Corn Stoves - Fireplace Inserts - Corn Furnaces - Corn Heat

Search www.cornstoves.info for a local corn stove dealer. Search www.msnusers.com/cornstoves for corn fuel sources for corn stoves.

Corn stove operation is not convenient as gas or electric. Whole kernel shelled corn must be fed into a corn stove as often as twice a day. Corn stoves are clean, healthy, safe, no smoke, no fireplace required, no chimeny required, vents through the wall, does not deplete the oxygen as do other heaters A corn stove improves the atmosphere and reduces global warming. The result is local if local corn is purchased from a local corn farm.

Until recently, corn stoves were just a small alternative heating source used by farmers. This past year, though, they have began to climb out of the pickup and into the sports car. 2006 will be the year they go mainstream. For more information, especially about where to buy fuel for your corn stove, go to www.cornstovefuel.info You can also email me at roger@@cornstovefuel.com (remove the extra @) Roger

Your corn costs are way off. The same amount of corn you state would cost about the same as the cost of coal. The coal would be much more expensive if you add shipping costs. Corn has about the same BTU value per pound as the low grade coal. Corn is cleaner to handle and doesn't pollute the air like coal and it is also a renewable source of energy. Corn cost is about $2 to $2.50 per 56 pounds in the corn market, in bulk. Shipping is an added expense, same as for coal. There are many more corn dealers than there are coal dealers.

In Iowa you can get all the corn you want for free, so it is good economically in that area. Corn sellers get it free and sell it = all profit. Away from the corn belt it costs more in freight. You can also pelletize wood, paper and stuff with a little resins added. So corn stoves are a life style choice instead of good economics.

Coal grades vary. Low grade is like corn, high grade has twice the BTU/pound.

$2.50 for 56 pounds = ~$90 per ton for the equivalent of $15.ton low grade coal. It is cleaner on the hands etc, and you can find your black cat in it.

Corn costs are running much higher this year and the cash price for Central IL corn which serves as the benchmark market price is running $3.40-$3.50/Bushel. The futures market is projecting the price to go higher through next spring. There is some talk of $4.00/Bushel corn. Unfortunately along with the higher price the harvest has been delayed because of wet conditions and adversely affected the quality of corn for residential heating. Expect higher moisture content and more Foreign Material this year because the longer corn stands in the field the more fragile stalks become and the more difficult it becomes to harvest because of down corn.

The good news is that even with higher corn prices consumers relying on Electric Resistance, Propane, Kerosene, or Heating Oil can still save 20-50% on home heating costs using good clean, dry heating corn.

Twice as much as coal ? maybe stinking cruddy soft coal which most cities and municipalities are outlawing for residential heating. Corn is much cheaper than hard / nut coal burns much cleaner burning with less ash to get rid of (cleans up with a shop vac) lets see I heat my whole home with corn for about 350.00 per YEAR Vs. 400.00 per month with gas or 200 per month for hard coal .. Geez I must be a retard not to see that coal is so much better ...you must be a Coal bucket greaser ... Oh BTW corn stoves burn at a far superior rate of fuel vs. output I.E. BTU's than coal. and as far as the environment I really dont give a flying rats ass nor do I believe in global warming, however I do belive Al Gore is a friggin idiot.

I am interested in knowing more about corn stove. Can we generate electricity.

Regrds

Kapoor

Email : jinshui@vsnl.net

I assume from this that you earn your living from the sale, care and feeding of corn stoves?

Why do I say that?

Because it seems self serving and error ridden to me.

Anyone else agree?

add to your statement one cannot store corn in the basement. The warmth allows worms and bug eggs inthe corn to hatch causing a major pest infestation in ones house.

Your an Idiot.

I heated my home last year W/6 ton's of corn at 108.00$ a ton.648.00 to heat the house all winter.

160.00 a ton of corn.! Somone saw you comming!

We farm in eastern Colorado, raising about 3000 acres of corn! We are also just about to build a new house and tossing around the idea of a corn fireplace insert instead of an LP gas fireplace insert.

I can see there are quite a few out there and would like some suggestions of what's good, what's not.

Thanks!

Lynne----knlcody@yahoo.com

if you bury corn, why not burn it = free fuel. Farms have many sources of low cost fuel. Gal, Coal, oil cost hard cash.

Stay away from cornflame, cornflake, snowflame, snowflake or similiar words that change annually. Stay away from unknown e-bay sellers, internet sales with no physical address, no contact person, Chinese mfg, stoves made in a garage or shipped from a warehouse in bean station or asheville. Reputable corn stove manufacturers have a local dealer to provide local installation. There is a physical addresses, local phone number with live local people to answer questions about local fire codes, underwriters laboratory certification, parts, accessories. There should be no additional charges for shipping, operational parts, vents, chimneys, attachments, legs, doors, tops, sides, intake, or exhaust. There should be a warranty covering workmanship and operability for a specified period ie one year to three years and a personal contact in the event of failure or malfunction. Local fuel suppliers should be specified and recommended.

Idiot? I think not. Corn is a commodity that is source sensitive, the more you truck it the more it costs.

In addition, the data from corn stove sellers might be suspect.

coal still seems cheaper, but it is also freight sensitive.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/coalmar.html

Corn can be processed to optimize its value as a heating fuel. Extra Clean, Extra Dry Heating Corn with a moisture content below 12% offers 5-10% more heat value than USDA Grade# 2 Corn. Approximately 90 BTU/LB of heat energy are lost for every 1% moisture in most solid biomass fuels. There is a noticeable difference in heat output between USDA Grade#2 Corn at 15% vs Premium Heating Corn at 11%.

Premium heating corn is now being offered to customers at a competitve value to wood pellets that can save consumers 20-40% in heating costs compared to electric resistance, propane, kerosene, or heating oil even at retail prices with higher corn costs. With premium heating corn consistently processed to the same standard for every bag, consumers do not have to worry about always having to adjust settings or deal with system shutdowns because of fuel variability. No cleaning, no moisture related problems, minimal to no clinker, and more complete combustion of fuel with significantly improved performance of most stoves and furnaces. Learn more at www.heatingcorn.com.

That's interesting about fuel corn. This is the first year I've seen that around here in central Indiana so I had the store throw ten bags in the truck. Now different providers may differ in quality but when I got home I found that the moisture value was 15% and that it was no cleaner, in fact it wasn't as clean as corn out of the famers corn bins. I pulled more larg objects including rocks from that load of corn than any corn I've gotten from around here. From now on I'm going to the grain elevator for my corn and at half the price of the fuel corn. Maybe some day they will get fuel corn from a reputable supplier but as for now it's a rip off in our area.

If the corn you purchased retail was in a plastic bag it states on the package that it has a Moisture Content of 15% or less with a claim it is running between 12-14%. If the corn you purchased was in a brown paper bag with a tag stating it was 12% you will find it running much higher because corn is hygroscopic and absorbs moisture from the atmosphere. Some are claiming their corn runs between 12-14% but you will never see the 12% because they are relying on air drying in grain bins which at best can deliver about 13-14% in ideal conditions. Propane costs are too high for local elevators and farmers to dry corn down below commercial levels of around 14-15%. With this wet harvest corn is coming out of the fields later and at higher moisture content (16-19%) than is typical in dry years. With each new rain event we saw the mositure content jumps 2-3% and without warm dry weather it just does not dry down. This wet delayed harvest has negatively affected the quality of corn for heating from many local farmers and elevators because of an an increase in field trash (i.e. cobs, stalk, and fines) and higher moisture content.

There is premium heating corn being supplied retail that is below 12% and is very clean. It is growing in distribution through the Midwest and Northeast and can be found when searching the web for heating corn. The company is farmer owned and has invested in unique commercial drying and cleaning that can economically dry the corn down to 11-12% and remove most of the trash larger than kernels of corn. The product has rigorous quality controls and is independently tested to confirm BTU Content, Moisture, and Fines and Foreign materials. The product meets the stringent quality standards printed on the packaging and is also being sold retail in Indiana.

There a lot of corn used for ethanol and that does not care if it has funny genes or toxins(unless they kill yeast). I wonder how the price of corm with ethanlo compares to cron for fuel?

I know there is a subsidy for ethanol from corn = a distortion of the market.

I still hate to see this.

I am gratified to see that the use of biomass for ethanol looks to replace corn in the next 10 years.

Ohio State University presented and interesting study comparing the use of corn in direct combustion for space heating compared to its use in ethanol production. The study can be found by doing a search for "direct combustion corn". The approximately 2 Billion bushel of corn exported annually has the potential to heat 10 million American homes more economically than electricity, propane, heating oil, or kerosene. Corn exports alone have approximately the same energy content as 130 million barrels of oil which is about what was affected by pipeline problems out of Prudhoe Bay early this year.

Government subsidies for oil, natural gas, electricity and other big energy interests represent a grosser distortion of markets than those related to agriculture which are in place to sustain the world's largest and most efficient producer of food. Higher oil and natural gas prices negatively affect production costs for agriculture. Solid Biomass Energy sources have the potential to change this dynamic.

Using American corn to heat American homes has the potential to have a significant positive impact on America's trade balance while reducing heating costs for many Americans , improving the economy of rural America, reducing government susbsidies for heating and agriculture, and reducing greenhouse gas emmissions into the environment. Using American corn in domestic energy markets for the benefit of American families is better than selling cheap corn overseas to feed nations that attempt to extort America with oil.

What is there to hate about this?

The last I knew corn produced less BTU's than coal. It takes 2000# corn to produce 18,000,000 BTU's while it takes only 1384# of coal to produce 18,000,000 BTU's. Given the price of corn these days after it is being gobbled up for ethanol production it would seem that corn is not a good choice for home heating! I think I will stick with propane. Seems eveyone is saying anything to get rich from saying corn is an attractive fuel. It sucks as a source for ethanol because ethanol actually lowers gas mileage on a vehicle.

they burn waste corn, not good for food or anything.

Corn is not wel suited to alcohol, only the subsidy makes it work

Now that was a meaningless grab bag of stats. ELectric power stations based on coal are not 25% efficient. They are 40-42% efficient at maiking electricity, and they burn all the coal to ash, 99.99999% ends up burned. You say corn burns 98.4%...big losses. Corn stoves make zero electricity, they make heat.

corn is variable in BTUs as it varies with water content, and is usually lower than coal, but very soft coal is on a par with corn.

You know the motto, starve a child, burn some corn.

I work at a very respected fireplace store, Old Smokey's in North East Indiana. We have serviced, sold, and installed corn units for 25 years. We have a very experienced staff and darn near all employees have corn burners. You can visit our website www.oldsmokeys.com

email: kristina@oldsmokeys.com

800-876-6539

St Croix have the BEST units out there. www.stcroixheat.com They are simple to operate and maintain. The Lancaster ($2285 - $2496) and the Auburn ($2895 - $3038) models both heat up to 1800 square feet, pumping out up to 40,000 BTU's. The basic difference between these models is hopper capacity, with the Lancaster at 50 lbs and Auburn at 90 lbs, but you can get a hopper extention. I have the Lancaster model in a 3-bedroom ranch home, and I keep my heat at about 76 deg in the winter. I use about 3 ton / year. I live in North East Indiana and the cost for corn fuel is about $170. I love getting a $25 gas bill in the winter time.

Basic maintainence of these St Croix units are as follows:

Fill hopper (goes thru about 1 - 1.5 40 lb bags per day) 1 min

Clean grate (pull a lever at top of unit) 5 secs every day

Empty Ashes (pull lever at bottom of unit drops ashes, known as "clinker", slide ashpan out, empty ashes) 2 min every 2-3 days

Clean glass (we reccomend "Speedy White Hearth and Stove Cleaner") 5 min whenever you think it needs cleaned. It doesn't mess with the efficiency of the unit, but the longer that black stuff stays on the glass, the harder it will be to clean.

Service unit (you should have a certified technician do this for you, or you can try it yourself. The manual goes thru how to do it, but does not mention cleaning the combustion fan, which any smart tech should know to do. This should take the tech about 1 - 2 hours. Our company charges $159 for this) Service the unit every ton. Rule of thumb is if you go outside and tap the exhaust pipe, no residue should fall out of the pipe. If it does, you need it serviced.

If there are any questions, feel free to give us a call!! Corn is a great way to go if it's cheap in your area.

Corn over 4.00 a bushel, looks like the economics of Corn vs propane just got a little worse. Now that we are going to feed the ethanol plants corn, fat chance prices will come down.

1 Bushel of Corn has approx. energy equivalent to 4 Gallons of Propane.

Average Residential Propane Cost as of 1/15/07 per the Energy Information Administration is $1.99/Gal X 4 Gals = $7.96. Although the economics is not as favorable, corn is still readily available for heating at 30-40% less than average residential propane costs and even better compared to Electric Resistance heating running around $0.10/Kwh. The energy calculator provided at the Energy Information Administration's website comparing alternative fuels for residential space heating is a good place to go to get a dynamic comparison of energy costs. Plug in your numbers and see how they compare for yourself.

I've been heating my house for years with a corn furnace, we just paid $3.85 a bushel today. There was a drought is South America this year so corn is high right now, normally it is $2.00 - $2.50 for a bushel which is 56 pounds.

There are approximately 36 bushels in a ton of corn. A ton of corn should run somewhere between $72 - $90 in an average year, this year it is running $139, if you are paying more than that you need to shop around.

Don't buy your corn from someone who sells corn stoves and don't buy it from the grain elevator, find a farmer! Why pay the middleman?

Our prebuy rate for propane this year was $1.95/gal. at that rate it would have cost me $2,300 to heat my home based on 1100 gallons + tax which was my average amount for one winter.

Now I average 9 tons of corn per year, in a normal year corn runs $2.25 a bushel and it cost me about $700 to heat with corn. This year corn is high $3.85/bushel = $1250/year.

I'm still saving $1000+.

What's not to like?

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Yes, oil/propane economics is very costly now, and it will get worse.

The wider use of corn for fuel to burn and via ethanol has driven corn prices up, and this will continue as long as oil prices keep rising. People in corn area will do well. People on the East coast will noit have the railcars or trucks to bring in enough corn to heat their houses = corn will fail for them.

The only solution is super insulation, with R factors above 100 that are heated by occupants and a little extra heat in winter and are air conditioned cheaply as well. In 20 years all new houses in Northern areas will be super insulated.

The only better insulation is vacuum panel insulation with the inner space filled with layered mirrored mylar under high vacuum = costly as hell. Most people in the future will use 20 inches of light foam and use earth source heat pumps to heat and cool the place. Some of this will come from solar panels, IHMO

I dunno.... At the local farm store, a 50 lb bag of corn is $8.25 and a 50 lb bag of pellets is about 4.70. The operating principle of both pellet and corn stoves is about the same. Is the corn at least twice as efficient as the pellets?

farmers get corn that has fungus and is not fit for man or beast. That is the stuff the corn stores get. If you can find a farmer with some and pay him cash you will get a better price as the store pays by cheque.

My how things change. When this thread was first needled, kerosene was below $1/gal, gasoline was $1.50/gal, elect was 0.08C/KwH, corn was $2/bu($0.20/gal), coal was $45/ton.

But now gasoline has dropped in half in 3 months and still remains over $2/gal. Coal is $100 to $200/ton, elect avg 15c/KwH, and corn can be found at $1/gal or five times the previous price or $0.20/gal.

Corn remains king. Farms continue to sell corn at $0.38/gal to $0.60/gal, up from $0.20/gal. When corn goes up in price, the local farms produce more corn and drive corn prices down. With corn yields of 150-300 bu/acre, it 10 months to ship oil to the US but only one month for fertilizer to double the yield of a crop of corn.

When gasoline goes down, OPEC meets and pushes oil prices back up. Feds meet and bail out the Hummer dealer. The G8 meets with global leaders. Mr. Thomas is assigned as the new global monetary czar. The feds level the corn field by artificially forcing food and corn prices up ie outlawing fertilizer shipments by rail and by imposing a $0.50/gal tarrif on Brazilian ethanol.

The feds also outlawed pure ethanol moonshine. In plain daylight the moonshine glows from a fire and never mind the squeezing. Whole kernel shelled corn is a local renewable environmentally friendly pure safe clean healthy edible home grown live germinating fermenting foodstock. It takes a gallon of petro to deliver each gallon to pump. The shipping charge for ethanol is free as a bird, warm as a herd, close as next of kin, kissing close and not a smile away.

Good advise:

Purchase corn from a local farmer. There is no such thing as "high BTU corn" or "fuel corn"

Prepare to purchase alternative biomass fuels during high corn prices. Set up the corn stove for alternative biomass fuels like Wood pellets, garbage pellets, hay, grass, sawdust pellets.

Off grid corn stove owners should find a low energy corn stove that uses 100 watts maximum or perhaps consider a second corn stove for extreme cold weather.

Find a local farm supply for a corn stove. Save transportation cost, shipping, handling, and do the hauling in your auto, suv or truck. A half ton pick up truck holds a ton or 35 bushels of corn filled to the bed height. Beware of false advertissements for corn fuel. All corn is equal. High moisture corn burns cool, produces less NOX and produces more heat in the room. There is no such thing as "high BTU corn" or "fuel corn". Such terms are false advertisement. Low moisture corn will store longer and measure more btu/pound only because there is less weight from the moisture. BTU/bushel or volume is not changed by moisture but moist fuel produces more heat because the moisture reduces combustion temperature and thusly reduces the high fuel waste from excessive production of thermal NOX.

Prepare the corn stove to burn all biomass fuels. Purchase alternative biomass fuels during high corn prices. Set up the corn stove for alternative biomass fuels like Wood pellets, garbage pellets, hay, grass, sawdust pellets.

To reduce use of electricity, a corn stove should use less than 100 watts max. Install smaller stoves with a second corn stove that actuates only during extreme cold weather.

My electric coop offers a winter (October through May) rate for electricity - $0.02962/KWH after the first 1000 KwH's at $0.06802. Given that my (large) family's electricity usage is close to 850KwH just anyway, is corn really cheaper? I can sell the corn on my farm for $3.30/bushel or so at present. If I can get electricity for three cents, though, it seems that it's not worth it from a pure financial perspective.

Other consideration items:

Pros

1. Good for the environment to burn corn.

2. Nice 'feel' of being able to sit by a fire.

Cons

1. Have to load the hopper daily, clean the unit, etc.

2. Have to store the corn (where DO folks store their corn anyway?)

3. Heat source is localized to one area rather than being ducted to the whole house.

Have I missed something?

There's nothing like gathering around a fire on a cold winter day. But if your house has a traditional, open hearth fireplace, plan on gathering close. In keeping with this blog's ongoing discussion about home heating and energy conservation, I thought it was important to point out that open hearth fireplaces send most of their heat–as much as 90 percent–up the chimney. And it's not just heat escaping up the chimney, warm air from inside your home is also pulled along, and is replaced by cold air leaking in from outside, creating drafts. Open hearth fireplaces also create smoke in the house and release considerable pollution into the air outside. The solution? A fireplace insert that burns cleanly and efficiently without creating the updraft of a roaring cordwood fire.

gas fireplaces

This entry confuses the characteristics of the fireplace with the characteristics of the method of using the fireplace. A "roaring cordwood fire" is not the best fire to build in an open hearth fireplace. In fact, each characteristic of the fireplace, namely size in volume, depth, width, height, angles of sides, back, top, material composition of the surface, insulation behind the brick or surface, type of grate and/or fireback, height of the bottom of the fireplace above (or at) the floor level, type of screen if any (no you don't need one if the room is designed properly) proper setting of the damper- all these things affect the type of fire that you should build if you want to optimize heating efficiency. If you think that they don't, you are like a driver putting high octane gasoline in a diesel 18-wheeler to drive to the corner deli to pick up a pack of cigarettes. I have heated an entire two bedroom house in the Christmas season for a week using only a open hearth fireplace, without smoke in the house or significant smoke outside. The smoke is unburned fuel and the most efficient fire burns it up. The primary advantage of a wood burning appliance is reducing labor of fire building and maintenance. If anyone is interested, we could talk about these issues.

Now that was a meaningless grab bag of stats. ELectric power stations based on coal are not 25% efficient. They are 40-42% efficient at maiking electricity, and they burn all the coal to ash, 99.99999% ends up burned. You say corn burns 98.4%...big losses. Corn stoves make zero electricity, they make heat.

corn is variable in BTUs as it varies with water content, and is usually lower than coal, but very soft coal is on a par with corn.

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I believe you confused the (40%) "boiler efficiency" of a coal burning power plant with the total efficiency of delivered power (10-15%) as generated in a centrally located electrical generating power plant that could be fueled by nuclear (France), gas, No 2 fuel oil/gasoline (Saudi Arabia), Diesel(backup redundancy), kerosene (MLG&W), biomass (various city trash burners), hydro(Washington State/China), wind(Holland), solar(Israel), coal (50% USA), corn (Germany/First Energy), etc. The boiler is only one of multiple (turbines, fans, pumps, relay stations, transformers, pcp, esp, cooling towers, steam generators, heat exchangers, and various and numerous other components of delivered power. Don't forget the "grid" efficiency only delivers 80-90% of generated power on it's best day and a tree limb is always blamed for sudden grid loss. The BTU value of coal varies from zero for the BTU of shale, red clay dirt, to increasingly higher BTU value for high sulfur eastern coal, low sulfur western coal, or the high moisture (42% water) for coal available in Australia.