A compost or possibly a humus pile was constructed to explore the possibilities of utilizing the heat generated from this process to heat a building. The building was a work shop that needed to be kept above freezing temperature or higher during late fall and winter. It did work to some degree but further work needs to be done. With the first version there was a problem separating the water pipes from the compost/humus at the end of it's life cycle. The second version replaced the water pipes with a water tank and added a second source of heat thus a hybrid heating scheme using gasification.

See the pdf: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/files/thermo-biopile_ver_01-15-12a.pdf