Hot composting

[Mrsmorton]

Does anyone do this rather than just normal composting?

I'm worried about smells and rats! Grateful for any reviews.

We have our hotbin in the garage, no rats or smells-when the lid is shut. Its ok, although we have wooden composters made from pallets at the allotment and we get better compost from that. The hotbin gets to about 30 degrees in the summer and composts the contents quite quickly. Points I'd make-
-it gets very wet so you need lots of small cardboard bits, espeially with grass clippings
-it doesnt get hot enough to be able to add food waste
-no worms
-it makes good mulch but rarely fine compost
-water drips out of the base so we keep it on a growbag tray
-you need to keep it at least 3/4 full to keep the heat up

I would say on balance its ok, but not quite the great thing that its advertised as.

I had one and found it a big faff and I never managed to get it working. You have to be fairly accurate about what you add - the mix of stuff - to get the temperatures that give great results. I'm not organised or precise enough and I gave up on it and have a regular three bin system, into which I can put raw food waste and all garden waste. I get nice compost from it and it's no hassle.
I didn't get any smells or unwanted visitors with the hotbin - just the compost was, as pp said, not fine and underwhelming compared with the promise.

Thank you @Janedownourlane @BewareTheBeardedDragon

That's really useful.

I’ve never put any cooked food in...just garden waste, veg trimming and cardboard. It got fairly hot. It produced fairly coarse compost. It’s a lot neater than my 3 bin system at the allotment...so handy as I’ve got a small garden and it’s on show. I don’t mind it but I prefer the Dalek.