Posted: 11/14/2007 6:28:38 AM EDT
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Very few trees around here. Guy at a bar was talking about a stove that burns corn and efficiently heats your house recently, anyone ever heard about these? If they exist, I'm sure the ads say they are the perfect solution for everyone forever, but I'd like the real facts before proceeding. Upsides and downsides of corn stoves/furnaces in a post SHTF environment? How about venting requirements? How about chimney clogging vapors, tars, gasses, oils, etc? Fuel storage problems? What do I need to know about this to make an informed decision? |
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My dad has a wood pellet stove that can also burn corn. He used to burn wood, but when his chimney was no longer usable he invested in a pellet stove vs. a new chimney. He's been less than impressed, and wishes he would've built a new chimney. His experience has been that it alone won't heat the whole house, whereas his wood stove could. Re: corn vs pellets, my impression is that it's more of a cost issue rather than one produces more BTU's than the other, but I don't have any hard data. Oh, and his stove requires electricity to operate -- dont know if this is a concern for you or not. My $.02 |
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I think this is one of the neatest stoves out there. www.bixbyenergy.com/products/maxfire_stove.html Burns both corn and pellets as well as their biomass pellets. Corn is high now so you could burn pellets until prices drop. Also their bio mass pellets look neat too if they ever become mainstream. |
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They're very popular in the mid-west. Typically they buy dual corn/wood pellet and the consumer buys whichever is cheapest. The trick like many things is buying in the off season and winter isn't off season for either wood pellets or corn. The trick to either is also buying in bulk to get the best price. That means you have to have room to store the fuel in the off season. It does pretty well for farms or rural settings. Its the basic stoker concept like the old coal pellet stoves where the fuel is electrically timed or thermostatically controlled to feed the fire the pellets from a hopper. Unlike the coal models, the pellets or corn don't put out as much heat so the hopper needs more attending. That means you are loading that hopper a lot. Since they do have less of a creosote problem than wood burners, they typically have much simpler exhaust systems than conventional wood stoves. They work fine with existing chimneys. I have a friend on his fifth season on one and every fall its the same discussion, "Am I sticking with it or not?" Tj |
| Best system I have seen is the outdoor wood stove which heats water which runs into the house to heat either radiators or air. My uncle has one in Minnesota and he only needs to feed it once a day. The dangerous part (fire) is outdoors so it is safer. Really heats his gigantic house nicely. |
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My parents are farmers (mostly corn) and recently sold their corn stove. It was neat for the first couple years and a good conversation piece but didn't produce enough heat for the trouble. It required electricity and the corn had to be super clean. When getting corn from the silo, it took alot of cleaning before it could be used in the stove. |
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Since I live in corn country ill give you the basics. Corn is very efficient (BTU per lb) , burns clean and is very available in the Midwest. The average stove heats between 1000-2000 sq feet on its highest setting burning between 1.5- 2 bushels in 24 hours . To operate a corn stove its easy just add corn and turn on. All this sounds great!!! However... Corn is $4 a bushel (56 lbs) Thats $120+ a month for corn for a 1500 sq ft house on average. The stove operates via circuit boards, blowers and various other motors. Lots of moving parts and potential for failure. Some have a 12 volt back up you can use for power outages. With the high price of corn and other fuels its a toss up. Oh did I mention that a lower end stove will run approx $1400 Then add in the chimney $300-$700. and next a hearth that can run upwards of $300. Thats the skinny of corn/multi fuel stoves. Good Luck! Im burning wood! |
Ok so lets figure the price of a wood stove. $700 for a good stove....not top of the line but good. $1000 for GOOD stainless steel triple lined chimney. $300 for the hearth. So $2000 min for the wood stove. Basically the install price is the same. The pellet stove vent you are talking about is too high. The price for a pellet stove vent will be anywhere $100 to $250. I just bought a pellet stove vent system for $200. A hearth for a pellet stove will not be as much as a wood stove. Wood stoves get a lot hotter on the outside so they need a better hearth than a pellet stove. In the long run, the wood stove will be cheaper because if you cut your own wood it will definately save you money. It just won't be cheaper to install. Around here, pellets are going for about $165 per ton. A lot cheaper than corn. If you do buy a corn stove, make sure that it can use pellets as well. |
| I used to work for a company selling corn and or pellet stoves. The stove that works the best for biofuel was the harmam PC45 . It will self ignite on corn cherry pits oats and whatever else you can put in it. The down falls to corn and other biomass fuel is that it hast to be dry. Corn should be around 11% moisture content it will burn corn that is around 15% or so. The other problem is that it runs AC if you have an inverter great or even better a generator. Also just like at the mills corn brings in small critters the eat and bring disaster to the compound. Harman stove pc45 Hope this helps |
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Good information so far. I'm looking at a corn stove's use in an extended SHTF situation. Currently on propane, with a 1000 gallon tank, and a furnace that uses a forced air blower and electronic ignition/gas control. Clearly it won't work when the electrical grid goes down. For a short term SHTF situation, I'm looking at having one to three branch lines installed for the propane, so I can hook up Buddy heaters to bypass the furnace's electrical requirements. A redundant option there is a small propane fired generator. Inside an unheated house, I'm good to minus 20 degrees Farenheit for sleeping and survival, I've camped out at temps as low as 7 below and the house will offer a significant windbreak. I only need enough heat to keep a part of the house warm enough to prevent freezing water from rupturing storage containers, or to prevent canned good from freezing. But neither of those options will work in a prolinged SHTF situation, where opropane delivery is halted. The third layer of defense then, needs to be a standalone stove that uses locally available fuels. There are very few trees or forested areas around here, and those will disappear quickly when the farmers who own them cut them for their own fuel needs. Think endless fields of corn and soybeans, as far as the eye can see. A corn stove is really the only option, since I have 4 acres of corn growing on my land, that the farmer seems reluctant to pay for anyway. Can a corn stove be modified to operate without electricity? Not worried about having to hand stoke it as long as it runs, not worried about comparative cost of fuel, not worried about plus or minus a few hundred BTU's, but I need it to run without grid power, in the long term, but only occasionally, or it's useless. |
You can run it off an inverter or a generator but it HAS to have electricity to operate. |