Anyone got a Hotbin Compost Bin ?

[NotwatchingSpooks]

Hi
I’m looking at buying a hot in compost bin and wondered if anyone had one?
If you do how have you found it?

Yes, I have one. I’ve had it for two years and I don’t rate it at all. I am clearly doing something wrong but I do t know what. The temperature doesn’t get above 40 degrees in mine even on the hottest of days. Today it is registering 25 degrees. So the contents don’t rot down properly and all I get is leachate to drain off. I wouldn’t recommend it, despite only hearing good things about it from other people.

I have one and I am able to get mine fairly hot: the top thermometer registers quite a lot colder than if I insert a thermometer into the compost itself.

I have to regularly top it up with grass cuttings so I usually put half in when I cut the grass and then save the other half to top it up a week later. Mine is all rotting down well but is pretty wet - I have to leave it to dry out before I use it. It smells a bit grim when I dig it out and isn't hugely easy to dig out. I think this is at least partially my fault because I don't have huge volumes of shredded paper to absorb the water.

I've been using mine since about April and it's starting to produce usable compost now.

It works well for me because I want to compost meat, dairy etc as the council won't do any food waste collections. That means I am prepared to put at least some of the work in, if not quite diligent enough.

I think you definitely have to have a really regular source of something like grass clippings to keep getting the temperature up. The other thing to be aware of is that it recommends things are shredded before the go in there - I'm about 50-50 on whether I do this or not at the moment.

I agree that grass cuttings increase the temperature.

Just be aware that if you have any perennial weed in your grass (we have bindweed abs alkanet in ours) then it isn’t recommended that you compost your grass cuttings. Also if you use a weed killer on your grass, it can say on the bottle that you shouldn’t compost the cuttings for a period of time (I think it is a year bug I may be wrong).

Thanks, I’ve taken the plunge and ordered one, will report back. I’ve watched a bit of you tube and I think it seems important to get the right mix of stuff in it, we have loads of grass and also newspaper, etc

I got given one 2 years ago. It gets hot, but it is in full sun for 8 hours in the summer. I don’t put anything but plant waste, veg scraps and peelings and cardboard in. I put quite a lot of cardboard in and I’ve also got a good supply of bark chipping I can put in too.

It doesn’t produce particularly fine compost, I use it as a mulch, and I empty about every 6 months…it’s not particularly easy to empty. But neither is a dalek or a standard compost bin.

Just bought one this week- temp gets to 45 or so(in London), steams a lot but it smells. Only have bits of grass in there and plant cuttings but I think you need to top up with wood chip and cardboard as I can see it potentially turning to sludge. In the 3 days I’ve had it, the volume has decreased by half, but it means I don’t have to pay £65/yr for a garden waste bin and hopefully make something useful (and smelly) for my garden!

I have 2 and I find they work very well for a small London garden. I fill them up with kitchen veg peelings / grass cuttings / used guinea pig bedding (made of paper). it gets pretty hot but I don't obsess over the temperature, I just leave it as long as I can before taking anything out.

if you put in big sticks, those won't break down easily. I now have a shredder and put big stuff (e.g. pruned branches of bay tree) through the shredder before it goes in the Hotbin. that works very very well.

I use mine for hen poo & food waste.

Key is the mix of greenery, paper & wood chippings. Tho if you run it slightly cooler, it makes an excellent wormery. This thrills my chooks.

parietal can I ask what shredder you have?

Would you put ivy in there? I’ve stripped loads off a fence after cutting back large shrubs (didn’t realise how much ivy was there!).

I wouldn’t, i think it would survive….

my shredder is a pretty standard one from Argos, can't remember the model but like this
www.argos.co.uk/product/7501935?clickSR=slp:term:shredder%20garden:2:2:1

the shredder is a bit fussy but when it works, it is great. I can put things like ivy in and then the compost bin will deal with the bits.

Thank you

I agree. I think I will put all the ivy in the brown bin which is collected by the local authority.

The hot bin really benefits from rhubarb leaves. I’ve discovered!

We have one but it's got SO wet at the moment (we're NW but have had a hot summer mainly). We are trying to put in lots of shredded paper, the DCs' school drawings are helpful!

loo roll inner tubes and cardboard egg boxes are very good torn up to soak up excess water. I do think you have to put twiggy stuff or bark chippings in too to create air spaces.

Definitely need to get a good mix of dry stuff in there. As @BarkingUpTheWrongRoseBush says egg cartons and loo roll tubes are great, I found anything cardboardy is better than paper, bark chippings are excellent.

We have a different brand but similar. It went really slimy the first year and doesn't deal well with twigs. We've found the trick is to order pizza at least once a fortnight and shred the boxes into it. I'll force myself to eat pizza for the good of the compost

The Hotbin website says don't put in newspaper, so we were going with twiggy stuff and office paper. Aaargh!

Hot in has arrived and has been set up using the advice from both the Hotbin Websire and the Beanie gardener.
Bottom lined with twigs.
Filled with a mix of veg peelings, shredded paper and the wood chips that came with it. I gave it a stir and put in the hot bottle.

Will report back ….