00:00Did you know a fresh 40-gallon electric water heater at Home Depot is sitting around $450
00:05before you even pay to run it? Households in the US still spend about $23 a month just heating
00:12water. Call it $276 a year. Propane is another tank, another bill, another sundae it can run out.
00:18A wet pile of wood chips in a backyard can push water to 140 degrees with no flame and no
00:23propane.
00:24Just chips and a hose. Here's the part that should bother you.
00:28Tree crews already grind those chips and need somewhere to dump them.
00:31Chip drop will drop a truckload on a driveway for free.
00:34As much as 20 cubic yards, which is 130 to 270 bags of store mulch.
00:39A 100-foot roll of 1-inch black poly pipe at Home Depot is about $78.
00:44Three rolls is about $230. That is the whole heater.
00:47I have watched this idea for years and I am not going back to paying a utility to boil shower
00:52water
00:53if I have a corner of the yard in a weekend. By the end of this, you'll know what the
00:57pile
00:57is actually doing. How to stack it so the hose comes out hot. The slow water trick that makes
01:02a real shower. How to knock 140 down so it does not scald you. And a couple of extra uses
01:07for the
01:08same coil. A dog wash, a greenhouse bench, and a winter preheat for the tank you already own.
01:13I left the build links and the specs in the description if you want the measurements later.
01:18Right now, I am just walking you through it like we are in the yard. Here's what it does,
01:22in normal language. When a big wet pile of wood chips starts to break down,
01:26little bugs in there work so hard, the middle of the pile runs a fever. Stick a long compost thermometer
01:32in and you can see it climb past 130, often to 140, sometimes a bit more. Jean Pende figured this
01:39out in France decades ago. He ran water through a long hose buried in that fever and took showers off
01:44it. People still copy him. Ben Falk's crew in Vermont mixed wood chips and horse manure and pulled
01:49140 to 145 out of the pipe. Mother Earth News ran a similar pile and held above 130 for months.
01:56No fire. The pile is the burner. A small modern version people actually finish in a weekend is
02:01about six feet across and six feet high, with about 300 feet of one-inch hose coiled through it.
02:07That hose is not just a tube. 300 feet of one-inch pipe is sitting on roughly 12 gallons of
02:12water
02:12already parked in the fever. That is your first shower waiting before any new cold water even enters.
02:18Here is the recipe. First, pick the spot. Put the pile as close as you can to where the water
02:23will
02:23come out. An outdoor shower post five feet from the mound beats a long run across the lawn because
02:28the pipe loses heat in the air. Keep it a safe distance from the house siding and the fence.
02:33This is a wet working pile, not a decoration. Second, get the chips. Fresh arborist chips,
02:39mixed sizes, still a little green in them, heat better than old dry mulch from last summer.
02:44Chip drop is the free route if you can take a whole dump. And be honest with yourself,
02:49about 20 yards. That is a dump truck blob, not a pretty ring around a tree. If you have to
02:54buy,
02:55bulk chips are often 18 to 30 dollars a cubic yard. Dry chips will just sit there. You are going
03:01to soak
03:01them as you build. Third, the hose. Buy a potable rated black poly if this water is going on your
03:07skin.
03:07Again, the Home Depot one inch by 100 foot NSF rolls are the ones I linked. Three of those.
03:14Leave both ends of the coil sticking out of the pile before you bury anything,
03:18and mark which end is in and which end is out with tape so you're not guessing in a month.
03:23Do not kink it. A kink is a dead section. Fourth, build in layers like lasagna.
03:29Dump a thick first layer of chips. Soak it until water starts to show when you squeeze a handful,
03:33then walk on it. Pack it. Then lay a loose spiral of hose on that layer, not tight against itself.
03:39Not one sad loop in the middle. Cover that hose with more wet chips. Pack again. Another spiral.
03:45Wet. Pack. You keep going until the hose is used up and the pile is a round, firm hill.
03:51Chicken wire in a circle helps it stand tall instead of slumping into a pancake. Some people
03:56add a scoop of horse manure every couple of layers. Stables often give that away. It is a starter,
04:01not a requirement. Fifth, the proof. Jab A. Long compost thermometer into the core,
04:09not just under the surface. A cheap short kitchen probe will lie to you. The long stem garden ones
04:14at Home Depot run about $50 to $60 and actually reach the fever. Give the pile a few days. A
04:20working
04:20pile feels warm when you put your hand in the middle, then hotter. When the thermometer is hanging
04:24around 130 to 140, hook a garden hose to the cold end. Crack the valve so the water crawls, not
04:30blasts,
04:31and feel the far end. Slow water picks up the heat. Fast water comes out shy. That is the whole
04:36test.
04:37If it is barely warm, the pile is still waking up. Or it is too dry, or you did not
04:41use enough hose.
04:42If this is already useful, subscribe. It is free. Members get the longer tests I keep off the main
04:48upload. I put the Gene Payne write-ups, the Vermont numbers, and the pipe links in the description,
04:52so you can check the builds and the specs if you want to try this for real. The extras that
04:57turn one coil
04:58into more than a shower are next. Now the slow water trick, and this is the one people skip.
05:03You are not filling a bathtub in 12 seconds. Think of the hose as a long skinny kettle sitting in
05:08an
05:08oven. A trickle gives the water time to sit in the fever. A wide open valve just rushes through. Start
05:14with a skinny stream. Time how long until it runs hot. Then you know what your shower actually is.
05:19A one documented setup moved about a gallon a minute at 140. That is a real shower if you are
05:24not wasting the
05:25first 30 seconds. 140 will burn you. Mix it. A simple thermostatic mixing valve at Home Depot is
05:30around $68. Or a second hose of cold into a cheap Y. Either one knocks it down toward 120 at
05:36the head,
05:36which is the number plumbers aim for so nobody jumps out of their skin. Do not drink this. This is
05:42a
05:42shower and a wash down. Not a kitchen tap. Unless you have sat with a plumber and used the right
05:46pipe
05:46the whole way. Here is the extra that costs a few dollars, and saves the shower you just built.
05:51The buried coil stays hot. The five or ten feet of hose sitting in the air between the pile and
05:56the shower head does not. Slide cheap foam pipe sleeves over that exposed run. The six-foot
06:01ever-built sticks at Home Depot are a couple of bucks each. And the water that left the pile at
06:05140
06:06does not show up at your neck lukewarm. Tape the seams. That is the whole upgrade. If a giant mound
06:12is
06:12too much yard, use the same coil only to preheat the water, going into the heater you already own.
06:17Cold groundwater hits the pile first, shows up at the tank already warm, and the electric element
06:22does less work. Same recipe. Less drama. Still a real bite out of that $23 month. Two small piles
06:29beat one dead one. When the first mound cools after a couple of months, you start the second and you
06:34never have a cold week in between. Jean Pan's original monsters ran a long time. A backyard 6x6 is
06:40more like weeks to a few months, then you tear it down. While the pile is still hot, tee a
06:44second cheap
06:44valve off the same outpipe. That is your dog wash, your boot wash, your greasy tool rinse,
06:49120 mixed water in the yard, and you never dragged mud through the house. Same fever, same hose,
06:55second payoff. If you have a small greenhouse or a hoop house, coil a leftover scrap of that same black
07:00poly under a bench or along the north wall, and run the return through it before the shower.
07:04You will not heat a barn. You will take the frost off a seedling bench on a shoulder season night,
07:08which is the job people actually use this for. When it cools, do not throw it out. Wear a dust
07:14mask
07:15when you tear it down. A working pile grows that white mycelium fuzz and the dust is not something
07:19you want in your lungs. Then spread it. Chipdrop already told you one load can replace 130 to 270
07:26store bags. At 4 or 5 dollars a bag, the leftover alone is a few hundred dollars of mulch you
07:31did not
07:31buy. The heater becomes the garden. That is the leftover nobody prices in. A couple of small things that
07:37decide if this works. Keep the pile damp like a wrung out sponge, not a swamp and not a haystack.
07:42A tarp on the windy side in a storm is fine. Sealing the whole thing like a trash bag is
07:47how you make
07:47a stinking brick. If the thermometer never climbs, add water and a little manure and give it another
07:52week before you call it a dud. And keep kids and dogs off the top. It is a working heater
07:56that looks
07:57like a playground. If this gets you a shower off a pile of chips, send it to whoever is still
08:01paying
08:01to heat water they could have run through the yard. Take care, and I will see you in the next
08:05one.
