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Well, in a manner of speaking. I've been struggling with it since last August when I set it up, since when it has varied between 10 and 20deg on the lid thermometer. I tried more or less everything mentioned here - and was having to remove lots of soggy partly-done compost from the bottom and put it in an old composter (which is now half full!), partly to try and dry the thing out, and then when it was full, to make room for more stuff. BUT three weeks ago, it suddenly decided conditions were just as it liked them, and took off - on Weds 17 March the lid thermometer was 22, the next day 32, the day after that 42, and on the Saturday 58! It was dramatic - and I keep expecting it to give up, but although it hasn't been 58 again, it's always been 30 or above, with internal temperatures of 40 or above (latter currently 50).
So why the sudden change? Maybe it was an accumulation of improvements, with the deciding factor some tough reedy plant (added with the usual stuff and more weeds on Weds 17th) that I thought would be a problem, but clearly wasn't. Things I did, most gleaned from this forum:
Put great efforts into drying everything - woodchips stored by the woodburner, weeds left to dry in the shed for a bit, teabags (we use a lot of those!) left to dry overnight
Removed some of the old soggy stuff from the hotbin, and put some cardboard and twigs at the bottom of the hotbin
Removed the carbon filter bag from the lid - this was dripping wet, and served no purpose since there's no smell
When I added new stuff, stirred the different types up together in a box - otherwise some of the gooey food waste never mixes in properly - and then stirred it a bit into the stuff at the top of the bin
- I think that's about it (except that I have also stopped putting so many apple peelings and cores in - we had been working through last autumn's apple crop). I didn't find the hot water bottle made any difference, however cool the bin had got. When I started, I was confused by the hotbin instructions giving recommended paper/cardboard quantities in handfuls and by volume! How much is half a waste caddy full of shredded paper?! But when I realised that the weight should be 150g (or 30 pages of A4 printer paper), that simplified matters, albeit required more work than I had been doing. So now I do a lot of carving up corrugated cardboard boxes with a stanley knife, and was helpfully given somebody's aunt's old shredder for the paper. Old egg boxes are also good.
I'm hugely relieved to have finally made it, because the old composting method was frustrating - so many things you couldn't put in it, like couch grass and buttercups. And I found I was spreading weeds from the garden into the allotment, from weed seeds in the compost. So much for using compost mulch to suppress weeds!
I hope to gradually put the old soggy stuff which was moved to the old composter back into the hotbin, when I'm sure it's doing ok, to sterilise it. The change to the stuff inside the hotbin at hot temperatures is dramatic - it seemed to all go grey, as if it was turning to ash, and some of it had a white mould.
It is a big relief, that we will finally have usable compost, and hopefully lots of it!
So why the sudden change? Maybe it was an accumulation of improvements, with the deciding factor some tough reedy plant (added with the usual stuff and more weeds on Weds 17th) that I thought would be a problem, but clearly wasn't. Things I did, most gleaned from this forum:
Put great efforts into drying everything - woodchips stored by the woodburner, weeds left to dry in the shed for a bit, teabags (we use a lot of those!) left to dry overnight
Removed some of the old soggy stuff from the hotbin, and put some cardboard and twigs at the bottom of the hotbin
Removed the carbon filter bag from the lid - this was dripping wet, and served no purpose since there's no smell
When I added new stuff, stirred the different types up together in a box - otherwise some of the gooey food waste never mixes in properly - and then stirred it a bit into the stuff at the top of the bin
- I think that's about it (except that I have also stopped putting so many apple peelings and cores in - we had been working through last autumn's apple crop). I didn't find the hot water bottle made any difference, however cool the bin had got. When I started, I was confused by the hotbin instructions giving recommended paper/cardboard quantities in handfuls and by volume! How much is half a waste caddy full of shredded paper?! But when I realised that the weight should be 150g (or 30 pages of A4 printer paper), that simplified matters, albeit required more work than I had been doing. So now I do a lot of carving up corrugated cardboard boxes with a stanley knife, and was helpfully given somebody's aunt's old shredder for the paper. Old egg boxes are also good.
I'm hugely relieved to have finally made it, because the old composting method was frustrating - so many things you couldn't put in it, like couch grass and buttercups. And I found I was spreading weeds from the garden into the allotment, from weed seeds in the compost. So much for using compost mulch to suppress weeds!
I hope to gradually put the old soggy stuff which was moved to the old composter back into the hotbin, when I'm sure it's doing ok, to sterilise it. The change to the stuff inside the hotbin at hot temperatures is dramatic - it seemed to all go grey, as if it was turning to ash, and some of it had a white mould.
It is a big relief, that we will finally have usable compost, and hopefully lots of it!
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