wildwood compost water heating project

wildwood compost water heating project I'm creating this group to help connect all the people interested in this project

Here are pictures of the one I recently made at carraig dulra though I had a challenge that day when I arrived to build...
26/08/2024

Here are pictures of the one I recently made at carraig dulra though I had a challenge that day when I arrived to build it as my design featured a standred IBC cage and this one was not standered as it only had vertical bars and not horizontal ones as mine at home did so I had to improvise and turn it on its side but it worked well but a normal cage would definitely work better ,it was then covered completely with a thick layer of woodchip by at least one foot in all directions

This is my new and better design utilising the metal cage of a standered IBC tank ,I fit 100m of 1/2 inch pipe in this a...
26/08/2024

This is my new and better design utilising the metal cage of a standered IBC tank ,I fit 100m of 1/2 inch pipe in this altogether and I recently built it in carraig dulra permaculture farm at there PDC to supply hot water for showers ,this is generating nearly 2mins of hot water and takes about 20 mins to reheat between uses ,this would make a good modular system as you could connect as many of these as you wanted together depending on your hot water needs , the cage and heating element needs to be completely covered by woodchip for it to be efficient by at least a foot or more in every direction ,when it composts down you could start removing one side of the pile to gain acces to the tank and remove the spent compost materiel from under the cage allowing all the materiel to work its way down through the cage and topping it up with fresh materiel on top ,I estimate if you did this about every 3 months it would keep it working constantly generating your hot water , I will be making a few of these soon at home ,2 beside my house to run through the radiators for winter and one beside our small pollytunnel to experiment on heating that over winter to allow for earlier planting times and a longer season of harvesting ( inspired by this very challenging summer) wish me luck :)

26/08/2024

So sorry for the long time between updates ,things have evolved since my last post ,I built the design using the trampoline frames and it was working beautifully generating nearly 4mins of hot water every 20 mins, the water was really hot like to hot to hold your hand in ,so we were using it for outdoor showers and that was great and was getting ready to connect it to my house to circulate through the radiators for winter when unfortunately it sprang a leak , very disheartening after so much work but I do know what caused it ,rats ! But my fault for putting my wheelie bins upaginst the pile giving the rats a buffet and a warm bed next door as i had never had that problem in previois piles ,anyway as I built that one I realised it had some design flaws, mostly being to wide of a pile it would have been very hard to empty the bottom of the spent compost as it was 10ft wide so I have designed a new design that I recently built and is preforming well ,will give details of that on my next post :)

Look at that beautiful steamy stuff just ready to go
20/03/2023

Look at that beautiful steamy stuff just ready to go

20/03/2023

Sorry about the long silence everyone but am rearing to go and start the build in the next week or so , I finally got 15 cubic metres fresh mulch delivered 2 days ago and its steaming already 😀 then I decided to roughly assemble the 3 trampoline frames that will make up the structure only to discover instead of 3 10ft frames I actually have a 8ft ,a 10ft and a 12 ft 🙈 ffs
The 2 frames I collected from people already unassembled were indeed not the size they promised they would be unfortunately....so am on a mad hunt this week for 2 more 10ft trampoline frames and soon as I get them I'll be ready to start assembling the compost heater at last :) frustrating but still excited now to be nearly ready,will keep you all posted on assembly dates

The design i have created is utilising 3 free 10ft wide trampoline frames i picked up ,that will have layers of pipe spi...
17/11/2022

The design i have created is utilising 3 free 10ft wide trampoline frames i picked up ,that will have layers of pipe spiraled in them and will be stacked up on top of each other ,there will be 5 layers of pipe though only 3 are shown in this picture as my sketching talents are not great ,it will be easy to assemble as first trampoline frame will only have one layer of pipe at the top where there bouncy part would have been ,will fill that with mulch then add the next trampoline frame with two layers of pipe fixed to it, fill that up ,then add another trampoline frame with two layers of pipe fixed to it and fill to the top ,im hoping this design will allow me to empty the spent compost from the bottom while continuesly adding fresh compost material to the top to keep it heating , the compost tower will be first wrapped around the circumference with chicken wire to keep the wood mulch in as we assemble it and then once done will be insulated all round with old hay and the trampoline saftey sets and then maybe even some wooden fence panels to make it look astethicky pleasing while also keeping the heat in

This is a rough sketch of my first home compost water heating pile pile
17/11/2022

This is a rough sketch of my first home compost water heating pile pile

One of my last compost heating piles ran a outdoor bath / ibc hot tub or outdoor showers and hot water sink for handwash...
17/11/2022

One of my last compost heating piles ran a outdoor bath / ibc hot tub or outdoor showers and hot water sink for handwashing beside the compost toilet

17/11/2022

Welcome everyone ,I thought making a page would be a good way of connecting anyone interested in being part of this project or that just wants to follow it to learn about it , im planning on making a water heating compost pile using a design I have created and im hoping it will be easier and will keep running indefinitely instead of having to take the pile apart each time it stops after for heating 3-6months ,thus reducing the intensive labour required and making it more useful and practical for many uses such as connecting to your house heating ,running outdoor showers ,a hot tub or heated green house ,there are so many uses for free hot water especially with rising energy costs there days , hopefully it will work as I imagine but sure there's only one way to find out :)

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Donaghmore
Gorey

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