Compost Gets Super Hot

Compost can get so hot that sometimes we can't even touch it! #compost #gardening #sustainability #sustainable #acornlandlabs

[zoulist]

Thank you for using metric system
-your international friends

[LoveB]

I saw one guy bury a water tank under his compost pile to have free hot water!

[coltaine]

Farmers know about this. Put up your hay not completely dry and that bale will start heating up from the center. And if it is in the middle of your stack it can start the whole thing on fire.

[barbthequietwatcher]

That's why it's good to use in a winter greenhouse. So I've heard.

[williamevans]

I once mixed macerated restaurant food waste( it was a sticky grey glop) with soil and mass quantities of Southern California chaparral .
I watered the layers as i built it up.

Approximately 10 cubic yards.

The outside got a layer of soil to seal it, more water, and finally some clear plastic sheet( with the edges sealed down with soil).

Two days later I got a call from the property owner-" It's on fire!"

I rush over there to find melted, smoking plastic, and pools of black goo in spots around the edges of the pile.

I uncovered it, and pulled it apart to find still smoking, ashen spots deep within. More water! More digging, repeat.
Large masses of woody, resiny chaparral mixed with fat, meat, sugar, veggies, and soil = thermal runaway from exothermic reaction> FIRE!

[llamalady]

My dad used does aquapomics, and he had the tube spiral though/ around a compost vat to heat the water for the fish. No electricity needed all winter :) im sure on a larger scale you can use it for heating houses too!

[cosmicmuffin]

I was able to get my small two metre long homemade compost bin so hot, I couldn't hold my hand in the pile for even a couple seconds. Made fabulous compost. Very proud of that 🙂

[ORGANICsoulJAZZ]

This what you smell when your driving down those country road

[valalkuino]

The international friends are all the countries except America, thank you from the international friends ❤

[Scifiotica]

Run pipes through pile . For water use cooper inside a cooper outer sheath. For heating -a single pipe with a little forced air. You can also get a device that converts heat into electricity. They aren’t very efficient though.

[beakittelscherz]

there is a Farmer in France who build a compost heater system (Waterbased heat exchange). He is heating his whole house with it. For about 18 to 20 month. then he has to build a new one with fresh material.

[chibueze]

Nice work, I have some questions,
(1) Which material can I decompose to get the highest temperature attainable ?
(2) Which material decomposes the fastest?

[luciangg]

In early spring, we use compost to warm up greenhouse

[RapinatorOhYeah]

I used to work on a farm where I gather the compost to use as fertilizer. It's hot even though they are wet. It's literally smoking water vapor. Also thanks for the explanation. I really thought it was the heat from the sun stored into the compost

[BliffleSplick]

Yep, it would be mid-winter and I'd stick my feet in the grass compost pile to warm them up. In -20 C or so weather.
Makes me itchy from the microcuts off of the crabgrass but I didn't care at the time

[RealityRules]

Thank you for helping us understand the actual temperature. On behalf of all the international friends.

[JJekyll]

I wonder if theres a way to use it to either keep your home warm to some degree or use the heat for some small form of thermal power generation?

[CordeliaWagner]

German: Kompostheizung. Tu nen laaangen Gartenschlauch rein. Heißes Wasser kann man immer brauchen!

[GustavoSantos-oenm]

damn my dream of life is living from my own production

[__-pbtp]

Once a year father buys pile of horse poop. And my god, one of ours dogs lays on top of that shitie pile all the time, maybe bc the climate is quite cold.