Hi all,

So I've decided to try an experiment with compost heat. We moved to an 1860's log home with a 70's addition. It had always been wood heated, backed up with electric baseboards, so there was no thought to conservation - just throw in a couple more logs.

The wood furnace was removed as it was no longer safety compliant, turned the baseboards down to the lowest setting (10 degrees C), and froze our first winter. My husband took off the siding on the addition and added foil covered styrofoam insulation and he's been removing the window trim & insulating them - can't afford replacement windows just yet.

So that's the background. Now I wanted a source of heat, now that less will be lost. And I found the link below.

http://users.easystreet.com/ersson/greenhse.htm

So, I'm going to build the same thing, only instead of going to the showers or laundry, I'm going to the local antique dealer & pick up an old water radiator, get a recirculating water pump & a timer & see if I can heat the master bedroom. I live in the country so have ample potential for wood chips & manure, we inherited a half barn-ful of hay for building , so the cost shouldn't be that much. I'm going to start this weekend. I'm very excited.

If it works, I hope to install a radiant floor system & use the hot water generated to heat the rest of the house. I'll let you know how it all works out.

PS. While researching this, I read an interesting point about heating resources: Wood & other renewable, burnable heat sources, must be 'purposefully' burned while the composting components will be composting anyway & that heat is not being tapped. It got me thinking so I thought I'd share.

Gail