes on the bottom of wall and extends like 15 ft. So that way I layer then spray and repeat. 4 in layers. Then I put a layer of used potting soil then straw to top it off. Spayed the whole thing with tons of EM1 and fold the tarp back over like a taco. Walls keep it from falling out. The less O2 the better. It will cook. My plane is to have a 200 foot coil of black plastic pipe in the center of the pile. The pipe will be attached to a 55 gallon black barrel on its side closed in a box with thermal pane glass door over it in front of greenhouse at an angle buried in the ground half way. That water will be pumped through asiers of pipe running back and forth under sand and light gravel to create radiant heated floor. I really hope it works. I deal with temps from 40 to 0 degrees in winter.

This looks like scaled down system invented by a French farmer Jean Pain in 70s. He used a big piles of straw and plastic tubes, I think. The non-rotting layer of straw served as isolation.

I could see putting a top or second from the top layer of compost to prime the decomposition.

People confuse temperature from a mass where heat is not being used, with how much heat energy it can produce over time. Remember you will be removing the heat from the mass of organics at some rate, do you really think the biology will keep up with that heat removal rate? And if the temperature is reduced the biological reaction will stop. Thermal batteries of a similar volume/ but MUCH higher mass would be heated to thousands of degrees to be somewhat useful in a small well insulated place if you wanted the heat to last overnight. You can use Bing AI on the balanced setting to get an idea.

I have decades of experience with thermodynamics from my previous life as an engineer. Now a mini farmer with 8-9 yards of compost in process year round. IMO, a much better use of resources is to make a bin from heavy gauge 1/2" hardware cloth that's four feet in diameter by four feet tall. Nothing else required, but you can increase efficiency by putting a chimney in the center. Easy to make by wrapping a section of hardware cloth around a pipe at least four inches in diameter and secure by bending end cuts inward with a pliers. If your greenhouse won't accommodate a bin four feet diameter, it's worth the effort to modify the beds. Obviously locate on the north side of the greenhouse.

Thanks Ernie. Great engagement Rianna.

Hello, I am currently building a greenhouse. I want to heat my greenhouse with compost. Do you have a video of how you set this up after you built your system. I also dug down 6 feet so I could put pipe in the ground to lead up to the compost. Do you have any advice?

Great video

Copper is antimicrobial. Did it seem to affect the compost process? What kind of water temperatures were you getting?

Probably dont even need the copper coil, and i would just pee in it and add some sugar, for moisture nitrogen and super food for bacteria. Im going to do 2 barrels this winter and have a swedish heater as a backup. (Burning barrel with ascending pipe through it.)

Now that you have had it running a few months, what results have you had? Did it heat the hoop house?

Interesting thanks

I think that it makes no sense to ad a coil and everything else, because the barrel will radiate the heat anyway. And if you cool the compost, which is what happens with a copper coil inside the pile, the bacteria and other micro organisms will become less active and therefore produce less heat. And the copper is toxic to those micro organisms and bacteria, which will also result in less activity and thus less heat. Personally I would never recommend people to do this.

Awesome! I'm wondering if you think this would work with woodchips that aren't green? Or perhaps there is a similar/better material to use as a substitute?

my opinion is that a plastic spiral is better than Copper

Hi. How long did that compost produce heat?

the leaves arent the only thing "cooked",.,.lol great informative video,..,had to warm up my hookah,.,.,.

If you set the speed to 1.5, the woman in the background sounds like a Microsoft speech synthesizer.

i can think of a few good uses for that copper coil,.,,.,.,,.nice work,.,.you sound like mr rogers sometimes,. explaining,.,.not bad thing , u haters,.,..,,...,.

Hello, please do not ignore my comment and answer my question?! Can you write to me the working method in detail, how to start working, and what temperature I will get if I use this method??! All thanks to you 💙

I was thinking .... use green hay to heat my house ?

You need to fix the volume. can not hear this.

Дак процесс нужно запускать правильно 😂 то есть нагревать да и объем маленький и в бочку незачем пихать так как приток воздуха там мал 😂

OMG this will not work! There is no way a temperature gradient differentiation this low will be successful for continual circulation 👎

well this tinman needs oil,later

This would work better with cut grass !