I live at 7,000 feet in Flagstaff, Arizona. It gets down to freezing on most nights during the winter. Daytime highs might be 50 degrees or so F.I have my WF in the garage where the temperature is around 40 degrees F. I noticed that when I turned over the compost with my rubber gloved hands that my fingers got numb from the cold. I figured that the worms would be relatively dormant at these temps and would not be eating or breeding at full throttle. I thought of putting in a heater that would raise the temp a few degrees.

I realized that I already owned a heating pad, one of those small electric blankets that you put under your back or other body part when you want additional heat. When I looked at it I saw that it was already waterproofed. I guessed in case someone spilled something on it. It was UL listed. I ended up adding one more layer of security by enclosing the whole thing in a heavy-duty trash bag to ensure that the leachate never contacts the heater directly.I placed the heating pad, inside the trash bag, in the bottom drainage area of the WF. The trash-bag was mainly in case the wife ever asks what happened to the heating pad. I can magically make it appear again without worms hanging off of it.

It appears to be working well. The heating pad had three heat settings on it. I started off on number one but soon bumped it up to number three when I saw that the temperature in the top tray (out of five) was only 50 degrees. Now, the bottom tray is definitely warm. It steams when I turn it over in the cold air. There are still plenty of worms in it, but more worms on the upper levels where the fresher food is and the temp is a bit lower. It has been in there for more than two weeks now and although the lower trays have started to smell a bit stronger everything seems to be working out fine.

I have even found dozens of worms down in the drainage area at the bottom of the WF who appeared to be doing well, just taking a jaccuzzi in the warm leachate. They were alive and well though I threw them back into the top tray just in case they couldn't escape on their own.

Has anyone else tried any heating experiments and what were the results?