Noticed in Scotland walking past Forestry workers houses. Big plies of wood chip and bark waste. Pipes throughout it collected heat for four houses, all free from the pile. After a while it gets renewed , free waste from trees harvesting. Compost industry buy the heaps too.
A couple years ago i threw a tiny bit of hot ashes in my ashtray, after an hour i started smelling fire and i found out it got super hot, it had enough energy left in it to burn. It inspired me to (soon) make a compost/charcoal pile that heats up because of the compost and then gets hot enough to partially combust the charcoal and have tubing in it to heat up water and take away excess heat to keep it from combusting all the way or too quickly. I dont have the space to make it yet but soon i will and i'll expiriment with it to make a long lasting pile that can heat up my house or greenhouse for atleast a couple weeks or even months if possible. Peace!
Great video !! Jean Pain would be proud ! He captured the methane gas into tractor Inner tubes and used it for cooking and powering his little car too as well as hot water. I've got his list of materials and story from Mother Earth News in the 70s. I'm going to duplicate it this spring in Central AZ. along with many other Mother's inventions. Keep the great videos coming !!
We’ve got some more content relating to this, however I have not gotten to the point where I’m harvesting the methane yet. In our large greenhouse we’ve got a pile running water through it inside the greenhouse. I’ve just got to develop a way to capture and store it. I have a drawing plan for a slurry system also to harvest methane but we have so much compost we could be harvesting off I need to come up with something. Thank you for your input and kind words!!
In the past, I've thought about something like this for heating my static caravan (UK), but had no idea how to go about it! I'll have to watch your other videos too see if I can adapt it or if you have anything that might be useful in my situation. Thanks for posting.
That’s a good idea…when we were kids they had sawdust piles for the horses stalls….when it got cold we would sit on them or climb in, the amount of heat coming off of them was amazing….you could see steam when stirring it up. It was always super warm. If it ever backs off….add some compost starter…..great idea…great way to get multiple uses out of something..l
Very cool set up, looking for these ideas for remote heating in Alaska, thanks so much for posting! Actually had a grass mulch pile in Texas catch fire on its own, excellent idea to control it for a heat source!!
I am so impressed with this! I'm going to go to your channel now and see if I can find your build on this. Hoping you did videos. Brilliant!!! New subscriber.
Just an idea: you could implement a heat exchanger. Either add it in line right before the pile return with a fan (this will increase ambient air temps) or use it to simplify your plumbing. Big pile plumbed with pipe-running to heat exchanger(s) mounted to greenhouse. I may try this!
The wall held good heat all winter where the compost was and I wanted to use some type of metal as a conductor kindof like your saying. Good thoughts thank you
I like it first video i watched could u go over another video of where u got the supply's from solar panel etc and a list of what u would need to buy if u haven't already and thanks for making the video
Would be cool to do a green house in the ground with just the roof above ground, maybe have the compost under doors at the same height, semi-in through a partition and use the compo in the green house in spring. Great vid :)
We want to use the earth in our next build! Along the lines of what your saying, using the earth’s insulation for geothermal passive heating. We’ve got some ideas coming! Thank you!
I have three questions. 1)How long does it take to get the pile producing heat? 2)How long does it produce heat for? 3)What’s the ratio of wood chips to unit of heated space? Thanks for posting these great videos👍 subbed
@@Iz0pen a well built pile will heat up in 24-48 hours in warm weather and can take 2-4 days in winter, depending on size your pile can go for two weeks to almost two years, our woodchips are fresh and old mixed with added nitrogen 75% carbon to 25% nitrogen roughly( give or take) sometimes more nitrogen is needed sometimes less depending on the size of chips and freshness. I’d encourage you to check out the Jean pain compost heating playlist with more in depth Info we’ve shared over the last few years of doing this. Thanks for the questions
Thank you! We have been running this same system in our little greenhouse for a few years. Our big greenhouse we’re experimenting on larger scale systems Trying to heat it also this winter.
@@Earthdwellershomestead you may need some more nitrogen, neighbors, animal urine, liquid juices 🤷🏽♂️ it’s gonna be dope to see what you guys come up with!
what an amazing setup. I have the perfect spot for a polytunnel lots of southern exposure and a hill and woods to protect from the north, i am in zone 5 so this would be a perfect set up for winter months, thanks for doing this and sharing, i may very well have some questions later on, how do i contact you if we have questions
In the past French intensive market gardeners used windrows of horse manure with soil on top. They planted directly into the soil over the composting manure, no pumps hoses etc just heat directly below the crop. In those days they put glass cloches, like jars with the bottom cut out, over the crop to retain the heat. Now we can do this inside a greenhouse. I’m sure that they would have to aerate the pile to keep the heat up. I’m sure you could just put a pry bar into the manure below the crop to aerate. You could probably use any carbon source and add chicken manure tea to the pile to heat it up.
I made a hot box coldframe last year that performed well all winter in this way in a sense. I bet you could put a tube with holes underneath the hot bed to pump air from beneath. Great thoughts and ideas thank you!
In New Mexico an early solar greenhouse was down in the soil about 4 feet and the lower section had chicken races so that their decomposing poop would help warm the building. During the early fortified settlements found in Poland were built on peat beds and had two stories. Animals below and humans above. Survival in extreme climates require smart adaptations.
Technically yes. But with my solar powered pump we’re achieving the same results with a smooth flowing system running off gravity after the pump feeds the water up to be heated as it falls through the pile and back into the overflow.
Very cool. I was hoping you would use a laser thermometer to show us the temp coming out of the air duct and on the hose though, just to see how much of a temp change there is
carry on, this idea is really good I would like to have that for a bigger greenhouse, The implementation is super simple and ingenious We subscribed your channel
I agree! I wasn’t able to like to the products I used when I created this video, the solar pump and battery bank came from the company silicon solar they have many set ups like this. I am currently using my own created solar system in our large greenhouse for the same purpose, just much larger scale of pump and hose. The solar fan is a dime a dozen on Amazon, I purchased and the company changed along with the product several times but a quick search for 5-10w solar fan will result many choices. Thank you for the input!
very inventive I wonder if the results would be even higher by having the entire thing bermed in like surounded on all sides as like compost walls .. then you can put that out when the weather warms up as fertalizer etc.. or expanded growing or grow right in the berms in the spring as growing mounds. I wonder if you can also grow right under the tarp.. and if the results would be even more by having a clear tarp.
That's awesome. I've always wondered how long compost heating works without touching the pile, and how much hassle it is to maintain? (At some point the matter will degrade, you will need to add fresh wood chips and probably harvest your compost to use in the garden. You probably can't dig in with a pitchfork without baking your tubes and pipes.. have you already had to do this? Thanks for the video ;)
A pile can burn from 2 weeks to 15+ months, and yes if it’s not build large enough you’ll have to add materials (c) & (n). We have a few videos on this from last year and a few this year also, and we covered tearing the pile apart in spring. Thank you!!
I haven't done anything like this, so take what I say with some skepticism. With a larger greenhouse I would put a compost pile in the middle, and then slide some grow beds, on wheels, over the pile. This way, I think the need for tubing will be reduced, without taking up valuable grow space. Those grow beds would probably be a good place to plant cold sensitive plants. Of course the compost would have to be removed in spring, and that would be a lot of work.
Would wrapping your hose around that steel pan on the floor before going underground keep the pan water even hoter. Am asking since we usually have -40C were am at.
Nice video, I'm am loving your work and active solution for providing valuable food during the winter! Planning to explore this a little more, haven't searched your channel yet but I would imagine you have a video that details compost compositions? How much wood, Ash and urine? In layers, etc...?
Thank you! We used the woodchips because they were free material, animal manure can be used with straw and other barn yard beddings to create a large long burning compost pile that will produce heat an entire winter.
You should try running an electrod thru the compost. Won't get much power but you could get enough to have a back up for rainy days when the sun isn't out to recharge the battery.
@@MichelleDougall great question! So in this small greenhouse we drilled holes to run the lines through allowing a direct transfer from pile to the greenhouse and then we ran the lines underground inside the greenhouse to warm the floor. If you look at our most recent content weve insulated our lines and ran them underground into our large greenhouse.
Wow, it like Paul Harvey's the rest of the story, adding nitrogen to the pile, solar-battery running the fan, letting water heat up in the pile and then moving it into the greenhouse to keep the soil warm is great. I was wondering is you considered using the water more, maybe up the pipe size and make a radiator like something in the green house. How warm does it stay?
It's nice. Long time that I'm using branch grinds to cover my garden soil. So I perfectly know how it could heat when in a heap. Though I never thought to use it to heat my greenhouse. i rather dug a "pool" under the greenhouse that I filled with water (5 m3). But actually heating a greenhouse with the fermentation of organic matter is an ancient system. In the past they rather used (horse) manure. Digging large ditches in the greenhouses, deep of at least 1,2 m and filling it with manure. It's much simpler than to use the heating source outside the greenhouse, like you do. But there's a little inconvenience :-) Out the odour, you need to put the manure out after the winter. And to cover the ditches with a floor.
I have done a little research on them and how they work, I may be able to use something like that on our large greenhouse to keep water higher up in the greenhouse for heating or watering purposes. Thank you for the input!
Thank you! We have posted the links in the comments to a few different commenters over the last year or so, i apologize I don’t have it off hand I will see what I can dig up but if you would like to do a little digging also you may find the links before I do 😂, thank you for checking this out!
@@Earthdwellershomestead I'd appreciate it. I have a similar greenhouse that Ive been heating with candles and clay pot heaters. It's very difficult to keep up with. Thanks! Tim
That’s the ultimate goal for us too, lots and lots of material required for a pile that size. Thank you for checking this out! We are continuing to evolve the system to upscale it for our 520 square foot greenhouse tunnel in winter!
@@Earthdwellershomestead I also own a piece of forrest, so if I start now.. We had a LOT of storms, blowing branches out of the trees.. I saw Jean Pain´s pile that was about 7m high by my estimate so 90m3..? He had a very big farm and my house is probably insulated a lot better :) I think I can manage a 4m high pile which would be 17m3.. ? jeez...You are right, that is never going to work.. Maybe, I might start with my shed to get some actual measurements and not be very cold in the meantime :) Or maybe the house and I´ll just save on the gasbill.
@@Ludifant yes I believe he had 300+ acres or something like that to work with! And you’ve gotta experiment to learn, we’ve been running this system in our small greenhouse for four years and it runs all summer as an aquaponics system and a floor cooling system with the geothermal cooling from finished compost! Very cool stuff. We plan to bring a better larger system to our 52’ greenhouse tunnel this fall/winter as we didn’t have enough time last year to accomplish what we wanted after construction and completion. We’ve yet yo throw our second layer of poly on it which will have a 6-8” layer of dead air for insulation to help us with heating it all winter also.
Can you provide more details. How much wood chips, what exactly you use to activate the chips? Also what kind of battery w/solor set up. If you build another a video of building it would be great. Thx.
We did set up a pile inside our greenhouse, smaller than the pile for our little 6x12 we used about 3 cubic yards of woodchips and the activate the pile we use comfrey, urine, ash, yarrow, or any combination to get the pile fully inoculated and burning hot. ruclips.net/video/r3oXuszOJdQ/видео.html
That’s our northern most insulated wall. And our southern is exposed for all the sunlight throughout the winter day. The foil actually created some hot spots that burnt a few plants a little. But it reflected and held good heat all winter
Fantastic! I'm in Northern Ontario zone 3a/4b depending on who you talk too... But this gives me a way to utilize my high tunnel over winter, thanks! Just a quick question though, what temps do you see in the greenhouse?
Overnight we had held 45F with our water heated floor, and the compost pile insulating and heating it all night. Cheap little 5w solar fan This isn’t the exact one but it’s the sameSolar fan 5W 4 inch mini... www.amazon.com/dp/B093GYX1FN?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share And the woodchips were free and we used recycled materials to put everytng together. We spent about 100$ on the solar pump with 9v battery system. It’s lasted over two years. Thank you!
Yes I have! We just have so much wind and snow I don’t know if it would last, the expensive ones are made for northern Canada and Russia and work great but at a cost. Thank you!!
We had ordered it on Amazon it was super cheap and has ran for over two years lol. Here’s the link , if they are sold out there’s other options that are basically the same fan Solar fan 5W 4 inch mini... www.amazon.com/dp/B093GYX1FN?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Does the compost pile last all winter long or do you have to mix or add to it? Great video and fantastic idea! Wish I had set this up in my greenhouse last fall.
We used small solar panels and small kits for this greenhouse I believe the solar panel sizes are about 8x10. Very small for solar panels but this was all experimenting in the beginning two years ago. The fan kit isn’t available on Amazon anymore under the same brand but there are many different brands that are the same exact fan. The fan is roughly 5 inches across and 5w. We’re using a 10w version in our large greenhouse in more recent videos.
With requests for temps here’s the video ruclips.net/video/Vlevp_3LNlY/видео.html
Noticed in Scotland walking past Forestry workers houses. Big plies of wood chip and bark waste. Pipes throughout it collected heat for four houses, all free from the pile. After a while it gets renewed , free waste from trees harvesting. Compost industry buy the heaps too.
That’s awesome
Imagine how warm a manure pile is
A couple years ago i threw a tiny bit of hot ashes in my ashtray, after an hour i started smelling fire and i found out it got super hot, it had enough energy left in it to burn.
It inspired me to (soon) make a compost/charcoal pile that heats up because of the compost and then gets hot enough to partially combust the charcoal and have tubing in it to heat up water and take away excess heat to keep it from combusting all the way or too quickly.
I dont have the space to make it yet but soon i will and i'll expiriment with it to make a long lasting pile that can heat up my house or greenhouse for atleast a couple weeks or even months if possible.
Peace!
That’s interesting 🤔
Great video !!
Jean Pain would be proud !
He captured the methane gas into tractor Inner tubes and used it for cooking and powering his little car too as well as hot water.
I've got his list of materials and story from Mother Earth News in the 70s.
I'm going to duplicate it this spring in Central AZ. along with many other Mother's inventions.
Keep the great videos coming !!
We’ve got some more content relating to this, however I have not gotten to the point where I’m harvesting the methane yet. In our large greenhouse we’ve got a pile running water through it inside the greenhouse. I’ve just got to develop a way to capture and store it. I have a drawing plan for a slurry system also to harvest methane but we have so much compost we could be harvesting off I need to come up with something. Thank you for your input and kind words!!
That's really clever. Well done.
I would love to see it built to show others how to do the same thing that would be awesome 👌
I posted a link to the breakdown of this system and tearing it apart on spring to another commenter on here also I’ll have to find the link
ruclips.net/video/QyM9kqdwhq4/видео.html
it is a very great effort you are making the green house wall thanks for the idea for structural integrity
That's a fantastic idea. Well done, man. I hope your channel does well.
Thank you very much!
Its better that the greenhouse is doing well.
Very nice! You've made your homework properly!
Cool project. Energy efficient!!
WOW that is awesome. Some excellent ingenuity
Thank you! We are trying all types of heating experiments this year in our larger greenhouse too!
Brilliant idea and a great setup you have there. Setting that battery on a timer will extend its life a lot by not letting it get to flat
wow that is interesting .... i didn't know about this .... very cool ..... 😉👍
In the past, I've thought about something like this for heating my static caravan (UK), but had no idea how to go about it! I'll have to watch your other videos too see if I can adapt it or if you have anything that might be useful in my situation. Thanks for posting.
Very interesting
Thank you 👍
Really nice job mate! :) Congratulation!
That’s a good idea…when we were kids they had sawdust piles for the horses stalls….when it got cold we would sit on them or climb in, the amount of heat coming off of them was amazing….you could see steam when stirring it up. It was always super warm. If it ever backs off….add some compost starter…..great idea…great way to get multiple uses out of something..l
Bud..... you have an idea for a Major concept and business right there. Good thinking
Great job achievement
Top! 👍, greetings from the netherlands 🇳🇱
this young man is brilliant.
Great idea & execution. I had wondered how one might take advantage of this phenomenon.
Hi There, nice to see people experimenting with the Jean Pain ideas. This system is also know as “Biomeiler” and is further developed in Europe!
We’re creating a biodigester for methane also! Many reusable and wasted resources that can be used somehow
Very creative!
Great heating system. Cheap and effective.
Very cool set up, looking for these ideas for remote heating in Alaska, thanks so much for posting! Actually had a grass mulch pile in Texas catch fire on its own, excellent idea to control it for a heat source!!
With the right size and materials you can get a pile to burn for over a year. Great resource in a cold environment!
Awesome setup.
Very impressive!
Brilliant mate!🌡Very impressed! Thank you.🤙
Thank you!
Cool set up. Thank you for posting this.
Thank you for checking it out. Experimenting currently with heating our 520sq ft greenhouse this way also
Brilliant! Blessings from Nova Scotia
Thank you!
Great setup! Really gives us some good ideas!
Super impressed!
This is very clever! Thank you for sharing your skills and creativity!
Thank you! And your welcome!
I am so impressed with this! I'm going to go to your channel now and see if I can find your build on this. Hoping you did videos. Brilliant!!!
New subscriber.
Good verb for what you're doing: "sustain". Good video.
Very much appreciated!
Cool system 👍
This is great! Thanks for sharing the idea!
That's an awesome set up! Also appreciated the celcius temps!!
Thankyou for stopping by!
@@Earthdwellershomestead You are very welcome!
WOW thats a great way to get free heating for your home too...if you have a large enough compost
Great stuff. Subscribed.
Just an idea: you could implement a heat exchanger. Either add it in line right before the pile return with a fan (this will increase ambient air temps) or use it to simplify your plumbing. Big pile plumbed with pipe-running to heat exchanger(s) mounted to greenhouse. I may try this!
The wall held good heat all winter where the compost was and I wanted to use some type of metal as a conductor kindof like your saying. Good thoughts thank you
Really awesome idea!!! I love it!
Thank you! No electricity and no burning fuel, super easy to do, thank you for watching!
I had compost catch fire and burn my feet as I was shoveling it. I had never heard of anything like it. Great work! Great idea to harness that.
Yeah it can get too hot sometimes lol, thank you!
Omg! Excellent idea for urine use! Thank you.
I like it first video i watched could u go over another video of where u got the supply's from solar panel etc and a list of what u would need to buy if u haven't already and thanks for making the video
Just discovering your channel. This is a wonderful video! Looking forward to watching more!
New sub for sure!
Thank you
Great idea. Might have to give this a try when we build our greenhouse next summer. Thanks!
You sir are a genius
This is awesome!!!!
Would be cool to do a green house in the ground with just the roof above ground, maybe have the compost under doors at the same height, semi-in through a partition and use the compo in the green house in spring. Great vid :)
We want to use the earth in our next build! Along the lines of what your saying, using the earth’s insulation for geothermal passive heating. We’ve got some ideas coming! Thank you!
Those are called Lyman greenhouses.
There is one using geothermal heat but you have to dig 8' down to run pipes. Free heat.
I have three questions.
1)How long does it take to get the pile producing heat?
2)How long does it produce heat for?
3)What’s the ratio of wood chips to unit of heated space?
Thanks for posting these great videos👍 subbed
@@Iz0pen a well built pile will heat up in 24-48 hours in warm weather and can take 2-4 days in winter, depending on size your pile can go for two weeks to almost two years, our woodchips are fresh and old mixed with added nitrogen 75% carbon to 25% nitrogen roughly( give or take) sometimes more nitrogen is needed sometimes less depending on the size of chips and freshness. I’d encourage you to check out the Jean pain compost heating playlist with more in depth Info we’ve shared over the last few years of doing this. Thanks for the questions
@@Earthdwellershomestead Thanks for the reply, I’m working my way through the playlist now. Thanks again!👍
That's fantastic
That is a dope set up! Great use of liquid nitrogen!
Thank you! We have been running this same system in our little greenhouse for a few years. Our big greenhouse we’re experimenting on larger scale systems Trying to heat it also this winter.
@@Earthdwellershomestead you may need some more nitrogen, neighbors, animal urine, liquid juices 🤷🏽♂️ it’s gonna be dope to see what you guys come up with!
Fiya. You should get some thermos siphon on the air tube if the low intake is a degree or 2 cooler than the high output.. Excellent explanation
Nice work!
Thank you!
what an amazing setup. I have the perfect spot for a polytunnel lots of southern exposure and a hill and woods to protect from the north, i am in zone 5 so this would be a perfect set up for winter months, thanks for doing this and sharing, i may very well have some questions later on, how do i contact you if we have questions
You can find us on here anytime or head to our Facebook page and message us, Earthdwellers on Facebook. Thank you!
You're amazing man!
Fantastic!
great share.
In the past French intensive market gardeners used windrows of horse manure with soil on top. They planted directly into the soil over the composting manure, no pumps hoses etc just heat directly below the crop. In those days they put glass cloches, like jars with the bottom cut out, over the crop to retain the heat. Now we can do this inside a greenhouse. I’m sure that they would have to aerate the pile to keep the heat up. I’m sure you could just put a pry bar into the manure below the crop to aerate. You could probably use any carbon source and add chicken manure tea to the pile to heat it up.
I made a hot box coldframe last year that performed well all winter in this way in a sense. I bet you could put a tube with holes underneath the hot bed to pump air from beneath. Great thoughts and ideas thank you!
In New Mexico an early solar greenhouse was down in the soil about 4 feet and the lower section had chicken races so that their decomposing poop would help warm the building. During the early fortified settlements found in Poland were built on peat beds and had two stories. Animals below and humans above. Survival in extreme climates require smart adaptations.
Thank you for the great input!
Love the video. If the tank was above the heat wouldn't it thermosiphon without need of a pump?
Technically yes. But with my solar powered pump we’re achieving the same results with a smooth flowing system running off gravity after the pump feeds the water up to be heated as it falls through the pile and back into the overflow.
Incredible. I guess the woodchips even act as insulation for the side... only it's warm! :)
Very cool. I was hoping you would use a laser thermometer to show us the temp coming out of the air duct and on the hose though, just to see how much of a temp change there is
I did just that in a few other videos after this one, thank you!
carry on, this idea is really good I would like to have that for a bigger greenhouse,
The implementation is super simple and ingenious
We subscribed your channel
We have been experimenting in our 52’ greenhouse also thank you!
Very nice setup. Well done!! Mfg and Model Numbers of the equipment would be a big help.
I agree! I wasn’t able to like to the products I used when I created this video, the solar pump and battery bank came from the company silicon solar they have many set ups like this. I am currently using my own created solar system in our large greenhouse for the same purpose, just much larger scale of pump and hose. The solar fan is a dime a dozen on Amazon, I purchased and the company changed along with the product several times but a quick search for 5-10w solar fan will result many choices. Thank you for the input!
Great idea! I would appreciate a video of steps from start to finish for replication of your genius.
Thank you. 12.23.2021
I am working on a demo for building this! Coming soon.
What a great idea!
Nice set up ! and I can get all the wood mulch I can haul away for free, woohoo!
Good 1.
That's awesome 👍
Thank you!
very inventive I wonder if the results would be even higher by having the entire thing bermed in like surounded on all sides as like compost walls .. then you can put that out when the weather warms up as fertalizer etc.. or expanded growing or grow right in the berms in the spring as growing mounds. I wonder if you can also grow right under the tarp.. and if the results would be even more by having a clear tarp.
We used straw bales that insulated the immediate ground around this little greenhouse. Compost , and warm compost at that would work better certainly!
Very nice
That's awesome. I've always wondered how long compost heating works without touching the pile, and how much hassle it is to maintain? (At some point the matter will degrade, you will need to add fresh wood chips and probably harvest your compost to use in the garden. You probably can't dig in with a pitchfork without baking your tubes and pipes.. have you already had to do this? Thanks for the video ;)
A pile can burn from 2 weeks to 15+ months, and yes if it’s not build large enough you’ll have to add materials (c) & (n). We have a few videos on this from last year and a few this year also, and we covered tearing the pile apart in spring. Thank you!!
I haven't done anything like this, so take what I say with some skepticism. With a larger greenhouse I would put a compost pile in the middle, and then slide some grow beds, on wheels, over the pile. This way, I think the need for tubing will be reduced, without taking up valuable grow space. Those grow beds would probably be a good place to plant cold sensitive plants. Of course the compost would have to be removed in spring, and that would be a lot of work.
Brilliant, i love it.
Would wrapping your hose around that steel pan on the floor before going underground keep the pan water even hoter. Am asking since we usually have -40C were am at.
Yes it would and if we had used copper instead of the free hose we had we would get better transfer but this was diy as cheap as possible
Also the pile size and consistency (materials) determine how long it’ll stay active for.
@@Earthdwellershomestead How long the size you have can last?
Anywhere from 4-7 months I would say with an estimated guess
Just amazing, what does urine do? Nitrogen?
Yes, it is an activator for the compost
You are amazing
Nice video, I'm am loving your work and active solution for providing valuable food during the winter! Planning to explore this a little more, haven't searched your channel yet but I would imagine you have a video that details compost compositions? How much wood, Ash and urine? In layers, etc...?
Thank you! We used the woodchips because they were free material, animal manure can be used with straw and other barn yard beddings to create a large long burning compost pile that will produce heat an entire winter.
You should try running an electrod thru the compost. Won't get much power but you could get enough to have a back up for rainy days when the sun isn't out to recharge the battery.
Hi great job but one question how to insulate the under ground pipe from pile to polytunnel
@@MichelleDougall great question! So in this small greenhouse we drilled holes to run the lines through allowing a direct transfer from pile to the greenhouse and then we ran the lines underground inside the greenhouse to warm the floor. If you look at our most recent content weve insulated our lines and ran them underground into our large greenhouse.
Wow, it like Paul Harvey's the rest of the story, adding nitrogen to the pile, solar-battery running the fan, letting water heat up in the pile and then moving it into the greenhouse to keep the soil warm is great. I was wondering is you considered using the water more, maybe up the pipe size and make a radiator like something in the green house. How warm does it stay?
Thank you!
Love it.
If you have horses etc..,you could use a compost pile as well as the heat source….renews into soil for the summer growing..
Breaking up bad,I had to turn on cc so I could read what u were saying.js thanks 4 th info
Brilliant
It's nice. Long time that I'm using branch grinds to cover my garden soil. So I perfectly know how it could heat when in a heap.
Though I never thought to use it to heat my greenhouse. i rather dug a "pool" under the greenhouse that I filled with water (5 m3).
But actually heating a greenhouse with the fermentation of organic matter is an ancient system. In the past they rather used (horse) manure. Digging large ditches in the greenhouses, deep of at least 1,2 m and filling it with manure. It's much simpler than to use the heating source outside the greenhouse, like you do. But there's a little inconvenience :-) Out the odour, you need to put the manure out after the winter. And to cover the ditches with a floor.
I’m greatly impressed by what you’re doing,
Have you considered a Ram Pump?,
I have done a little research on them and how they work, I may be able to use something like that on our large greenhouse to keep water higher up in the greenhouse for heating or watering purposes. Thank you for the input!
The video showed 17*F, is that Outside or in? What was the temp inside? Thanks, Great info!
17F outside and we were sitting about 48-50f inside, thank you!
@@Earthdwellershomestead that's really cool that it heats up that much
This is really a great system. Do you have links for some of the solar devices you use?
Thank you! We have posted the links in the comments to a few different commenters over the last year or so, i apologize I don’t have it off hand I will see what I can dig up but if you would like to do a little digging also you may find the links before I do 😂, thank you for checking this out!
@@Earthdwellershomestead I'd appreciate it. I have a similar greenhouse that Ive been heating with candles and clay pot heaters. It's very difficult to keep up with. Thanks!
Tim
Thank you for sharing your findings. If I can utilise this to heat my home this winter I will share my updates as well!
That’s the ultimate goal for us too, lots and lots of material required for a pile that size. Thank you for checking this out! We are continuing to evolve the system to upscale it for our 520 square foot greenhouse tunnel in winter!
@@Earthdwellershomestead I also own a piece of forrest, so if I start now.. We had a LOT of storms, blowing branches out of the trees.. I saw Jean Pain´s pile that was about 7m high by my estimate so 90m3..? He had a very big farm and my house is probably insulated a lot better :)
I think I can manage a 4m high pile which would be 17m3.. ? jeez...You are right, that is never going to work..
Maybe, I might start with my shed to get some actual measurements and not be very cold in the meantime :) Or maybe the house and I´ll just save on the gasbill.
@@Ludifant yes I believe he had 300+ acres or something like that to work with! And you’ve gotta experiment to learn, we’ve been running this system in our small greenhouse for four years and it runs all summer as an aquaponics system and a floor cooling system with the geothermal cooling from finished compost! Very cool stuff. We plan to bring a better larger system to our 52’ greenhouse tunnel this fall/winter as we didn’t have enough time last year to accomplish what we wanted after construction and completion. We’ve yet yo throw our second layer of poly on it which will have a 6-8” layer of dead air for insulation to help us with heating it all winter also.
Can you provide more details. How much wood chips, what exactly you use to activate the chips? Also what kind of battery w/solor set up. If you build another a video of building it would be great. Thx.
We did set up a pile inside our greenhouse, smaller than the pile for our little 6x12 we used about 3 cubic yards of woodchips and the activate the pile we use comfrey, urine, ash, yarrow, or any combination to get the pile fully inoculated and burning hot. ruclips.net/video/r3oXuszOJdQ/видео.html
Brilliant, why is only half the interior foiled?
That’s our northern most insulated wall. And our southern is exposed for all the sunlight throughout the winter day. The foil actually created some hot spots that burnt a few plants a little. But it reflected and held good heat all winter
Good to know if it ever gets too cold in Florida for more than 2 days.
Garden of Eden gardening method is fabulous uses mulch chicken poop
Fantastic! I'm in Northern Ontario zone 3a/4b depending on who you talk too... But this gives me a way to utilize my high tunnel over winter, thanks!
Just a quick question though, what temps do you see in the greenhouse?
We’ve got lots of videos logging temps and conditions, we for the most part kept 45-50f all winter and we’re able to grow throughout, thank you!!
Typical nighttime temp in the greenhouse?
What fan did you use?
What did the compost material cost you?
Looks interesting overall.
Overnight we had held 45F with our water heated floor, and the compost pile insulating and heating it all night. Cheap little 5w solar fan
This isn’t the exact one but it’s the sameSolar fan 5W 4 inch mini... www.amazon.com/dp/B093GYX1FN?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
And the woodchips were free and we used recycled materials to put everytng together. We spent about 100$ on the solar pump with 9v battery system. It’s lasted over two years. Thank you!
Would love to know what you used for the fan.
Solar fan 5W 4 inch free energy... www.amazon.com/dp/B07B89ZV32?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Have you checked out Chinese greenhouses? They have blanket curtains they put down at night to hold in some of the heat. Your setup looks great.
Yes I have! We just have so much wind and snow I don’t know if it would last, the expensive ones are made for northern Canada and Russia and work great but at a cost. Thank you!!
@@Earthdwellershomestead I was thinking movers blankets might work and are cheaper
@@joansmith3492 that not a bad idea at all! I may be able to find some at work lol
This is fantastic! Where did you get your tiny solar pael and fan?
We had ordered it on Amazon it was super cheap and has ran for over two years lol. Here’s the link , if they are sold out there’s other options that are basically the same fan Solar fan 5W 4 inch mini... www.amazon.com/dp/B093GYX1FN?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
We have ordered three of these fans and every time I order one it’s a different “brand” or “company” it seems*
@@Earthdwellershomestead Thanks for the link!
Does the compost pile last all winter long or do you have to mix or add to it? Great video and fantastic idea! Wish I had set this up in my greenhouse last fall.
If it’s large enough then you can get these to burn for over a year without having to turn it! Pretty wild. Thank you
How long did this pile end up lasting?
@@meadowlynnmarketgarden5845 over 5 months and it was still active when we broke it down
Hi, please tell me the size of the small solar panel and where you purchased it. How did you hook it up to the solar panel?
Thank you
We used small solar panels and small kits for this greenhouse I believe the solar panel sizes are about 8x10. Very small for solar panels but this was all experimenting in the beginning two years ago. The fan kit isn’t available on Amazon anymore under the same brand but there are many different brands that are the same exact fan. The fan is roughly 5 inches across and 5w. We’re using a 10w version in our large greenhouse in more recent videos.