Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

ha ha...
perhaps... I will turn and mix the heap this week some time and then monitore it (not sure when I will get to it as I have been off work for a week and will have to catch up on everything!)

a cooler 27C today... still raining softly... as there were parent interviews today, and again tomorrow I will not be able to turn the heap and see if that restarts the heat generation.

Mulch temp down to 23C... heat generating seems to have stopped as it is the same temp as the surrounding air...

So did you get nearly 2 weeks out of the pile AM? That's pretty good, but fairly labour intensive to really get long term benefit out of it.

you would have to turn the pile every 2 weeks or so... my heat production was "cut short" by excessive water (a whole string of rainy days)... I am sure that if I had covered them (as had been suggested ) I could have got at least another week / week and a half out of it!... Just for interest's sake I will be turning the heap to see if it picks up in the heat department again!

are you going to add some fresh stuff to the mix? I reckon if this was fine tuned, you could have quite an effective heating system.

you could keep this going for a long time by removing around half the pile and adding new material, then mixing it all up well, about every 3 weeks... and the pile would not have to be huge either.
just to see what happens when you turn the pile I wont be adding new material just yet, the outer layer did not "heat up" and has done very little in the way of rotting down, so in essence it would be like adding new material anyway when I mix it in.

now could be a good time to pee on it !! see if the influx of ammonia would help. if your bladder is not up to (and the family and neighbours wont help)it i suppose mixing some ammonia and adding it would have the same affect.
blodger

wife is not a problem, but the fact that the system can be viewed from the girl's boarding house on campus might be a problem (and no problem with the bladder either, just add beer and it will work as much as you like! )

ergh the smell of ammonia.... i have mucked out too many stables...

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone has explored using compost to heat the tank water over winter - not a big need for this where I am in QLD but maybe some of those further south or inland might find it useful.

You could just run a coil of pipe inside a bunnings compost bin and then use a thermostat valve to run water from the main pump through the heap when the temp in the tank is low.

Also possible to put a compost heap in a greenhouse to heat the air - like an organic central heating system

Just thinking out loud - im no expert on this couple of links below to get you started...

http://www.deliberatelife.com/index.php ... &task=view

Heaps of ideas for heating and cooling here:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Su ... nhouseHeat

Cheers,
Hamish

This composting strawbale greenhouse is very cool (or should that be hot?):

http://ersson.sustainabilitylane.com/greenhse.htm

Here is a previous thread on this subject viewtopic.php?f=8&t=202&hilit=heat+compost

I've gotta rush now - but I or another mod/admin will combine these threads when we get a sec.

Ok - sorry to revive a thread thats a year old - but has anyone done any further testing on using a mulch pile to heat fish tanks? THis tread just stopped on Sept 21st 2006 and nothing since.

Aquamad has been busy with other things since this time.