Heat your home with grass clippings!

carpenter383 · Oct 14, 2009

High-Performance HeatGreen Home Heating System Version 3a

I found this link while searching TBN about firewood. I thought it might interest some of you.
Anyone ever heard of using compost to heat a dwelling?

Steve C · Oct 14, 2009

carpenter383 said:
High-Performance HeatGreen Home Heating System Version 3a

I found this link while searching TBN about firewood. I thought it might interest some of you.
Anyone ever heard of using compost to heat a dwelling?

I have not heard about it but I have thought about it.

When I worked on the pig farm the manure pile was always hot, even in the winter. I have often thought that if someone would have had the forethought to insulate under the slab of the manure storage area and perhaps run some plastic pipe through it a great deal of heat could have been extracted.

I think driving a ford 8n in 5 below zero weather operating a FEL without power steering while watching the steam rise off the slab while my fingers were freezing might have had something to do with those thoughts.

When my feet got cold I would just go and stand in the chit for a few minutes...

Chuck52 · Oct 15, 2009

Seems to me I've read about people heating a greenhouse with compost. I suspect lots of folks will start getting more creative about energy savings, like the farmers who collect methane from their feedlot operations and use it to heat. That kind of "green" technology is easy to make fun of when it is proposed by some government agency, but when you actually find real money being saved it doesn't sound so silly.

Chuck

DennisArrow · Oct 15, 2009

Actually, we heat our goat sheds using the compost that they develop. This time of year we quit cleaning the sheds out and let the straw/hay/manure build up. By early March it will be perhaps 6 to 10 inches deep and compacted. The beauty is of the heat that is produced by doing this. Long about February, the momma's kid and there is a nice warm place to bunk into. Yes, we put down a clean layer of hay for them, but it does work.

Then, come March, we clean this out, spread it out on the garden an inch or so thick, till it in a couple of times..........and boy oh boy does it grow........Dennis

par246 · Dec 1, 2012

Insulated concrete slab will do, same idea as radiant heated floor but in reverse, I would say ~ 75% heat lost from compost pile are due to direct contact with the cold ground, the rest ~ 25 by the air, 1000sq/f of insulated concrete slab (with ~R20-R25 styrofoam boards or similar),
placed under the big compost pile will heat and provide hot water for free(just need electricity to run circulator pumps), the returning water will be between 115-140 depending of a time of the year, the compost pile is easy and convenient to maintain with a front loader tractor/backhoe,
will try to do this project next year to heat 1200sq/f barn and garage

edlegault · Dec 1, 2012

Like par246 said, reverse floor radiant heat style tubing. I would pour the slab in two parts, like preparing for a radiant floor -- insulate the bottom AND edges from the ground and edge/footing of the slab.

Toss an insulated tarp over the top, too. Just monitor the temps in the pile so it doesn't start on fire! We used to live near a mushroom farm which made their own compost and occasionally the fire department had to show up to water douse the piles on fire.

Would be great to heat a winter greenhouse without having to have the compost pile in the greenhouse (or burn propane for a heater, etc.)

par246 · Dec 1, 2012

edlegault said:
Like par246 said, reverse floor radiant heat style tubing. I would pour the slab in two parts, like preparing for a radiant floor -- insulate the bottom AND edges from the ground and edge/footing of the slab.

Toss an insulated tarp over the top, too. Just monitor the temps in the pile so it doesn't start on fire! We used to live near a mushroom farm which made their own compost and occasionally the fire department had to show up to water douse the piles on fire.

Would be great to heat a winter greenhouse without having to have the compost pile in the greenhouse (or burn propane for a heater, etc.)

It can be fire hazard during summer time, may be no need to use an insulated tarp for summer time use,
if pile is loaded at the end of October - fire should be non-issue,
but monitoring the temp of the pile is a good idea, and will serve very well for multiple purposes...

BIG DOOLEY · Dec 1, 2012

That is a clever idea!
You are absolutely right.
Insulating concrete does work well.
I added a 18' x 26' family room/ mud room between my house and garage w/ 9' ceilings and 5 windows.
I used 2'' foam under the floor and inside the footings w/2x6 exterior walls.
The middle of winter you wouldn't think its polished concrete on your bare feet if you were blindfolded.
snow melts quickly and dries quickly. does not sweat in the summer.
I wish my garage floor was insulated.

Jstpssng · Dec 2, 2012

There are indeed people up here growing cole crops in winter in greenhouses heated with compost. I plan to try a modified version , this winter
I'm supposed to be building my attached 10x12 foot greenhouse today, but the weather changed my mind.
When it's done I also can move my hens in there.

An interesting aside; I read a book a few years back about horse racing back around the 1920's. There was a huge manure pile at a track down on Mexico. To get their weight down to a legal level jockeys would go bury themselves in it prior to a race.

I guess they hadn't heard of Weight Watchers.

Zick · Dec 4, 2012

Sounds like a neat idea but the last time I checked, I don't mow the grass in the winter.

Lahen · Sep 24, 2013

Wow! Really good idea. I am wondering to build it. Thanks for sharing, I think it is very helpful for all of us.

carpenter383 · Sep 24, 2013

Lahen said:
Wow! Really good idea. I am wondering to build it. Thanks for sharing, I think it is very helpful for all of us.

Good luck and welcome to TBN!!!

Dr_Zinj · Sep 24, 2013

edlegault said:
... Just monitor the temps in the pile so it doesn't start on fire! We used to live near a mushroom farm which made their own compost and occasionally the fire department had to show up to water douse the piles on fire. ...

If your compost heap catches on fire, you obviously need more moisture in it anyway. ;-)

And burning compost really screws up the decomposition cycle.

Egon · Sep 24, 2013

You gotta sell this to all the Dairy farmers that feed silage!

Also should vent the exhaust into a device that burns vaporous gas.

You also gota consider a runaway burning down the house. Lotsa barns have experienced this phenomenon .

mjarrels · Sep 25, 2013

Large new local hospital uses the county landfill about four miles away to heat the hospital.

mark

oosik · Sep 25, 2013

There may be additional concerns. Any type of stove used for heat is not 100% air tight. You burn wood - your house has the pleasant smell of the wood. You burn compost - your house smells like compost. It would be a situation where I would have the stove in an outbuilding, heat water and pipe the water into the house. I had a pellet stove(Wollenko Pelletmaster) that would burn just about anything - wood pellets, wheat, dried peas, paper pellets, dried corn and coal. I tried coal - BIG mistake. It took weeks to get the smell of coal out of the house.

Heat your home with grass clippings!

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