How Long Does Compost Heating Last? Jean Pain Compost Heating Observations And Insight

#diy #earthdwellershomestead #free #recycle #wintergreenhouse #solar #organic #compost #heat

[@jennifergunnon6852]

Green house looks great!

[@nickmckee9399]

Thanks for the summary video! just amazing its still going after 7 months with little to no inputs. Hope to do this one day, and now I know how.

[@kenbellchambers4577]

Jean Pain built his greenhouse on a natural ledge about five feet high. The twenty-ton heap was below the greenhouse allowing continuous and fanless thermosyphoning from the heap to the greenhouse. He kept his greenhouse at about 85 degrees Fahrenheit day and night, through ice and snow, for two years with no power at all. It is worthwhile to find a ledge if you can. When composting it pays huge dividends to keep your piles as compact and as near to vertical as possible to minimise losses through drift, wind, sun, animals and rain, etc. You can easily lose a quarter of your material through attrition.

[@sammylpt9076]

@kenbellchambers4577 You look like you know your stuff. I read the Jean Pain method works best with mostly carbon heaps rather than the typical greener types most composters are used to. Well I have a relatively big heap of leaves from the fall, I’d say approximately 10ftx10ft by maybe 4-5ft high. It’s only hitting about 30°C (sorry not in Fahrenheit). How long do I need to wait for it to reach those higher temperatures? Should I be covering the site too? Or should I be adding green material to stoke it up? Also, most sites I see that say to keep the temperature up, I would need to turn the heap once every week to two weeks or maybe more, but how would this guy have turned a heap of this size as well as if you have a coil system going through it?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

You’re correct with that, he did a lot of experimenting with heating air to his house and shed and heated large tanks of water in his home for thermal mass storage to keep his home warm at night. There’s a lot of potential with his documenting, we’ve been experimenting with this for a good while over the winters and found success. We were unable to use an excavator to lower our compost pile to get the true Jean pain thermosiphon flow but that’s really weak draw anyways, we used solar power and had good temps inside when it was brutally cold out. We lost about 1/4 of the pile to the breakdown process over time.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

@sammylpt9076 I didn’t turn this pile once that’s the entire point of doing such a large pile, it’s massive it’s going to burn for a year if inoculated with nitrogen and water properly and insulated like we did with free leaf bags, getting the proper nitrogen to carbon mix is important. With woodchips the fresher the better and the bigger the better. With organic compost materials like grass it’s gotta be just as big or bigger yet to sustain a long enough burn for a years cycle

[@adonnasmith2482]

I'm in...love this content

[@kenbellchambers4577]

@@sammylpt9076 Jean used forest fuel hazard materials that were chipped twice. Many imagine this to be simple wood chip, but this is not the case. There would have been quite a substantial amount of green material and other diverse items in the feedstock. I work in semi tropical forest and my feedstock consists of tree fern fronds, palm fronds, bark, weeds of many types, and not really a high proportion of wood. I use the wood for firewood mostly. The materials such as fronds are all carboniferous, dry and brown, and are the primary fuel hazard in our forest as they hang down and are a perfect fire supporter. The main thing is to gather and process the materials quickly, keep them as dry as possible until you have reached the desired quantity, then layer and water the materials when you have the required amount ready to go. Make a series of even layers from the material, water, and continue to do so as you go. Add the pipes or vessel, as you build and mulch the finished heap thickly with hay or straw, and the heap will start to heat. Too much green will reduce the temperature rather than heat it up. The larger the pile, the hotter it will get and the longer it will stay hot. Jean built twenty tonne heaps and if I remember correctly, his greenhouse stayed above 30 degrees C, for an entire year even in icy conditions. The thermosyphoning effect was not weak due to the correct height of the greenhouse above the compost heap.

[@MyChrisfish]

great idea, great build , and great video!

[@kenbellchambers4577]

I am happy to partner with you to share information. Just ask and I will do my very best to help you and your members. Composting is so simple, yet it is the most complex subject imaginable. I have been at it hammer and tongs for a half century and I am learning more than ever before and being surprised continuously. I now realise that I am only just starting to see so many things. We lose billions of tons of forest and scrublands to fire. We need to manage that fuel by hand, using workers who are as highly trained as a professional university graduate. Forest and riparian management is precisely where our health, wealth and happiness lie. Hand work is the only way to do this job and I can promise you that it is the most rewarding job on Earth. We need several million more people doing this and we will turn the entire planet around. Best wishes for your channel, you are going the right way,

[@jmajick4415]

Great job! I bet that was a lot of fun putting together and seeing it work so well

[@ExcaliburPaladin]

This can be very impactful on our planet, let's go viral. One day I will build that too. For workshop first

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

We’re sharing all we can on this. KZbin is our main form of communication with the world and our channel is growing slowly, eventually something will click on the algorithm and up and away with all of this. Thanks for checking out channel out

[@plutome8865]

Inspiring!

[@curtmcdougal2842]

Love this

[@Mrfitdive]

No bills nice!!

[@rachelanderson9091]

It's too soon to tear it down, the heap just needs turning and re-mixing until the temperature starts to drop of its own accord.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

There’s no mixing a large Jean pain heater. We slowly tore it down and dispersed materials all over the property. It’s and annual cycle we perform

[@samuelrechtman3101]

Hey ! Nice to see that Jean Pain exported his method to USA ! Also glad to see everything works fine for you, I hope it will continue this way. I wanted to ask you about the methane capture you mentioned in a previous video, how does it go ?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

I did see some bubbles coming but I didn't have enough back pressure sealing it to force enough methane in. which it was creating it but we just weren't set up right to capture it. it rises so I may make an catchment system out of a tarp that caps the whole pile next winter. I'm chugging away experimenting and learning hands on lol I'm hoping to figure out a way to use all the free methane from my huge piles jus as much as the free heat! thanks for the interest!

[@kenbellchambers4577]

@@Earthdwellershomestead The process needs a vessel filled with organic material embedded in the heap. The heat of the heap will drive the methanization process.

[@jwdory]

Nice video, thanks for sharing your experience. Its looks like you pile is about 4.5 to 5 ft high now. How tall was it when it was built and what diameter is it? Thanks. Keep up the good work!

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

It was about 15 feet or so across and about 7-8 ft high or so, estimated. In all it was about 4 tons we lost 1/4 or so to attrition. I built it differently this year heaping it high instead of spreading it out, and we used twice as many chips. Thanks for watching!

[@johnblack2193]

do you have any hard data>> How long did you run the water and air each day what was the coldesst temperature you had in the greenhouse. how offen did you need to burn the wood stove.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

For hard data you’ll be watching all last winters videos, I have shared all those. Great questions. We used a timer to run the water pump and fans as long as we can, using all the solar energy till depleted. Ithanks for checking this out

[@farmer-kitt]

which do you think was more beneficial or should I say efficient, heating the water or the air? Are you familiar with Uniseal gaskets for an inexpensive way of linking barrels for thermal mass

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

I need some uni seals for my metal drum lol, thank you for the note on that! Heating water is more effective for thermal mass effect but heating the air is almost just as beneficial to the crops and me when I’m inside. If I was to choose one or the other I’d prolly use air for the simplicity of it, water can be tricky in winter lol having things break when it’s subzero isn’t fun. In all I would suggest using both on a large pile and one or the other on a smaller one (1 ton or less) to keep from over drawing the heat from the pile.

[@daniel-vn4ql]

what is the minimum size for a compost heap. to heat a house. i am low on space. but i do have a place that is about 12 feet long. i cant build any thing the size of yours. also it is a mobile home i am heating. and i will be puting down under floor heating.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

I’m in the process of editing “how much compost how long” now. If you can manage I’d go with at least 2 ton or about 8 cubic yards of compost or woodchips minimum for a good duration on the burn

[@nancycook3733]

If you do liquid radiant flooring you should be able marriage a feed of copper or PEX pipes from the compost pile but would use copper or metal pipes in the pile, I am doing similar once I get tiny house located up north and using this compost method for the radiant flooring, just becareful joining the compost pile to what ever ur going to use