Author Topic: compost to heat a greenhouse?  (Read 1039 times)

nilly71

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compost to heat a greenhouse?
« on: September 21, 2008, 19:12:15 »
I'm planing/clearing/ planting my plot at the moment and have decided to have 3 compost bins and one large final(ready to use)bin.
I have an aluminium frame that i was thinking about covering in clear plastic and using as a greenhouse, its about 3m long 2m high and 50cm wide so ideal for seeds or i could build a frame on the back to make it wider.

What i thought of was to place it next to the compost heap, build a lid on the compost bin and run a peice of drain pipe from the top of the bin to the green house to keep it warm.

Would this work or is it a daft idea ???

Neil

kt.

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Re: compost to heat a greenhouse?
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2008, 19:17:09 »
Not too sure.  In theory yes.  Then again the heat needed to generate waste into compost could be lost in the greenhouse. ???
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Baccy Man

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Re: compost to heat a greenhouse?
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2008, 06:58:04 »
There have been experiments to see if this can be done commercially so far only a few have been successful. In a domestic situation it is impractical due to the sheer volume of compostable waste needed.
First you need to decide wether to use the compost to provide all necessary heat or optimum levels of CO2 & partial heat.

If the composting component is sized to heat the greenhouse (17.5 cubic meters of compost per cubic meter of greenhouse) the amount of carbon dioxide generated will be six times that needed for optimal CO2-enriched atmospheres, and the amount of nitrogen (ammonia) released will be fifty times that needed for optimal plant growth.

When the composting component is sized on the basis of carbon dioxide the heat generated will be supplementary only meeting perhaps 15% of the energy needs. Excess nitrogen however will still be a troublesome contaminant of the system at levels roughly eight times greater than optimal. Nitrate levels are consistently too high for safe production of veg due to accumulation of nitrates in the vegetables.

If you decide to use the compost to  produce all the required heat you then need to find a safe way to transfer the heat into the greenhouse without the excess carbon dioxide & nitrogen eg; heating water & pumping that through pipes/radiators within the greenhouse.
If you use the compost to provide optimum CO2 & partial heat then you have an environment for starting seedlings off but not suitable for growing plants to maturity.

If you want to read a bit more on the subject take a look at this report on a 2 year trial. It is an 8.4mb pdf file
http://www.vsb.cape.com/~nature/greencenter/pdf/compost.pdf

nilly71

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Re: compost to heat a greenhouse?
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2008, 20:21:08 »
Most of that went over my head, but the last section made a bit of sense. Thanks for the advice.

I just wanted to use it to take the edge of the cold spell rather than heat it completly.

But for safety i think i will give it a miss.

Neil

kenkew

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Re: compost to heat a greenhouse?
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2008, 21:32:26 »
If you have a good compost heap that's working well, ram a 4" pipe into the top half and feed it in to your G'house. You will gain some heat, don't know if it will be enough to keep the frost out, but I'd certainly give it a go if my set-up was like yours.

 

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