Just a quick update. The pile of chips is now 130+ degrees. I tested at depths of 6 inches, 24 inches and 48 inches and consitently get just over 130 degrees. It literally burns your hand if you stick into the chip pile.

This week Marc DeMario of Sunwood Systems (wood gasification furnaces and solar hot water) is going to help me with the water lines and next week I'm going to start packing down layers of chips over sections of the coiled water line.

I wonder if skipping the shredding-step will mean the biomass digests more slowly and not quite as hot (130 degrees for 24-30 months vs 140 degrees for 18-24 months?) which would be fine with me. I also wonder if using chips vs shreds will mean the end product is not as easy to use as compost in the garden.

But if I can skip the shredding, that means it'll be easier to build a larger pile, so I should be able to pull a lot of heat out, potentially enough to keep radiators hot all winter so I don't have to keep the wood-stove going regularly. Imagine that!

At this point I'm going to skip the inner methane chamber apsect of this. Once we know how to make this put out lots of heat/hot water through the winter we can try the methane bit on version 2.