Corn Stoves

[Phishin]

I'm looking to possibly install one in my 1800 ft2 home next summer to be used next winter.

I'm really leaning towards a corn burner, because I have no desire to install an alternative energy heat source in my home, and then be forced to go to the store and buy bags of wood pellets.

My goal is to grow/obtain my own fuel....so I'm leaning towards corn. I'm in Indiana.

Based on some calculations, I would need 70-80 bushels of corn for a heating season. This would require about a half acre of corn to be produced. 150' x 150' garden of corn.

Has anyone down this? I have the land to do it. I'd need to dry the corn to less than 15% moisture....and of course, I'd have to harvest it: Get rid of husk and cob.

I have multiple uncles and relatives who are farmers. My step-Dad also has a 2000 acre farm as well. So, I could maybe make a deal with one of them to obtain my corn rather than going through the trouble of growing it myself if it seems unwise to do so.

Anyone have any experience with this? I'm hoping someone on here obtains (even possibly grows their own) and burns corn as a heat source.

There is a wise array of corn burners....from stoves to furnaces.....that go from $1,000 t0 $6,0000 from what I can find. So, any input on a corn stove model would be helpful as well.

 

[Shannow]

Not anything to add, but this sounds really interesting...

 

[mount]

No one grows a little patch of corn for their corn stove. That would be ridiculous. The amount of work to do that on such a small scale isn't worth it.

You need some kind of a little old grain hopper on a trailer. 80 bushels might be too large to pull, or even find a reasonably sized/priced storage/transportation device. You might have to get something smaller, and make maybe 2 trips over the winter. Heck your step-dad might let you keep an old grain truck over at your place for the winter, although that could hold way more than the 80 bushels you need. That's the preferred method up here, as when its 20 below zero, you go through quite a bit of corn.

Take it to any little elevator or farmer willing to piddle around with such a small amount and have them fill it. Expect to pay $5 a bushel or what ever it is now.

A few of my friends have them (they're farmers) and they love them. Just remember that youll be carrying full 5 gal pails into your house quite often.

This particular model is quite popular around here.
St. Croix Corn Stove

 

[IndyIan]

I think you'll find its far easier to just buy it from your relatives. To plant, harvest and process a half acre is going to require alot of manual work, or a lot of equipment...
And even your relatives won't want to mess around in an acre field with all their equipment even if you live next door.
Maybe grow some sweet corn or garlic or some valuable vegetable on your land and sell it to pay for you fuel corn?
Or graze a cow for the summer and trade a side for half a grain wagon of corn?

I heat with wood and it grows on my land all by itself. Its still work, but requires alot less equipment to produce(none) and process(saw, atv, trailer, axe). Paying for it cut, split and delivered at $250 a cord, sometimes seems like quite a good deal, but I try to get ahead a year and not buy.

 

[Finz]

I never heard of such a thing....!

Just burn the kernels or...?

How does output compare with wood?

Fascinating....

 

[Phishin]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan

I heat with wood and it grows on my land all by itself.


I can't have a wood burning stove/fireplace in the house. It throws the wife into all kinds of allergy problems.

But she sat next to a corn burner last weekend for hours, and didn't experience a single problem. So, now I've been snooping around trying to find out about these things....

At $5/bushel and needing 80 bushels, that's $400. My heat bill (gas) might get to $200 for two months and $150 for a month or two. Then $80-$100 for another month or two. So, I'm looking at maximum of $800 (and $650-$700 might be more realistic) to heat for the winter. I'm not super stoked about buying a $3000 burner to save $300/year. No thanks.

 

[Fleetmon]

My pellet stove (Quadrafire - $2600) burned pellets or corn. I burned pellets and although it wasn't any cheaper than running my heat pump, the house was much more comfortable.

 

[TWG1572]

I have to admit, this is an interesting concept. I'm intrigued, but I'm not sure it's going to be a money saving deal with cash corn at $4 per bushel now. But if being energy independent is your goal, and your labor is free and plentiful, than it's possible.

A half acre is not that big. You could till it with a decent tiller, and buy one of the earthway seeders. You are in at $600-700 out of pocket in capital costs at that point. Then you need to buy seed and fertilizer. There's a couple hundred more. The tiller could probably handle most of your weeding if you get your row spacing right. Hand picking a 1/2 acre of corn is going to be slow, but it's nothing that people 80 years ago didn't do before breakfast. There are hand crank shellers out there too, I've got one sitting in my barn.

Would I do it? Probably not, simply because of the time committment required and the fact you can probably buy the corn cheaper. But if you are that into growing your own heat source, and have the time to do it, it would be an interesting exercise. If you fail, all you have to do is go out and buy some corn from the coop, your neighbors, or family.

 

[bepperb]

If you can get a bushel of corn (56lbs) for five bucks that's quite a deal and competitive with wood pellets which are about 4 bucks for a 40lb bag when bought by the pallet. Around here it would be 4 for the wood vs about 9 bucks a bag for corn so obviously wood is a better choice.

One thing to note is wood pellet stoves also burn very clean and have fan forced smoke exhaust, so it might not have been so much the corn vs wood that helped your wife as the clean burning nature of they system.

 

[Phishin]

Originally Posted By: bepperb

One thing to note is wood pellet stoves also burn very clean and have fan forced smoke exhaust, so it might not have been so much the corn vs wood that helped your wife as the clean burning nature of they system.


Yep, I considered that. She said "no fireplaces". She had one as a kid. But I bet she wouldn't have any trouble with a wood pellet burner either.

Corn burns about 15% hotter than pellets. So, if you factor in I can get 56 pounds of corn for $4-$5 from a farmer, that's better than $4 for a 40 pound bag of wood pellets.

Well.......I'm still hunting around.

Any and all real world experiences with specific corn/pellet stoves are great appreciated.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: Phishin
Originally Posted By: IndyIan

I heat with wood and it grows on my land all by itself.


I can't have a wood burning stove/fireplace in the house. It throws the wife into all kinds of allergy problems.

But she sat next to a corn burner last weekend for hours, and didn't experience a single problem. So, now I've been snooping around trying to find out about these things....

At $5/bushel and needing 80 bushels, that's $400. My heat bill (gas) might get to $200 for two months and $150 for a month or two. Then $80-$100 for another month or two. So, I'm looking at maximum of $800 (and $650-$700 might be more realistic) to heat for the winter. I'm not super stoked about buying a $3000 burner to save $300/year. No thanks.


I think with gas prices dropping, the economics of buying corn and a stove for heat doesn't really work out right now.
Does your wife have problems with all woodstoves? We have a newer epa one and the only time you smell smoke is starting it with a backdraft. Once its hot, it sucks air into any leaks in the stove or the pipe. If we burn it hot, we don't even get a smell from the stove when its out and letting some air down the chimney if we lower the house air pressure too much. Stove hood fan and dryer with no windows open will do it eventually.
Many people damp stoves too much and run them to cold which leads to stinky creosote. We get less than half a cup if we clean every year which I don't even bother with any more.

 

[bullwinkle]

^^ I have a high efficiency wood stove, and once you get it hot & running the secondary burners, the smoke is barely visible from the chimney, no smoke in the house at all.

 

[mount]

Originally Posted By: Phishin

At $5/bushel and needing 80 bushels, that's $400. My heat bill (gas) might get to $200 for two months and $150 for a month or two. Then $80-$100 for another month or two. So, I'm looking at maximum of $800 (and $650-$700 might be more realistic) to heat for the winter. I'm not super stoked about buying a $3000 burner to save $300/year. No thanks.

$3000 seems really really steep to me for a corn stove. The stove on the link I posted above heats my friend's entire 60 year old house (not sure of the BTU's but it's North Dakota) and doesn't run more than $2000.

Originally Posted By: TWG1572

A half acre is not that big. You could till it with a decent tiller, and buy one of the earthway seeders. You are in at $600-700 out of pocket in capital costs at that point. Then you need to buy seed and fertilizer. There's a couple hundred more. The tiller could probably handle most of your weeding if you get your row spacing right. Hand picking a 1/2 acre of corn is going to be slow, but it's nothing that people 80 years ago didn't do before breakfast. There are hand crank shellers out there too, I've got one sitting in my barn.

Would I do it? Probably not, simply because of the time committment required and the fact you can probably buy the corn cheaper. But if you are that into growing your own heat source, and have the time to do it, it would be an interesting exercise. If you fail, all you have to do is go out and buy some corn from the coop, your neighbors, or family.


Lol, you're far underestimating the undertaking this would be. Plus you forget the part about drying the corn down to around 15% moisture which isn't as easy as it sounds. The farmers, elevators, and Ag technology of today make this all look way too easy.

 

[DoiInthanon]

The people at hearth.com have a lot of knowledge about firewood, wood pellets and corn used in stoves.

 

[Bandito440]

If you go with the corn, the Quadrafire Mt. Vernon AE stove is the best choice by far. Supplying your own corn on a small scale will be too expensive and time consuming. Find something to trade with a relative. I burn four tons of wood pellets annually at $209/ton, but that's compared to several thousand dollars of propane.

The newer sealed EPA wood stoves are outstandingly efficient and only let smoke into the house when the door is open. The same is true with a corn or pellet stove; there will be ash released when the door is open and you're scraping the burn pot. Find a Lopi, Harman, or Quadrafire dealer near you and get your hands on them. Supplying wood yourself is a much more feasable option if your goal is self sufficiency.

I've dealt with a lot of these stoves and furnaces recently. Shoot me a PM if I can help with stove choices.

 

[Kruse]

I live in corn country, so my post might be considered biased by some.
6-8 years ago, when corn was $2/bushel, the corn-burning stoves were very popular around here. Last year, when corn was 7 or 8 bucks a bushel, they were not very popular at all. This year, corn is a lot cheaper again ($4/bushel, or less) and some of the area people are using them again. But in this area firewood is still the cheapest, that is, if you own the land that has the trees on it and you cut it yourself.
Most of the people that I know who have used them tell me that a corn-burner can maintain a temperature in the house, but it helps to have another form of heat to bring the house up to temp if you've been gone all day and have had the thermostat set low while you were gone.
If you pencil in the cost of buying a new corn-burning stove AT THIS MOMENT, it is not cost efficient to buy a corn-burner and expect to have a huge saving on your fuel costs. Plus, your cost of fuel for the thing (corn), will fluctuate much more so than any other type of fuel. My $.02 worth.

 

[KenO]

We had one growing up. We burned pellets for the most part, but what my dad did was mixed in ~1-2 large coffee cans worth of corn per bag of pellets. It seemed to work quite well.

 

[TWG1572]

Originally Posted By: mount
Originally Posted By: TWG1572

A half acre is not that big. You could till it with a decent tiller, and buy one of the earthway seeders. You are in at $600-700 out of pocket in capital costs at that point. Then you need to buy seed and fertilizer. There's a couple hundred more. The tiller could probably handle most of your weeding if you get your row spacing right. Hand picking a 1/2 acre of corn is going to be slow, but it's nothing that people 80 years ago didn't do before breakfast. There are hand crank shellers out there too, I've got one sitting in my barn.

Would I do it? Probably not, simply because of the time committment required and the fact you can probably buy the corn cheaper. But if you are that into growing your own heat source, and have the time to do it, it would be an interesting exercise. If you fail, all you have to do is go out and buy some corn from the coop, your neighbors, or family.


Lol, you're far underestimating the undertaking this would be. Plus you forget the part about drying the corn down to around 15% moisture which isn't as easy as it sounds. The farmers, elevators, and Ag technology of today make this all look way too easy.


I never said it would be easy, or a good idea. I just said it was possible if you had the time and had a very high level of commitment to growing your own fuel. Some people do have that level of commitment. Our grandparents grew a lot more corn by hand, with a lot less technology than I outlined.

I am familiar with farming practices – my family and I farm around 1,800 acres in eastern Iowa. I didn’t forget the drying part, just thought it was more detail than needed. In the OP’s climate, he could plant a shorter season corn, let it dry down in the field, hand pick it, and throw it into a snow fence corn crib. Mother nature would take care of the rest. Cheap and easy. It worked for many years here before combines became commonplace. Your climate’s a lot colder, with a shorter growing season. It might not work as well there.

Bottom line is that it's not a feasable idea, just an interesting one.