Completely enclosed compost bin, with aeration through tubes

Imagine a compost bin that's completely closed off - sides are solid, top is covered by a lid; there are no gaps anywhere. But there are holes are drilled in each side, and you send PVC pipes through the body of the bin. These PVC pipes have many tiny holes drilled along them, to allow passive aeration of the pile. Finally, a very fine mesh is put over the end openings of those PVC pipes, to prevent insects from sneaking in.

(see attached drawing, where yellow represents the tubes in each view)

How do you get at the compost, you ask? The bottom will have a door that you can open, to get the finished compost down there. The top has a lid to add new stuff from above.

Why bother with this, you ask? I'm trying to accomplish a couple things:
1) Aeration without turning the pile >> pipes running through it.
2) Keep bugs out >> sealing it off except for mesh-covered pipe openings

This allows me to lazily "cold" compost, adding kitchen scraps whenever; not worrying about having enough browns to cover my greens, not have to fuss with turning or moving the pile, and not having to worry about flies (the mesh will be fine enough to keep them out).

Thinking about 6ft wide, 4ft tall, 4ft deep.

What do you think of this design?  Pros / cons?  Or any modifications I should consider?

If you want cold compost, aeration isn't necessary.
But aeration will speed decomposition.
You could even add a blower on a timer.

Unless you are tight on space, I would make it 8x4x4, allowing you to use sheet goods and/or  foam insulation with minimal cuts.
If you can source an old freezer or fridge, most of the work would done for you .

Welcome to the forum!

So does this eliminate the need to turn the pile?

How long have you been using this method?

William Bronson wrote:
You could even add a blower on a timer.

I considered that. This guy [youtube]  [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=755RfsdIzbQ[/youtube][/youtube]  uses a blower on his. Bit different setup but similar idea.

William Bronson wrote:
Unless you are tight on space, I would make it 8x4x4, allowing you to use sheet goods and/or  foam insulation with minimal cuts.

Can you elaborate on how an 8ft width would do this?

Anne Miller wrote:
Welcome to the forum!

Thanks!

Anne Miller wrote:
So does this eliminate the need to turn the pile?

How long have you been using this method?

That's my hope, yes. I haven't made it yet, so no results yet as evidence of how good it would work. Other people have tried similar approaches.

Peter Alewine wrote:

William Bronson wrote:
Unless you are tight on space, I would make it 8x4x4, allowing you to use sheet goods and/or  foam insulation with minimal cuts.

Can you elaborate on how an 8ft width would do this?

Building materials come in 4x8 sheets, so you could use a full sheet for each of the top, bottom, front, and back, and one sheet cut in half could make both ends