My compost tumbler snapped a bolt last Thursday and everything fell out

I was turning it after adding some kitchen scraps and heard a loud crack. The main bolt holding the drum to the frame sheared right off, so the whole thing tipped over and dumped about 50 pounds of half-finished compost onto my patio. I had to shovel it all into a temporary pile while I found a replacement part. Has anyone else had a tumbler fail like this, and what did you use to fix it?

3 comments

3 Comments

angela89019d ago

That sounds like a massive pain, shoveling wet compost is the worst. My old tumbler did something similar, the whole hinge assembly rusted out. I ended up just drilling out the broken bolt and using a thicker stainless steel one from the hardware store. It was cheaper than the official part and has held up for two years now. Make sure you check the other bolts too, they often wear out at the same time.

luna_ramirez19d ago

Totally agree about checking the other bolts. Might even be worth replacing them all at once with stainless to save future hassle. Learned that the hard way after my second one snapped a month later.

hill.emery19d ago

Yeah I used to just replace the one that broke. After the third time in a year I finally swapped them all out. Haven't had a single issue since.