compost bin

Step 5: Ventilation holes

on the opposite side of barrel from the lid mark off 4 evenly spaced 1/4 holes across the barrel.then measure 6 inches down from each hole till you all gone all the way around. just make sure it has some ventilation. this would be a minimal amount .
now randomly drill some hole for the spikes . drill a hole a little small than the spike and just nail them in. these help brake up the material when you rotate the barrel speeding up the composting.
you should use 4 to 8 spikes what ever works best . you can always pull them out.

Comments

[Jaxoat]

I'm looking at making one of these and was wondering what is the purpose of the ventilation holes. If heat is what is need to "cook" the compost, I'd think the holes would not be wanted, Also, if one mounted a spigot, you could capture the "tea" that would otherwise drain out of the vent holes. Any insight?

[meganscottage]

If you don't make ventilation holes, the whole thing may become anaerobic and stink to high heaven... While there are a variety of microbes, critters, worms, etc at work the vast majority don't make the process stinky, unless the anaerobic (critters that live without oxygen) critters take over. This is also one of the reasons to turn a compost pile... Hope this helps!

[Aaronicus]

Compost also requires air, which it won't get if you don't have any vents. It heats itself, so don't worry too much on it. Even my open-air compost heap is very warm over the cold winters here in Wyoming. Compost tea also needs air, by the way. In fact, you don't want tea to get very hot as it needs the enzymes to do its job, which are killed if it heats up too much.

[Jaxoat]

So would it be better to have vent holes on the side of the drum or throughout the drum as done in this project?

[Aaronicus]

Since the drum is meant to rotate, I'd say they'd be better off being throughout. On commercial compost drums of this type, the vents are evenly spaced and all over the bin. Some of the more expensive ones have little sliding doors or plugs to change how many holes you have in the drum. Basically, the more full the drum is, the hotter the contents are going to be.