Hotbin on a narrowboat!

[WeeVee]

Hello all!

My name is Vickie and I live on a 61' narrowboat, cruising the UK's canals and rivers. We have a separator loo and have been cold-composting our solids for three years.
We've recently bought a Hotbin to speed up the composting process and to deal with pathogens more reliably. It has also enabled us to compost kitchen scraps rather than binning, so we're very pleased! It sits in the front deck area of our boat, quietly doing its stuff, while we potter around the network.

[Hugh]

Hi Weevee,

I'm interested to know your experience. Not composted before, but I am going to buy a hotbin in order to use with a compost toilet (this is at home, on dry land!) - would add other stuff too. Have you successfully composted humanure? How long did it take to break down to soil?

[WeeVee]

Hi Weevee,

I'm interested to know your experience. Not composted before, but I am going to buy a hotbin in order to use with a compost toilet (this is at home, on dry land!) - would add other stuff too. Have you successfully composted humanure? How long did it take to break down to soil?

Hello Hugh!

Yes, we've been successfully composting humanure in our Hotbin since March of this year. We also add food scraps and our pooch's poo in compostable poo bags.


We use pet bedding as cover material in our compost loo so the compost never really looks like soil as such. It has more of a ‘forest floor’ appearance.
I’ve attached a couple of images for your interest.

It took me a little while to get to grips with keeping the temperature up in the bin, so I’d say it was around three months before I had anything resembling compost in the bottom of the bin. It was flying during the summer when the temperatures were high but now autumn is upon us I’ve noticed it slowing down. I guess we’ll just chug through the winter until spring, and if the bin gets too full I can cold compost some contents until the temperatures start lifting again.

If I can help with anything else, just holler!

Good luck with the Hotbin.


Vickie