Home Made Compost Tumbler
How to make a compost tumbler from a food grade pickle barrel. Free Plans at dixiegrilling.com This compost tumbler with it’s internal aeration system speeds the composting process. Great way to get compost for your garden without the mess and strength required to turn a traditional compost bin. Concealed barrels picks unwanted critters from hanging out at your compost pile. Excellent for urban gardeners with restrictions on space. Can be made very inexpensively. Link to free plans and bill of material at the end of the video.
25 Responses to Home Made Compost Tumbler
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u can toss in cow poop, chicken poop, horse poop, even a little doggy poop. But there are 2 poops NOT to put in. They are cat poop and you poop…. ew… much too smelly. If the smell does get nasty, tip in a pound or two of activated charcoal.. the fishy tank type will do.
gettingahandle
October 11, 2011 at 4:23 am
@buildegg How do you transfer from 1 tumbler to the other?
PLD60
October 11, 2011 at 5:09 am
I’m building one ASAP!
madfran6
October 11, 2011 at 6:07 am
@buildegg I really like your dual compost tumbler as well. I think these tumblers must work wonderfully. Do you find that they are working well for you? By the way here is a little tip that I find helps speed the compost process up. I put all the kitchen scraps what ever they may be in the blender with a little water. Blend them up and add that mush to your compost bin.
prairiepatch
October 11, 2011 at 6:34 am
finished mine last week using a 55-gallon blue plastic drum. already want to sell it and make a dual tumbler system! the only modification i made was I used 1-1/4″ pvc as the axle, it is plenty strong enough and has zero bend with the barrel totally full of compost. i also just cut out the holes in the supports as notches so the barrel can easily be lifted off the supports to clean or make it easier to move. great design, thanks for sharing!
surfgeo
October 11, 2011 at 6:51 am
@buildegg Very nice!!! The two barrel feature is an excellent idea. You can have one batch of compost cooking while yo continue to load the other. Typically I have to load the barrel over time and then once full, I have to stop adding material and let that batch cook for 6 weeks. By adding the second barrel you will significantly speed up the process and not have to waste any of your kitchen scraps.
stratman4u
October 11, 2011 at 7:28 am
I took your plans, and made a dual compost tumbler.
buildegg.com/bewp/?p=127
Thanks for the inspiration!
buildegg
October 11, 2011 at 8:05 am
About to start one of these, I’ve just got fed up of buying compost. The only thing is I couldn’t get a barrel of that size. The one I’ve got is a 200kg container with a screw on lid! Also I have been unable to find the flange in the UK, does anyone have any advice or ideas that could help me? Thanks
bedlam101uk
October 11, 2011 at 9:00 am
@Pattigirl65 Just open up your adobe acrobat-click on File-click on Print-Click on Adobe PDF-OK and that’s it will save it and later you can print it out on your printer. Hope this helps!
RosaButton
October 11, 2011 at 9:59 am
Awww, I just love listening to you. Reminds me of home.
TheHappydots
October 11, 2011 at 10:00 am
Hi @Pattigirl65,
I’m not sure why you are having problems. I simply went to the plans page using Firefox as my browser. I then selected print all and got 2 pages. The first is just the page title and then page two was the entire plans on one page. Clearly legible as well. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
stratman4u
October 11, 2011 at 10:03 am
How do I get the plans to print? When i scale them down to fit on to a letter size paper, I can not read the print. If I print at 100% I don’t get the entire page? Thanks for any help in advance.
Pattigirl65
October 11, 2011 at 10:53 am
Thanks so much for these plans!. I’ve been wanting a tumbler for a while, but my husband wasn’t sure how to build it. I found the plans, then went to Lowes and got the supplies we didn’t have myself. Brought them home and told him to get building! A few things were a little off, such as sizes, and the wood was a little wet while driling, but it turned out great! Thank you!
Sunnymoonshine15
October 11, 2011 at 11:11 am
The two barrels that my son and I built based on your plans have been in service for a couple of months now. The first one is now a third full of rich soil and getting difficult for my wife to tumble. I couldn’t be happier with the results and look forward to seeing the flowers that will grow in the soil that we created!
JaiUneGuruDeja
October 11, 2011 at 11:42 am
@Yomalex3 Being able to mix the organic material helps speed the composting process but I can’t give you an exact time frame as to how long it takes to get good compost. It depends on heat and what you are adding as material, but as a general rule in the summer time I will have good compost 6-8 weeks after I quit adding material to the barrel.
stratman4u
October 11, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Question, with the earth machine you can place it directly on the ground so that worms can help compost. I see this one isn’t on the ground. Does that mean it just bakes the compost? And how long does it take to get some good compost from there?
Yomalex3
October 11, 2011 at 12:48 pm
@nealdt Thanks for sharing that. I’m glad I could help!
stratman4u
October 11, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Just wanted to share that my girlfriend and I just finished a compost tumbler based on your video as a gift to my parents. We have a smaller barrel (35 gal) and had to change some parts based on the plans you posted. It came out great! We don’t have much DIY experience but were able to figure out enough to make a really great gift. Thanks for sharing!!
nealdt
October 11, 2011 at 1:24 pm
There is probably some cheap timer you can hack into the fan.
Now mount the fan to the top of your downspout pvc tube down the middle that you have capped. This idea will ALWAYS push air through the composter thus SPEEDING up the process significantly. What do you think?
Solar panel $10 (look around for the 1.8 watt units that come WITH all the connectors.
Car battery= free–ask Pepboys or local garage for a scrap battery or replace your car’s battery with new bat use old bat for this. fan=$2-$5
YYZutuber
October 11, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Thanks for posting but I have an idea to make your system much better.
If you add the following cheap items
1. small solar panel $10 comes with all the connectors
2. old car battery or boat battery is better, doe s not need power to start a car but should be bale to hold power
3. a computer fan or one used in cheap laptop cooling pads a 120 or 180 mm fan or 2.
Now if you connect the solar panel to your car battery then the fan to the car battery you now have free power.
YYZutuber
October 11, 2011 at 2:56 pm
@stratman4u Not that it is as good, but I used PVC glue to glue my nylon mesh to the closet flange as well as the inside opening of the drain spigot. Seems to hold…
JaiUneGuruDeja
October 11, 2011 at 3:46 pm
@stratman4u Finished our first AND second barrels! My 16-year-old son, who has never built anything substantial before, is busting his buttons. Not sure how to tell if it’s too wet. Smells like good topsoil in there with a mix of kitchen scraps and fallen leaves. The first barrel has been 3/4 full for the past two weeks and I have not seen any tea exit the spigot cap at the bottom of the barrel. The temperature has been in the 40-60’s with scattered showers. So, decomposition is slow.
JaiUneGuruDeja
October 11, 2011 at 4:25 pm
After drilling the holes in our first tumbler barrel dead center on the vertical axis, we regret not finding the barrel’s center of gravity. The lid makes our barrel top heavy and our empty barrel will not remain upright. Since it will usually have enough compost in it to make it stay upright, it’s no big deal. But, for those of you who want to feel good when you first mount your barrel, drill the axel hole at the center of gravity. You can set the barrel on its side on a roller to find it.
JaiUneGuruDeja
October 11, 2011 at 5:13 pm
@JaiUneGuruDeja The ventilation of the barrel helps control the amount of moisture that rcollects in the barrel.. By allowing air to enter/exit through the top and bottom of the barrel you get a cross flow through the material in the barrel and I’ve not had any problems of too much moisture. You could experiment and see how not having the top holes works, but if you discover your compost is too wet, you will know why.
stratman4u
October 11, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Great plans! My son and I are almost finished with our first tumbler and have all the materials to build a second one. We extended your design by adding some wheels and some removable handles to make it easier to move a full tumbler from our deck to our garden and dump it. But, our black food-grade barrels did not come with hand-holds around the rim where you drilled your ventalation holes. Are these top-end holes essential?
JaiUneGuruDeja
October 11, 2011 at 5:49 pm