Heat Your Home with ..... Grass Clippings?

[4570Man]

4570Man - I think you are looking at a hard days work to cut and split ten tons of firewood - definitely not an easy pleasant day. So, depending upon species, a SEASONED chord will weigh 2000 to 3000 pounds. A green chord, again depending upon species, will weigh 50% more.

The only wood I have here is pine. I'd be willing to wager that on a hard day I could cut and split two full chords of green pine. All things being equal that most likely would represent around 6000 to 6500 pound of green pine.

You MUST be a real horse or your firewood is laced with lead.

If I really busted my hump - I might get two and a half chords cut and split. But I also remember, I was in no condition to repeat on the following day. The following day meant stacking in the wood wagon - bringing it in off the property and restocking in the wood shed.

You know, "working the wood" brings back fond memories because you tend to forget all the sore muscles, bumps & bruises - blisters and cuts.

I was figuring 4 cords of oak which would be a rough day if you got it done. Even at 2 cords I don’t think you’d get that much grass put up with minimal equipment.

 

[NorTracNY]

There is no reason this composting system couldn't work. As others have pointed out, composting does produce a fair amount of heat. I get plenty of heat coming from mine in the winter when I'm moving them with the tractor. My concern is drying the grass without composting it, then storing it. Maybe someone can develop a system for a golf course first. They cut plenty of acres each year. For me it sounds like a huge pain.

One item to watch out for is the electricity cost. You are going to use motors to rotate this and likely fans to circulate the warm air. When I looked into Geothermal years ago, my electricity usage was going to doublet! Sure, my gas bill would go to zero, but you will use a fair amount of electricity to circulate the air under ground.

 

[LouNY]

Have you ever been around a "small silo"?
When I was hired out to work with a farmer (about 1965?) he had a small silo. It was hot enough at the bottom to provide some additional heat to the barn during the Vermont winter.

I would not care to see the feed quality that came out of a silo that was providing any heat.
A silo in good shape will not allow air entry into the silage. Also the moisture content is high enough
to prevent extreme heating. Silage will actually freeze along the wall of a silo.

There have been a few instances when too dry of a feed has been put in a silo and they have spontaneous combusted when opened up .

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Having a bailer, rake, mowers, wagons, tractors and whatever else is used for haying is a far cry from free so I was assuming it would be picked up using only the lawnmower and bagger. The 400 hay bails is worth $2000 so again not very practical. The 10 tons of firewood is worth 1/3 that much. Burning firewood in a regular wood stove is 40-50 percent efficient. It痴 about 75 in the more expensive high efficiency units. I have no idea how efficient the composting unit is.

I think the fact that an equivalent weight of firewood costs 1/3 as much as hay tells you everything you need to know about why people burn firewood for heat and not hay. Those prices reflect the total cost of labor and equipment of gathering it.

 

[shooterdon]

I have an arborist friend who has a commercial tree service. He is also a college grad, soil scientist. For decades he has had a system of large diameter heavy PVC pipe buried under this giant wood chip pile he adds to most days with fresh chips. This pile is managed and pushed up with skid steer and is a mountain. He runs all of his shop water system through this set up to wash all of his equipment and it runs HOT water for a long time winter or summer in Western Oregon. I see no reason at all why you couldn't use this resource to heat a building with a circulation pump and some radiant set up in a slab or otherwise.

As the organic matter decomposes does he need to remove it as some point?

 

[oosik]

TheMan419 - you know - there are countries where dried camel dung IS their source for fuel. Burn baby burn.........

 

[hslogger]

Not really. It has bean very seldom that he has"cleaned the pile". Over the years he has had some pipe or fitting failures, that meant digging it up and fixing. Essentially the heat just stays and stays and more and more matter decomposes. It is amazing how simple and effective the whole process is.

 

[Paddy]

As the pile completely rots, the pipe is in good black dirt. If new chips are added on top, the composting would be above the pipe and heat transfer would drop drastically. Most blogs I have read require re constructing new piles. Having two spots that you alternate makes the most sense.

Though the thought of having free radiant heat sounds very interesting, if you don't have a huge source of free organic mater or free delivery from a nearby source, the number just don't add up.

Even if you have all the organic material, piles can go dead and need either water, nitrogen boost or fluffing to get adequate air. All organic matter will rot and make heat, but if it's not rioting fast enough the heat is not usable. Getting the right chip, dust manure mix is key.

 

[shooterdon]

As the pile completely rots, the pipe is in good black dirt. If new chips are added on top, the composting would be above the pipe and heat transfer would drop drastically. Most blogs I have read require re constructing new piles. Having two spots that you alternate makes the most sense.

Though the thought of having free radiant heat sounds very interesting, if you don't have a huge source of free organic mater or free delivery from a nearby source, the number just don't add up.

Even if you have all the organic material, piles can go dead and need either water, nitrogen boost or fluffing to get adequate air. All organic matter will rot and make heat, but if it's not rioting fast enough the heat is not usable. Getting the right chip, dust manure mix is key.

I tend to lean towards this evaluation. Yes, I have seen steam coming off compost piles and felt the heat they generate. The problem is getting the BTU's out as well as having a large enough pile of stuff to make it worthwhile.

I will stay with wood. Having a tractor makes wood even easier but I used wood for years without a tractor to help. Even a cheap $1500 pickup makes using wood relatively easy and efficient.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

As the pile completely rots, the pipe is in good black dirt. If new chips are added on top, the composting would be above the pipe and heat transfer would drop drastically. Most blogs I have read require re constructing new piles. Having two spots that you alternate makes the most sense.

Though the thought of having free radiant heat sounds very interesting, if you don't have a huge source of free organic mater or free delivery from a nearby source, the number just don't add up.

Even if you have all the organic material, piles can go dead and need either water, nitrogen boost or fluffing to get adequate air. All organic matter will rot and make heat, but if it's not rioting fast enough the heat is not usable. Getting the right chip, dust manure mix is key.

It's like hydropower. If you happen to have a waterfall nextdoor, it's worth looking into. Building your own waterfall is a losing proposition.

Similarly, if you have a large pile of compost, trying to capture some of that heat might be worthwhile. Building a large pile for the heat it produces won't be.