Customer Reviews

NatureMill Plus Automatic Composter

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

What a great idea this was. Perhaps another product will make the concept work. I've owned the composter for several months. It has never been trouble free. The reason is that the mixing motor has no torque, and so seemingly everything makes it stop mixing. Nothing is too small to make it stop, including tea. If you are interested in obsessively chopping your left-over veggies into tiny pieces, you have way too much time on your hands. Can a banana peal really make it stick? An automatic coffee machine filter? An apple core? You betcha! Don't waste your time on this product, otherwise you will be wasting your time frequently.

Overall I am happy with this recycler. It is only for food. Not for paper or plastic or anything else. It does not do bones, corn cobbs, or really tough things like rose stems because they are too hard. So it has limits. But it is just perfect for food. Fast and amazingly easy to use as compared to the worm bins.

"Fun" and "compost" are not words you typically see in the same sentence. But this machine really does make it so easy and fast that it is indeed fun to watch the progress day after day. The compost that comes out is very good too. I have been using it on my plants for the past 6 months which is why I bought it because we have very weak and sandy soil. The plants seem to do much better now due to all the nutrients in the compost.

Please note that I have the newer XE model which came out this year. The older one had a weaker motor and filter, I am told, which caused problems with jams and odors. I'm glad I waited! The construction is very rugged and I am hoping it lasts may years.

I purchased an earlier model approximately a year and a half ago. It has never worked as advertised and their customer support people were unable to resolve the problems. It is supposed to automatically dump the compost into a lower bin. It never dumped automatically and I had to do it manually every single time. This is a smelly and messy procedure.

Recently, a large hole developed in the side wall of the mixing bin due to the wall delaminating. My unit is no longer usable. The company says that my 1 year waranty has expired and they have no responsibility to repair or replace the unit despite the obviously defective product.

They acted like they were doing me a favor to offer me a nominal discount on a replacement unit. There is no way I will have any more to do with this company or any product they make.

After spending over $400(the price at the time I purchased), I would expect that NatureMill would stand behind their product a little better.

Works as expected. Happy so far. Makes a little hum noise like my refrigerator and smells a little like chicken soup. I have the older model so maybe they have fixed these issues with the new model.

I waited for their new model - the Xe - which came out this year. It is rock solid. I highly recommend it. Easy to use and no odors. It has a different filter design. I have seen the older used ones on eBay and was tempted to buy one but their older technology was not as good.

This product works well. We have not had any troubles thus far. I hope they make a bigger one though.

<< 2009 UPDATE >> : THEY JUST CAME OUT WITH THE NEW MODEL CALLED THE "XE". IT SEEMS TO BE NEW AND IMPROVED TECHNOLOGY. THE OLD ONE IN THIS LISTING IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.

THE NEW ONE IS ON THE MANUFACTURERS WEBSITE AND WAS REVIEWED IN THE WALL ST JOURNAL.

I REALLY WISH AMAZON WOULD REMOVE TH OBSOLETE LISTINGS BECAUSE IT IS VERY CONFUSING AS TO WHAT PRODUCT IS AVAILABLE FOR SALE AND WHAT PRODUCT HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED!!!


Here is what I said on the older model from 2008:
It took a few batches to get the mix just right - but after a few weeks it all made sense. It is a learning experience as with any new gizmo and is second nature to us by now. Don't keep this in or near your bedroom if you are a light sleeper, because it makes a slight hum noise constantly. We keep it in the kitchen which is ok. It makes good compost and our plants love it.

We give it a lot of farmers market scraps (carrot tops and damaged lettuce) not to mention egg shells and coffee grounds and fish skins. It does not handle cut flowers well at all, especially if they are woody like roses or tough like sunflower stems. Things like the fish and meat and spoiled cheese go down fine and surprisingly do not smell bad. In fact they smell a whole lot better in the machine than in the back of our fridge or our trash can where they stink up. Within one to two days the new scraps mix with the old and get ground up and it basically looks like moist steamy dirt. The resultant compost is dark and finely ground up when you remove it - no chunks like you usually get with a backyard bin.

It smells faintly like vegetable soup, unless we add basil in which case it smells like basil. You really need to add the sawdust and baking soda that they provide with it in order to get the right activation balance.

I really wanted to like this composter but I had so many problems with it I suggest you do not purchase it. To begin the ads and info on it do not let you know you will have to buy sawdust pellets to keep the ratio of brown to wet items in line. My 1st machine jammed frequently and eventually some of the parts broke off internally guaranteeing that it would never deposit the compost to the lower bin. The foot pedal was useless. It would only raise the lid a few inches and then when I would raise it all the way parts would fall off of the back of the unit. I returned it thinking I had a lemon only to find the second machine had the exact same problems. I babied the machine the second time to be sure but it broke quickly. It does turn items quickly but having to hand feed the machine and getting compost everywhere defeats the purpose. I repeatedly tried to resolve my issues directly with NatureMill who simply gave me the run around until I gave up and returned the product.

It's very fast. That's the unusual part. Within just one or two days anything that you dump into it turns into compost. Then it sits there and rotates around and gets even more crumbly and mature as they say. Have not had any jamming or odor problems in the past year. I have the newer model (the XE) and I recommend that done because apparently the older version was not as reliable.