Does Adding Urine Heat Up Your Compost Pile?

[alan30189]

You have to mix it up. The compost looked a little too wet as well.

[BlueStrikeP]

oh you didn't add any carbon along with that nitrogen! (sawdust would work, add in that with the pee, it would not only lock in the nitrogen but it would also reduce the smell) The carbon to nitrogen ration should be 30 to 1, a chunk of woodstuff to your pee, add in sawdust next time, and make it so it has the consistency of a wed sponge, you should see some better results.

[crazyaboutcompost]

@BlueStrikeP sawdust is great, but i didn't have any at the time. it is definitely a helpful ingredient.

i'm going to add urine at the start of a compost pile instead of well into the process...i'm near certain that will show higher temperatures than normal in the beginning.

[enyawix]

The view of your pile was not good, but I think your pile is much too small. My stack of five gallon buckets is hotter than 70. Not sure how hot I am but I can feel heat.

[crazyaboutcompost]

@enyawix Yep, the pile is a bit small, and it was well into the composting process. I'm going to do the experiment again and add urine from the get-go.

[TheSEEDanno70]

Cool. Am subscribed and awaiting more research :-)

Have you considered minerals (and lack thereof)? It appears to be a global issue that is, ironically enough, easily solved through seawater (according to Maynard Murray's 50 years of research; yes, he's dead).

Will the 90-something minerals in seawater effect the compost heap? Will they cause a drop of pH? (My best sources suggest not btw.)

[knower1962]

Do not use any dog food. Please look at videos about how they make dog food. The rendering companies do not care where the meat in dog food comes from so they get animals from the vet who have been put to sleep. That chemical that killed that dog never breaks down. Therefore you are eating chemicals that kill or animals who died from cancer or other unknown reasons. Be careful what you put in your garden or it will be in you.

God bless

[crazyaboutcompost]

@knower1962 to some extent this easily applies to our own food as well... nonetheless I agree with you that dog food can be pretty nasty.

[23ord]

Urine is a perfect fertilizer/compost starter, if used within 24 hours.

The fresher the better.

For fertilizer, dilute to 8 to 1 with water. On seedlings, go 20 to 1.

Beware tho, because of high nitrogen in urine, only use before plants

start to flower. Otherwise you end up with all green plant and no fruit/vegetable.

Ala MiracleGro.

[justice2576]

I like to drink my own urine and that of others around me then add it to my compost it seems to make it super charged.

[DemonicSymphonic]

@justice2576 eww

[mushymcsquishy]

i think your conclusion about urine was premature--you only had a small amount of compost in there, and only used a little urine. you should definately try again. just add urine occassionally to the pile as you add your other ingredients, over all you should get better results. good luck! :)

[crazyaboutcompost]

@mushymcsquishy Yeah, I think I'm going to try adding urine more often and I'm going to wait until I gather enough material for a rather large compost pile of at least 3'x3'. I figure that may magnify any changes.

Ultimately, I wanted to show in a simple way that just adding urine doesn't instantly add heat.

[Allen2045]

Did you add more dry and green things to your bin when you added the urin?

[crazyaboutcompost]

@Allen2045 After I dumped in the urine, I closed the tumbler and gave it a few spins. When I opened it, it was still a bit wet and I should have either added more material or left it open for a bit, as the material seemed rather soaked. However, I didn't want to bias the contents too much so I left it as is.

Now that that same tumbler load is almost double in size, I may try the same urine volume again and see if there's a different effect...there's a lot of variables when composting.

[Praxxus55712]

Stop peeing on my dog.

Thank you

:)

[crazyaboutcompost]

@Praxxus55712 HAHA, always the best video comments.