How To Heat A Greenhouse Jean-Pain Compost Heating System Watch This DIY | Episode 5

[@fhnhockey077]

Would you still have to turn it?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Nope, once this starts going it will cook for months. probably longer than we will need the heat but we will have great compost for our perennials once it’s done. Once we water it in and have all our nitrogen mixed throughout evenly we will wrap it up and insulate it. No turning necessary

[@fhnhockey077]

@@Earthdwellershomestead wrap it up like put a tarp over it to trap the heat?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Tarp it up yes, more for for keeping the moisture content the same throughout the entire time. Keeping rain, snow, and sunshine off the actual pile will help keep it a steady burn, along with insulating it with leaf bags

[@fhnhockey077]

@@Earthdwellershomestead how do you control your humidity level? I need to get mine under control better.

[@rahneclark1902]

For this project are you using thermal through just the compost tubes outside and one spot inside or throughout the entire underground areas

[@supernaturalbc2008]

Brilliant! I love creative thinking. I'll go back and watch the previous videos in this series too!

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Thanks for checking this out!

[@anthonysunderland5387]

Your video is great and solved a couple of issues I had here in the Uk 🇬🇧a new subscriber 👍

[@MsBrown-zc4wn]

This is great!!! I want my greenhouse to have that heating system. Awesome!

[@markfcoble]

Thanks. Nice system. We're going to do this too as we don't have electricity at the cattle panel green house...solar power only option except more money!

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

We started out in a diy 6x12 cattle panel and heated the same ways, expanding everything as we grew! Thanks for checking this out!

[@Goldifarms]

Thank you for sharing this! 🙏🏼

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Very welcome, thanks for checking this out!

[@patricethibault5011]

Can you telll me wichh brand of solar system you use with your small fan and where you buy it?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

ECO-WORTHY 100 Watt 12 Volt Solar Panel Kit for RV Battery Boat Trailer Cabin Garden Shed Home: 100W Solar Panel+30A PWM Charge Controller+ Tray Cable + Z Mounting Brackets a.co/d/eM2uadX

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Sent a link to the one we bought when it was on sale for 65$ now it’s back to 99$ but you can find lots for good price if you search, hope this helps

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

And here’s the fans 12V Moisture-Proof Fan 120mm 2-Pack High Speed 12 Volt DC 2Wire 3Pin Exhaust Cooling Fan 3000RPM a.co/d/g9TDkxp

[@monkeytrainer8135]

Could you make a smaller pile, and put some sort of insulated blanket or something around it, and just have it in your greenhouse with planting beds on top? Also, could you run the hot water pipes through or under trays of sand, since it holds heat so well?

[@middleway1885]

Cool beans!

[@bruce3579]

What is simplify things for you if you put the compost pile inside of the greenhouse? Great videos!

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

We stopped composting inside a few years back due to the pest activity from it. It worked to heat but it just wasn’t worth the headache of having mice running in and out of it eating crops, tainting water sources, and just being generally dirty critters lol we keep bucket traps to catch any that do venture in, thank you for checking this out and that was a great question! I see lots of people composting inside and I wonder what they’re dealing with as far as vermin

[@thoughts-words-actions4165]

Cool channel .from Australia:)

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Thank you!! Glad you found it from the other side of the world!

[@gergemall]

Very interesting

[@katlynnebassett4923]

Do you have a video showing what materials you used? I am worried about the weight of the dirt crushing the pipe after I bury it. The pipe I'm finding that looks similar to yours seems like it would.

[@ladyryan902]

Huh.just found you. I have a hundred questions lol. I think I'll go see the old videos 1st. I assume the compost is to warm the air in the tubes.but I missed how the air gets in n what the water feed is for..ill also be looking for how to set up the lil solar n hook to batteries..yes I'm n old lady on my own n learning as I go

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

We’ve got a lot of content to sift through lol thank you for checking out the channel and hopefully we can share some useful information to you!

[@cephalopodx7587]

Brilliant!

[@reelMn]

Thanks for the video. We are trying to heat a 9x27 metre tunnel house in a frosty winter season. We have a similar sized heap of chips. Can you please explain how the water and nitrogen causes the heating effect? Recently I dug a tractor bucket full of chips out for mulching around trees, and it was steaming hot. Today, about a month later, I burrowed down into it, and it’s only a little bit warm. Why would this be?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Fully saturating the chips at the time of building a pile is very important and depending on the age of them additional liquid nitrogen should be added. After all the experiments I’ve done not all of them had been successful but by adding chicken poo or farmyard waste and watering it it heavily I’ve been able to achieve the temps we are after. Great question

[@ScottRiddleArtist]

Hopefully you checked your comments as I’ve noticed 99% of KZbinrs do not. But I have an interesting question for you. I’m getting ready to put my seedlings in and I wanted to create a giant heat mat using compost. How deep do you think I need the compost to be to sustainorganic heat to set the trays on? Thanks.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Great question! We try and respond to every comment on the channel, sometimes we’re busy but we make time to get back to everyone. Depending on how long you’re thinking you’ll need the heat you’ll build your pile based off that, each cubic yard of active compost generates roughly 1660 btu per hour, that’s a lot of warmth but for a short time. Doubling the pile size you’ll extend your burn by adding material for pile consumption while allowing it insulation also. I would suggest three to four feet deep and at least the same wide to start. About the size of a pallet cubed for reference. But then again if you don’t have the space you can experiment with digging down in the soil for more room. Again great question. Years back we used the compost inside the greenhouse for heat and a seedling table right on the compost. It worked great for heat but the rodents loved it all the same.

[@fshah48]

What is that wood pillar in the middle doing? What is wrapped around it?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

It’s for copper wrapped around it to run water through for the compost to heat up, great question.

[@michelepetri1535]

Maybe I missed it in the previous videos. Is the perimeter of your greenhouse insulated? I mean underground. I think very cold can come in from the soil

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

We have not dig down and insulated yet. We’re going to insulating the ground on the outside with organic materials to shelter the immediate soil, last winter our soil stayed above freezing about a foot away from the perimeter, but insulation will help a lot. Great question and thank you!

[@RonPolzin]

How do you lay the 4 in pipe in the compost pile

[@julianlamb7538]

Bless u brother

[@deesmith6363]

How well would it work in the winter?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

We live in northern Illinois, zone 5a/4b cold winters. We’ve grown through the last few with this method…so it works great lol thanks for watching!

[@curtmcdougal2842]

I have a good understanding of what you got going on You're building hit by making a compost pile and then making that heat travel through it tube underneath ground to hit your whole greenhouse but how far down are you burying your tubing is what I'm curious about cuz it has to be done at least a foot or so I believe maybe more probably 2 ft because I know the further down you get the further you get below frost level so I'm assuming you go down a little ways I'm guessing I would like to know let me know if you get my comment or truly appreciate thank you?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Our compost heated tubing isn’t going underground other than to transfer under the greenhouse wall, our geothermal tubing is underground but a totally separate system, if your burring a hot pipe you e gotta insulate it or loose lots of heat even if below frost level. We insulated our compost heating lines and turbine and buried it in woodchips for great insulation. Good questions thank you for watching!

[@cookiegriffith7556]

​@Earthdwellershomestead do you think that putting a pipe inside of a pipe would be sufficient? I saw you mention somewhere that air heats faster than water. I'm assuming the air being heated around the water line could be an alternative to insulation, but maybe I need more info. Haha

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

@cookiegriffith7556 that’s an idea, but the heating of the water occurs when “in contact” with the compost directly, our 4 inch diameter tube wouldn’t allow for much heat transfer as yes water requires much more energy to be able raise the temp. Great question

[@cookiegriffith7556]

​@Earthdwellershomestead so, do you insulate your water pipe that's inside of your compost pile?? I was just thinking of using the pipe-in-pipe in place of insulation outside of the compost pile.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

@cookiegriffith7556 we don’t insulate the the water lines inside the pile as it would have a reverse affect and not allow the best heat transfer, we only insulate our lines between the greenhouse and the pile, hope that helps.

[@johnconner3901]

Now if you kept adding wood chips and mixing it and removed some you could burn it. Now what state are you in?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

We “burn” them In the stove inside the greenhouse for heat also now, but we composted the woodchips for months and it worked pretty well with a lot of nitrogen water and insulation from free leaf bags

[@shawnfellows5306]

Would this work to heat a home as well?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

I haven’t gotten that far in life yet 😂 but I know that you could set up a more “expensive“ refined system for heating a home. I’m going to use some ducting next year instead of drain tile. And may get more chips for a longer pile as opposed to tall for wind break, that -40f air was wicked the other day

[@thebackyardrevolution]

Does that plastic tubing have holes in it?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

No it does not, and the reason is I don’t want to exchange gasses, we only want to transfer heat through the plastic recycling the air from inside through the pile heating it up and then it’s fixed back into the greenhouse. Good question thanks for asking!

[@thebackyardrevolution]

@@Earthdwellershomestead thanks for the reply. The tubing I used had slits in it. I figured it would be fine and maybe help aerate the pile once I turned the 4inch fan on. My pile was at 100 degrees when i first turned on the fan and then it was down to 60 the next day. I think the air flowing through cooled it down. Might dig up the pipe and put a solid one in

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

@thebackyardrevolution you could be drying it as well, that would lead to die off of the heat producing microorganisms. Glad I could help. It took years for me to get it half way perfected lol

[@willjanellewright9936]

Question do I have to add fans to the tubes?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

It’s open to interpretation, but this is a good representation of Jean pains work. He used 50 ton piles mines only about 4 tons now. If you check out some more of our videos you’ll see that drawing heat to water requires much more energy in btu’s than the heating of air making it easier to heat air than water. Great question!

[@stephenclarke2206]

Wouldn't you compost more efficiently by putting it in a container?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

I couldn’t fit 8tons in a bin and we made our own bin out of fencing and leaf bags for free. Check out our playlist on compost heating

[@stephenclarke2060]

​@@EarthdwellershomesteadI checked the compost bin today I have for the backyard & there was some heat coming off it. Its the first time I've thought about getting energy from it

[@SarahLove-iw1fx]

How do you set this system up?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

It takes a little work but if you’re able bodied it’s easy. Your building a compost pile to heat up- placing water or air lines inside while you build it, it’s quite in depth to type out but in our Jean pain compost heating playlist you’ll find what your looking for! Thanks for checking this out!

[@이성규-k1e]

How big would be the compost pile?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Over 6 feet high and about 14-15feet across. Once I build it up I’m going to figure out home many cubic yards all together allocated.

[@earthfriendlylife6552]

@@Earthdwellershomestead I would love to apply this amazing method! Thanks for the share. 😊 There isn’t enough room for a big round compost pile to be close to our 32 x 10 foot greenhouse. It would have to be about 50 feet away so I think we would lose too much heat piping it in. There is space on the long North wall for a narrow (7 or 8 foot wide x up to 32 foot long) compost pile though. Do you think this narrow rectangular shape could be effective for the winter months? Could a narrow pile retain enough heat? We are in zone 3 / 4.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

@@earthfriendlylife6552 I would think that 7-8’ wide would be enough, circular is just best for a center mass and insulation 360 around. But if you got your tubing or hose in the middle and got it hot and insulated the outer walls it should do something for you. Our pile is about 14-15 feet diameter making for about 7-71/2 feet radius to the outside so we’re insulating that with leaf bags. I’m Interested to see if you can get yours to stay warm all winter. Thank you for the interest and feedback!

[@earthfriendlylife6552]

​@@Earthdwellershomestead Thank you so much for the feedback! I will have to keep you posted on how our experiment works out. I'm also considering using a trench type compost pile inside the greenhouse for direct heat. Hoping that we can prevent the soil from freezing; I think heating the ground is likely more important than heating the air.

[@earthfriendlylife6552]

@@Earthdwellershomestead Thank you so much for the feedback! ☺I will have to keep you posted on how our experiment works out. I'm also considering using a trench type compost pile inside the greenhouse for direct heat. Hoping that we can prevent the soil from freezing; I think heating the ground is likely more important than heating the air.

[@kerncountyrd5263]

I'm sure you have, but have you considered putting a water barrel in the center of your compost pile? PEX in, PEX out.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Yes sir, we’ve considered wrapping around the metal drum or running into it and back like you said, full of water for mass of course! Great idea man and we do plan on doing that next year with our pile, this video is from years past. We only spent about 20$ hooking up our compost heater this year as we had everything in place from the winter before. Thanks for watching and we plan to use a method like you mentioned next fall/winter!

[@AGMAdept]

So, the objective here is to have the warm compost on the pipes, which then heats the airflow being pushed through by the fan? This is very interesting.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

We’re transferring heat through water and air, thanks for checking this out

[@semi5alpha]

Question man, is the pile still hot?

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Yep holding about 100f or better inside 6months later here. About 80f on outer layer a storm blew the tarps off and it’s warming up so I left the pile to the rain for a day or two to help the breakdown before we take it and spread it around the property. We will be building another area like this for next winter also! Thanks for watching

[@semi5alpha]

@@Earthdwellershomestead Does it sometimes smell? Thanks for the reply!!

[@nic.h]

@@semi5alpha most aerobic compost should smell pretty fresh, anaerobic conditions is what will tend to make it smell unpleasant.

[@Earthmadegarden]

So cool!

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

Thank you! It’s gonna get bigger and warmer from here lol

[@Rockhoundingcolorado]

Why couldn't you contain the compost #rotators into a closed box, buried by composted material? In one side, out the other! maybe even a screw from a grain loader.

[@Earthdwellershomestead]

You want the heat transfer systems in contact with the compost, this was what I came up with for this winter. Next winter I’m getting an even bigger pile going and tweaking it a bit but this is working well so far!

[@Rockhoundingcolorado]

I'm going to hack your hack. Thanks.