I made a 18 cubic
yard pile using wood chips last fall. We didn't have much time to make it and I only chipped it through once with our
tractor pto chipper so the pieces where not nearly small
enough for a quick start up. We used made a 4 foot diameter 6 feet high coil of pex and then a 13 foot diameter ring of
fence to hold the pile up. I had chipped the wood and shaped it in a birds nest shaped pile in hopes it would absorb water before we put it in to the final pile. We added a little bit of
apple pumice since we had just pressed a bunch for cider. One of my chip piles shed more water then it sucked up so we rain the hose while making the new pile. We piled it up and I was made fun of for the next few months because it just sat there.
We got plenty of snow this winter but it never would build on the peak so it was generating a bit of heat. Not a lot but enough to keep from freezing. I put our bird feeder on top of it hoping the birds would do their business on it. On a few warmer days I made a slurry out of some of our
chicken and horse manure and poured it onto the pile figuring a nitrogen
boost would help get it going. I also buried a
chicken that a hawk had gotten to. I also made it my routine place to
pee even on the coldest of nights. The pile kept going pretty slowly. The compost thermometer would read around 80-90 degrees in the top center. Not really warm enough to do much for water heating but it was a start. We even had some sunflower starts on the top of the pile in the middle of march. Once they were tall enough though they got whacked by the cold.
We had another chicken attacked and I buried it along side the other. I didn't pay much attention to it because we have so much going on with our other projects. One day I was making my nitrogen deposit and I noticed that it was radiating a good amount of heat. I raced inside to get the compost thermometer and when I stuck it into the center of the pile it was up to 115 or so. The outside ring was still down in the 80's so the heat exchange would still not be excellent but we were getting closer to success.
I hooked up the hose to the pex to see what change the pile would have on the temp. I forgot to check the gallon per minute while I was doing it but it wasn't super high since my hose hook up was make shift and leaking significantly. The water going into the pile was around 55-60 degrees and with a steady stream going through it it would take the water up to 80. Not great but it would be a good preheater for our
solar hot water panels. I just checked it yesterday and the inner ring is up to 120 and the water gets to about 90 degrees.
Our plan for this pile is to add more chips and green material getting it to about 25 or 30 cubic yards. We are going to move it down to our mobile
greenhouse for the winter and try to have a radiant heat system to keep the high tunnel just above freezing.
I have a few pictures from this winter on our flikr page
http://www.flickr.com/photos/breezymeadows/sets/72157625981351646/ and I think ill be writing up a more detailed thing on our blog in the next few weeks with updated pictures and more tests.
.
