FCMP Outdoor HOTFROG Dual Body Tumbling Composter (HF-DBC4000) Black & Green (37-Gallon)

After trying out a few of my friends composters before I picked one, I determined that I wanted one that 200# 6'3" me could turn easily. Some of the others were hard for even large me. There was so much weight off balance and/or there wasn't a good way to the barrel. I now have my first bin almost 1/2 full. This must be worst case for spinning. Between having the compost split into two halves compared to one large bin, the excellent, well spaced hand grips, and other design features, I rate this unit as a 10 for being easy to turn. Being a little lower than some of the other units also makes it easier for my 5'4" wife to turn where she can do it with little problem.It was also a 10 for assembly. I took my time, read the unnecessary instructions, and still assembled it in less than 15 minutes by myself, no problem. It didn't take 4 hours to assemble like some of them, it is easy for one person to assemble, no parts were missing, and everything fit together well, all complaints I saw in reviews of other units. I like the fresh green paint and door. It makes the unit a bit more attractive than an all black unit too.Also, the way it is made, liquid goo doesn't drip out of it if you put too much wet stuff in. I found this a significant problem looking at some other units. With the bins coming preassembled, each in one piece, you get both no dripping and easy assembly.Still haven't harvested my first load but I can see it will be ready long before the second side is full.This unit seems plenty big for a family of 4 if you aren't trying to compost a lot of garden waste. I am mostly only composting kitchen waste. I have been at 40% full for several weeks now, even though I keep adding regularly. It seems that the composting action is reducing the mass as fast as I add it now. I know at some point this will change but, I didn't realize how much it would shrink, even if I add some extra leaves and brown items from my yard to keep it from becoming too wet. I think I will save a couple of garbage cans of leaves this fall when they are dry and easy to collect to use the rest of the year.The unit isn't built like a tank, but I rate it as sturdy. I expect to get many years life out of it. The parts are coated with heavy paint. I don't know if they are galvanized or not underneath the paint, but at some point, rust may start to attack the metal parts of the unit. If I bought another unit I would consider putting some flexible PVC tubing tubing around the bottom supports to protect the paint when I first assemble it. Now that I think of this, I may just go ahead and add it.The unit doesn't have wheels. These could be a plus but they would bump up the price and would be another thing to fail. I probably would have bought the unit with them if they were an option but now that I have a place for it on the side of the house, I will probably never move it again. I read that the units like to be in the sun. Mine gets half sun. I suspect it composts quicker as a result compared to being in the shade. The black plastics absorbs the solar heat and helps to get the compost cooking. If I was in a dryer sunnier clime, full sun could be counter productive if the compost dries out too fast.I had been trying to compost in a pile in my yard before I bought this unit but it seemed like I was feeding the animals more than composting. I took the advice of the instruction manual and am not putting bones, meat, or more than a trace of dairy into my unit and so far the animals have left it alone.I highly recommend this unit after 2 months of using it. It is a little more expensive than some of the basic units but I think the extra cost was well worth it and this extra cost paid itself back in the first day by being so easy to assemble.

Love it! Assembly was easy. This one I only had to put together the stand. Other composters comes with a gazillion screws to put the tumblers together - not HOT FROG :)D Assembly was easy, a screwdriver and a pair pliers to hold the nut. Lids are tight but still easy enough to slide out. They spin easy.

This is a very good tumbler. Not a 5*, but very good. We live in NC. I purchased the tumbler in May this year (2021). I stopped using it in October. In that time, I had three batches done. Next year I expect I'll have at least four batches.What we composed:- Kitchen vegetable scraps. No animal products. Tried washed egg shells. They didn't go away. Plenty of strawberry tops, banana peels, peppers w/seeds (will see if I get volunteers next year), coffee grounds and filters, various garden scraps (lots of greens we couldn't eat from root vegetables), paper from our office shredder (shred your junk mail!), paper bags. I didn't compost dried leaves and only tried some grass once. Grass was ok, but we have lots of pine trees here and pine needles got in. They won't go away, so no more grass. Dryer lint didn't work well. It balled up.- When it got too wet, I added compressed wood bedding pellets from the farm store. They puff up and break up quickly into sawdust.- When it needed a boost, I pre-soaked alfalfa pellets (farm store) and dumped them in. These need the pre-soak or they will turn into alfalfa balls in the tumbler.What I liked:- It works. And two drums is really, really nice to have.- Customer service is outstanding. Packaging allowed a leg to get scraped down to bare metal. They promptly replaced it.- Very easy to turn.- Very easy to assemble.- Good size. It is a compromise, though.- Easy to empty. Put a tarp underneath and dump it out.- Seems fairly forgiving. I didn't try to get any ratio of green and brown right. I mean, seriously, that just isn't practical. I looked inside and if it looked too wet, I added browns. If it looked too dry, I either added greens and/or water. Maybe my compost is sub-par. I dunno. Smelled ok to me when it was done. Not as dark brown as I expected, though.- Speaking of smell. A little bit, like rotting vegetable matter would be expected to smell. I would catch a whiff, now and then, working in the garden. But not bad, so I'll call this something I liked.What I didn't like:- Packaging is sub-par. The legs can rattle around and scrape each other, as noted above, down to bare metal. This is such an easy thing to fix. Stuff from China is packaged right. Stuff from Canada should be as well. Just do it, FCMP, if you haven't already.- I think I swapped out the hardware for stainless steel...or maybe I swapped in nylon insert nuts. Sorry, I don't quite remember!- The way the doors slide back and forth is just "ok," and the compost gets stuck in the black drum section on each side of the doors. They "work," but they don't necessarily center themselves properly in the openings. A nit, really, and probably hard to get right using injection molded parts.- The doors gather water through the one center hole. I drilled drain holes into the edges.- Rain gets in. Easily, if it rains hard (and it will, right?). I made a cover from a black tarp.- Black soldier flies get in. Also easily. There are a total of 32, 7/16" air holes in the two drums. Now, BSF larvae are fine, and beneficial in controllable numbers, but I had them in UNcontrollable numbers. Just overrun with them. Too many = mushy compost. One time I dumped the whole batch out into the driveway, in full sun and let that take their numbers down. A second time I put in a bunch of wood pellets to dry it out. Dead BSFL became part of the compost.- Not enough mass to get hot inside. You probably need to put it in the sun (mine was mostly in the sun).What I'm doing next year:- I taped all 32 holes with black Gorilla duct tape. I'm planning to drill a few "grids" of small holes for air. Perhaps 2 grids, 100 holes each. The holes will need to be small enough to keep the BSF out, but large enough not to clog. I've not figured out what that size is yet. Worst case, they clog, and I have to pull the tape off the original holes.- I'm going to expand my open-air composting (pile) venture. In October, I emptied the 3rd batch from the tumbler, and figured it was getting too late in the year to start another one in the tumbler. So I started an open air pile. It is working, too, but seems to be taking longer than the tumbler. I plan to compare the two methods in the summer, if I have enough to compost. (No, I won't remember to report back here, heh-heh.)

This is a great composter.

I'm finally going to master this! All recycled- wonderful! No more (less) landfills for me. I'll be over here making beautiful compost to give adorable plants for gifts.

I didn’t realize how small this actually was until I filled up the first barrel in a month and a half.