Comments on: Cold Weather Adaptation

By: petercraw

petercraw — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:11:48 +0000

The idea to add a 4′ electric heater cable prior to filling the bin in late Fall/Winter is just BRILLIANT!! I lost almost six months of composting time here in New Hampshire last winter because my bin froze solid in November. It wasn’t until this March that my “Jello Pudding Pop” finally thawed out. The heater cable will be added next Fall.

It is amazing how much heat is given off! I just started a new batch yesterday and in less than 24 hrs it’s 116F in there. Typically, it climbs about 12-15 degrees/day until 160F is reached.

I don’t have a front-end loader and fill my bins with the wheel-barrow and ramp method. After some trial and error testing, I found that adding a few gallons of water with the garden hose after each bin deposit is critical to starting the process.

By: peter

peter — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:42:22 +0000

The heat in a composting system is the result of bacterial activity in the first 30 to 45 days of composting (referred to as “Active Composting”). The maximum heat and duration of heat production is a function of the feedstocks being composted. Horse manure has moderate “heat potential” and more nitrogenous materials (e.g. lawn clippings, chicken manure, etc.) have high heat potential.

In a high energy pile, it is not unusual to see pile temperatures as high as 160 degrees F. This is a good thing for destroying parasites, pathogens and weed seeds in the mix but, in fact, lower temperatures in the range of 110 to 120 degrees F is a desired range for efficient composting.

To cool the pile down, we increase the airflow into the pile to drive off excess heat. The challenge is that we also drive off moisture, which can compromise the process if the moisture content drops much below 50%.

The secondary stage of composting (referred to as “Curing” or “Maturation”) is predominantly a cooler fungal driven process. During curing, the fungi are working on the more resilient forms of carbon – typically cellulose (hay) and lignin (wood).

For cold climates, we recommend constructing bin walls with insulation in the core. This can be done in several ways but a simple technique is to sandwich a layer of foam board between two sheets of 1/2 inch plywood.

By: kingagriculture

kingagriculture — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:01:07 +0000

Although I don’t like advertising products on a blog, I find that insulating bins with a product called Tiger-Foam (www.tigerfoam.com) works quite well.

By: kingagriculture

kingagriculture — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:56:51 +0000

150 Degrees is actually quite high (From what I experience). Is your compost Fungal Based or Bacterial based (I find that that alters temperatures, what do you think?)
Also, how is your bin insulated? If your temperatures are remaining above 111 degrees I don’t think it is worth heating the pile.

By: peter

peter — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:34:39 +0000

Email received from Brent Danielson on 2/29/08:

Peter, I have been meaning to email you for a week or two about the results of adding the soil-heating wires. Our weather has been very cold with overnight temps falling to single digits almost every night and often much further than that. Yet, after a lengthy time to thaw the manure, I saw one of the more beautiful sights one could ask for – heavy steam billowing from the manure bins in the moonlight. Temperatures of -15F and yet we have a bin temperature of 150F.

So all is well and perking away, even though spring remains unsprung and there is no sign that it might ever arrive.

Brent