Hi Robert, Fred and all I agree with Fred about the cardboard, and that it's nice that you end up composting the box too.
I've just made a composter with cardboard sides, or sides and back rather, the front is removable for unloading and is made of half a defunct wooden sliding door, quite thin wood. The composter itself is made of two bits of 1 x 2 metre reinforcing grid or whatever it's called, thin steel welded in a grid pattern with 6" squares. I cut them in half and trimmed back the edges to make four 36" squares, for the back, sides and the bottom, volume one cubic yard. The cardboard panels are wired on inside the sides and back. I stapled some bits of wood behind the back to connect a corrugated iron lid, hinged on, sloping to the front. First batch loaded on Thursday, temp at 65 deg C. Wood breathes, so does cardboard, and the corrugation provides some insulation, fwiw. If the material you use doesn't breathe the compost tends to gather water at the edges where it contacts the surface, it gets too wet and packs. But if the material breathes too much there's a risk of drying out the compost before the process is finished. There's less risk of it drying out if the bottom of the pile is in contact with the soil. We prefer an air supply from underneath, so we use wire-mesh bottoms for our compost boxes with a three-inch gap underneath for the air supply. We also build the pile around a bit of downpipe standing vertically in the middle, removed when it's all in, leaving a 3" vertical hole. Hm. That's a bit like an IDD gasifier stove. The other boxes are made of wood, whatever scrap I could find, similar design to the grid box. We do have a "UU" double box made of five pallets, but we don't like it, I'm going to cut it up for firewood and replace it. The main problem is they're too big (and heavy). Pallet boxes come out at about a cubic metre, only three inches bigger each way than a cubic yard, but we find cubic yard boxes much easier to work with, especially Midori, who isn't exactly tall - that extra three inches is three inches higher than she wants to lift the loading fork. No need to stick to square or cubic designs, an easy way is to make a round "bin" out of 36" chicken wire, say 36" across, held up with four bits of 2 x 1 tacked on the outside (they can also support a lid), lined on the inside with cardboard. That'll hold about 21 cub ft. Here's the basic "New Zealand box" design that probably most people have been using for the last 60 years in one form or another: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/QR/QR8.jpg Plan for a Small Bin Some comments: 1. You don't need such thick wood. 2. The corners are wrong: it's much easier to put the vertical beams in the corners that way, but then you make four corners to prise the finished compost out of instead of just two - those beams get in the way. Better to put the verticals outside the box, not too difficult to do. Actually there are eight corners in that box. 3. It's also not too difficult to build a decent lid on hinges, also worth the trouble. 4. We'd give it a mesh bottom and an air supply underneath. Of course you don't really need boxes, if you build them on the ground like Tom Kelly does (archives). The disadvantage of this, if it is a disadvantage, is that you more or less have to build the whole thing all at once, you can't build it up gradually by adding material as it comes, which is easier for most people. We do it both ways, a whole box all at once, or, not actually adding material as it comes, but adding it in batches, layer upon layer, with maybe four or five layers altogether to fill the box. This works well, but it's best to add the next layer while the previous one is still hot. A week later is about right. Re worms, worm compost is excellent, and there are many other advantages to using worms, but they're much slower than thermophilic compost, and they don't go very deep, only about 9 or 10 inches. For small volumes that come slowly many people prefer worm boxes. We do both thermophilic composting and vermicomposting. More re which here: http://journeytoforever.org/compost_worm.html Vermicomposting FYI, received today: >I want to thank you for your wonderfully informative, concise and >well organized web site. I run a small scale worm farm in Northern >California, and I was able to find all the material I need to answer >my customers' questions right on your pages. I will be linking many >of your pages from my site. You approach the subject in an >intelligent manner and at all levels of knowledge and understanding. >Thank you again. :-) HTH. Best Keith >Hi Robert, > >I have two bins at the moment. The first is the plastic high tech >made from recycled bottles. The second is ultra low tech. A big >cardboard box. > >Of the two I like the box better right now. That might change. I >like the idea that when the box cannot be used for a composter I can >compost it. > >fred > >On 12/9/06, Tom Irwin <<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Hello Robert, > >I use wood posts stacked like a log cabin. It´s open on one side. I >don´t use treated wood anywhere. So avoid that poison. If the wood >rots in time I replace it. > >Tom Irwin > > > > > > >From: robert and benita rabello <<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Reply-To: <mailto:biofuel@sustainablelists.org>biofuel@sustainablelists.org >To: <mailto:biofuel@sustainablelists.org> biofuel@sustainablelists.org >Subject: [Biofuel] The Death of a Compost Bin >Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:01:49 -0800 > > >Although I don't do all of my composting in a bin, nearly all of our >household table scraps and the entire collection of waste from our >bunny cage went into a black plastic compost bin. Please note the >past tense verb . . . > >About a week or so ago, we had a blast of arctic air sweep through >this area. Temperatures plummeted and with the outflow winds >howling out of the east, windchills of -20 C lasted for two or three >days. (I know that some of you further east will probably laugh at >this, but for those of us who live near the ocean, -20 is pretty >cold!) The moisture in my compost bin expanded as it froze, >literally warping or shattering the plastic bin. > >The whole thing actually fell over this morning. I went out to >clean up the mess and found the top third of the contents completely >preserved and uncomposted (big surprise, it's been cold, right?), >the middle third consisted of a singular mass of partially >composted, frozen material, while the bottom third remained warm >enough to keep on decomposing. > >But the composter is toast. I'll have to construct another one >because I'm NOT going to use plastic again . . . What do the rest >of you use for compost bin construction material? > > >robert luis rabello >"The Edge of Justice" >"The Long Journey" >New Adventure for Your Mind ><http://www.newadventure.ca/> >http://www.newadventure.ca > >Ranger Supercharger Project Page ><http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/>http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
