Worm Composting [Vermiculture]

   Broughton Allotments Association is achieving modest success with & raising awareness of the vermiculture enclosure ['WORMOTEL'] I've constructed and the leachate that I call 'WORMOTEL LIQUIFEED' that it produces.    Eventually I hope it will make it's way up to the site - but not before there is a comprehensive guide on it's use & service requirements so that there is little need for outsourcing support.  It is handmade after all and no material is particularly advanced or technically adapted to make it suit this purpose - it is essentially an effort to show it can be done and even on a budget;

  I didn't mind spending double what an 18"³ unit would cost to end up with something four times the capacity [= half price :)]...      So, this is the first incarnation of that 'user manual' and it should serve to introduce the particular 'WORMOTEL' that I made, yet also the topic in general as it is an accepted and beneficial way to deal with a lot of household waste towards a friendlier solution than carting bins of such viable matter to landfill - these kinds of leachate and vermicompost are already proven superior to and safer than municipal compost, and so the installation is essentially a bid to encourage people to take up this practice wherever possible - I'm just sorry it requires instilling so much of an education to that end before you can have the benefit...

 The good news is that it's not too difficult to get a basic understanding;

 In this case it is merely an insulated* box, *with performance through the colder seasons in mind - Clarence Stothard was giving up his plot and had an enclosure he made for his tools with a sheet steel outer on a timber framework - the wood was mostly rotted and he asked me if I could make use and repurpose what remained of it, I took him up on the offer & rolled it back to the plot where it sat in waiting until the idea hatched - that's the reason for it's size, pure and simple - everything is obtained and/or adapted to fit those pieces of sheet steel, approx 100 x 50 and 100 x 150cm

 I bought stud-work timber for the longer parts of the framework and was given some substantially thicker pieces I could use for the corners.  Sheets of 5.5mm ply did for most of the inside, 9mm is used as an outer where there's no sheet steel.  

The top makes use of an offcut from the 'Kingspan' insulation seen used on the old porta-cabin roof, everywhere else is 25mm polystyrene I had from a previous job, same thickness as the stud timber.

This is all sealed and painted, the door closes as tight as possible, ventilation is made with a thought to heat rising, so there's a grill at the top and a gravity vent that drops closed in the base - air should therefore tend to flow pulling in from the bottom and be pushed out through the top.

The outer is painted with an exterior gloss white, the inner a hard wearing black floor paint - the edge seals & joins are wood glue or silicone with some additional mastic best suited for sanding and painting the outside.

When time & resources permit, I am intending to install thermometer[s] - for best results I want readings while the box is closed, and so it could even be a wi-fi job enabling internal temperature readings to a remote access point, add to this a way to get the pH and the tasks should start to condense into a routine.

Almost all the exterior screws have eyelets.

The Wormotel stands fixed on 4 inch post timber which is in turn bolted to a set of skids made so it will remain upright outside in high wind - removing these skids reduces it's footprint and so it can be brought 'indoors' if required for over-wintering and where there will be no risk of wind - it's still recommended it is elevated indoors just as high, as the leachate drains from the bottom and needs to be collected in something beneath the spigot..., ...on the remaining 4 inch timber runs after the skids & legs are removed, this is about 8 inches short for a decent size bottle or bucket.  Some breeze blocks should suffice.

Moving it is at least a two person job - and all the loose contents need to come out first, the side with the clasps for holding the door shut should not be rolled on to the floor as these can be damaged.  As with all cuboid frames, it is also going to eventually develop a structural weakness if there's too much impact to the corners and edges.  I'm happy to report it has been rigorously tested during the build and installation of it at home where I compile this guide, it remains very strong about all fixing points to present.

The insulated back panel cavity also has additional stud framework within for the shelves, these are a basic bracket with a wooden top edge that I wrapped in a building membrane.

The tiers for the worm colonies within are 22l storage boxes, best fit for the outer box size, the spigot [reservoir] is an under-bed storage box that's wider than two 22l boxes, while it's lid collects from the upper two colonies - Clear acrylic pipe is plumbed into the boxes with a watertight seal requiring a polypropylene glue [- not plastic cement or silicone sealant] and using a 'male elbow hose tail plastic barbed pipe fitting air fuel hose adapter' and back nut that I sawed into to create a flush means for drainage that completes this assembly.

The storage boxes are adapted for purpose by cutting the base out and then using the offcut further reduced into strips to make batten edges for affixing a mesh which enables the composted matter to pass through, while cardboard sat on the mesh in the lower tier reduces output to just the leachate.

A gate-leg table that should eventually prove useful when I can rigidly hold the door open in a fixed position is also built in.  This also uses a membrane material to preserve the wood - very easy to wipe clean.  Additional membrane is included rather for the purpose of emptying a tier to collect the vermicompost.  There's more of the mesh too, shouldn't be required but it was only bought for this purpose, so kept as part of the kit as spares/repairs.

And here then, in so many images, is the Wormotel,