manure compost heat

kevin37

Hi
Looking for advice on a compost heating system. We have stables close to the house and we bed horses on straw which gets cleaned out and put into manure storage area, this area gets cleaned out every 3-4 weeks using frontloader on tractor but the heat generated in this area is unreal i would say possibly 60 deg C. I would like to harness this heat ultimately for the house but all the compost systems i have found involve rolling out coils of pipe as the pile is constructed but this would mean taking it apart manually and thats just too much work. I have thought about coilling pipe around a 600mm diameter hdpe pipe 2 m high and building the pile around this, connecting the coil to indirect cylinder locally initially to see how iT would perform, would appreciate any advice. I already have a couple of coils of underfloor heating pipe and some 600mm diameter hdpe. House is 12m from pile and when i built house i left pipes out under the footpath into the Garden in case i ever wanted to put in an external boiler so there will be no ripping required to get to the Hot watr cylinder.

Thanks
Kevin

10-10-20

The fact is that that the minute you start taking heat out of the heap, it's slows down the composting process. So its yield reduces and you end up with a dung heap which goes nowhere and no heat to boot.
If the heap was insulated and thermally managed, then yes, you could take heat and methane out of it.

There are commercial devices for doing this. Example: http://www.gizmag.com/power-pallet-20-gasifier-biomass-generator/32245/

kevin37

Thanks for your reply would love one of those machines but the straw and manure may be a bit wet, i can put an insulation blanket over it though.