Green Johanna or Hotbin? Any experience?

[WifeofDarth]

I have been wanting one of these for years, as I love the idea of reducing household and garden waste. There are 5 of us with a small garden with tiny lawn.
DH is totally anti composting as he's worried about rats/flies, but apparently the hot composting is less vulnerable.
If we got a hotbin it would go on paved area, a green Johanna could go on the lawn in the shade.
My Qs are - are they really suitable for dealing with family kitchen & garden waste? And if so, which one is best? My feeling so far is that Green Johanna is more attractive, but hotbin more reliable & rat proof.
Would welcome any experience and tips.

[maxelly]

Hi, we've just got a green Johanna and whilst its only been a few weeks (so I cant say whether you get good compost out the other end) it seems good so far. I am not at all worried about rats as it is pretty solid plastic throughout including the base plate, and all smells seem well contained (no flies either as far as I can see). It is quite large which may or may not be a positive for your family!

[drspouse]

We have a hotbin, we ruled out a Green Johanna as it has to be in sun (so, you couldn't put it where you are thinking).
It is really a game changer - we have had a couple of cold snaps where we've had to warm it up again but basically it just eats everything you give it.
We got it in the summer and only just got any compost out of it (I hadn't tried since about September TBF) and one thing I'd say is we processed everything right before putting it in EXCEPT twigs from the garden, which really need to be an inch or so long as they won't break down.
One or two "compostable" bags (the kind magazines/fancy kids' snacks come in) didn't break down so I'd rip them up finer in the future as well.
No sign of paper, food, card, we use corrugated cardboard ripped and crumpled as our bulking agent (instead of getting wood chips) and no sign of that either.

[drspouse]

Oh, no flies that I've noticed.
We did have rats but they didn't go anywhere near it (they were in the basement/shed).

[Silkie2]

My hotbin failed really. Always too wet and seeping moisture. The amount of dry newspaper I'd have had to put in would have made me unhappy about the amount of ink. Though I am mostly composting garden weeds with a bit of lawn clippings. If you wait say 18 months then the compost will have composted but never got hot like they promised but I am in cool and cloudy Scotland maybe better further south.

[ladybee28]

Scanning through Active and saw this thread title – thought it was in Baby Names!

You can't call a child Hotbin!!

[drspouse]

We aren't that far south, Silkie, NW England. It was only really when it went down to low single figures daytime that we needed to boost it. We don't get a newspaper, so we only put in junk mail, plus cardboard.

We started ours in the summer and it took maybe 3 weeks to get to temperature.

[drspouse]

(We do try and get as much of our food as possible in paper, not plastic, and almost all food wrappings e.g. paper bread bags, greengrocer bags, in the compost).

[kateal]

I was considering a hotbin but my friend found that hers got nibbled by rats. Hotbin did send a replacement plug but the whole thing then looked a bit tatty (they'd nibbled the top and sides) and I was never convinced they wouldn't succeed the next time.

[WifeofDarth]

Thanks for that everyone, really helpful! How exciting that it got to 'Active' Ladybee. Hotbin isn't a great name to be lumbered with but if you want to go with composter you could try Johanna/Johann !

So it seems that it might work, it might not, and the only way to find out is to buy one and get on with it.
Maybe I'll wait a couple of months until it's warmer, that might increase chance of success. And I'll go with the hotbin to have flexibility of where to put it.
drspouse what do you mean that you process everything? What do you do to it?

[drspouse]

Food - chop up e.g. stems lengthwise, whole bread slices.
Paper - tear or shred
Sticks - it says chop to 4" but they really need to be smaller.
Cardboard - rip and crumple.

[drspouse]

I think it did help that we started in the summer. But now it's very happy.

[WifeofDarth]

Thanks drspouse. So I'll hold off until April then to give it a good chance of starting. Also having looked at the hotbin website it says that grass is a good way to get going and of course we won't have any of that until spring.
Do you have a paper shredder? If not does it take ages to tear everything up?

[drspouse]

We do have a paper shredder but if we don't have confidential waste we just tear it up roughly.
We could, actually, just tear up the confidential waste, it's not like it's going to emerge in a useful state for identity thieves!

[WifeofDarth]

Thanks again dr. Roll on spring!

[VanillaSugarr]

I was toying with the idea as I saw an advert for one which said you could hit compost meat products. I then went on gardening course and asked the lecturer who said NO! No to both, TBH.

[drspouse]

The hot bin people say you can. We have and it's come out as compost. I think they probably know...