So far, I have been very impressed. The HotBin has "eaten" many refills of material (more than 3 of them a week since the start) of mainly green waste (weeds, potato haulms, grass etc) since I got it.
By comparison, the Dalek bin has been refilled once during this period - so has taken roughly 500 l of material ( initial 330 l plus a refill of another 150 ish l)
I have had a bit of a problem with the external thermometer, but as I am getting the internal temperatures and as the material is disappearing at a rate of knots I guess I must be doing it correctly so I am not worried. HotBin are talking to me about this issue and I am getting a replacement soon.
I undid the two ratchet straps which help to hold the front hatch in place
having first put an old, split compost bag down to catch any material which I took out.
hatch open for the first time in 30 days!
I must admit I was surprised to see how well the material had already composted down.
Slugs on the inside of the hatch - they get everywhere!
As always my henny "helpers" appeared to see what was going on
See how much mulch grade compost has been produced! In a month! I removed 3 buckets full of material, it was rather wet and a bit coarse to use as compost just yet, but perfectly acceptable as a mulch and if put in another bin, would make good compost within another few weeks. Which is what I am going to do with it.
I did find it a little difficult to remove the material from the bottom of the bin for two reasons. I found it physically hard to get the stuff out because of the other material above it. I also was concerned about cutting into the bin itself with my spade.
The Hotbin, three quarters empty again, waiting for a refill.
Which it got, of all sorts of stuff including bindweed ( I love watching the bindweed cook and go black inside the HotBin!)
By comparison my (larger!) Dalek compost bin , filled at the same time, under the same conditions and with a mixture of the same material, had produced a very small quantity of mulch quality standard compost. But the rest of the material in the bin was not decomposed very much at all. I removed less than a quarter of a bucket of usable mulch compost in the bottom of the Dalek bin.
Now do not get me wrong, that is very good going for a Dalek compost bin, in high summer I expect to get usable mulch from one of these in around fourteen weeks - but not in four.
So - the HotBin is yet again really impressive. I put the material I removed from the bottom of the HotBin into the Dalek bin, and personally I think that is what I am most likely to use the HotBin for, as a very rapid means to process huge volumes of compostable material and convert it into a much smaller volume of mulch grade compost. This can then be either used or put into a Dalek or other compost bin to complete the process - if you want finer, more mature compost.
And by the end of my afternoon outside, the Hotbin had already reached 55 C internally. And by the next afternoon it was up to 68 C.
Truly a "Hot Bin"