[pip]

I'm planning on purchasing a corn buning furnace or stove before next winter. Anybody have any experience with a specific brand? I'm leaning toward a fireplace insert but would also consider a forced air furnace. With the fireplace insert I would also install some ducting in the attic to distribute the air from the living room to the bedrooms because I don’t think the layout of my house will be good for natural circulation. For what I paid on propane this winter, it will pay out in about two years and propane's not getting any cheaper.

I know somebody will tell me burning corn is dumb, but I live on the southern Great Plains and the nearest naturally growing tree is probably 30 miles away. I have plenty of acreage and a few acres of corn is my best self sustainable heating option.

[Ludi]

You could plant some fast-growing trees...

(Yes, I think corn-burning stoves are one of the stupidest ideas ever invented)

[pip]

1. That doesn't help me much for next winter when propane hits $3.00/gal.
2. There are no trees on the Great Plains because it's not a good environment for trees. Especially fast growing varieties that like water and humidity.

[NeoPeasant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')(Yes, I think corn-burning stoves are one of the stupidest ideas ever invented)

[EnviroEngr]

One of the managers at the facility I work at has one and swears by it -- the best stove he's ever invested in. Should ask him more about how it compares with others he's had.

I know there are several others in the area with them also. Everyone who has one likes it a lot.

Must check with MREA to see what they know about this option.

[Muffloj]

well said NeoP
If your alternatives are limited, a corn stove may be your only option.
As for it being a dumb invention, just tell that to the thousands upon thousands of people for whom corn stoves have kept from freezing their asses off when they didnt have any other options.
Of course if your your standing in the middle of a hardwood forest, yea a corn fire sounds a little silly.

[pip]

Corn burners do require electricity for the auger and the fan. Not a big current draw and could be operated with a small PV if things got that bad. For the present, I will wire it in such a way that I can power with a car battery and my inverter when a storm or something knocks the power out.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')There are no trees on the Great Plains because it's not a good environment for trees.

[Frank]

Some pellet stoves use Seebeck effect to generate their own electicity and undoubtedly this feature would be available in a corn stove. (Seebeck is also known as a "thermogenerator".)

[Ludi]

We have Ashe Juniper (called cedar), a native that took over after the prairies were destroyed. It burns fast and hot. Not great for BTUs per cord, but it's there for the cutting.

[EnviroEngr]

Whatever you can get away with using permaculture would be the balancing solution. Would it give you enough fuel at high latitudes for the Corn Stove? Don't know.

Good point, Ludi.

[pip]

Haha, I planted 60 eastern red cedars last year, and I'm planting 60 more this year in a windbreak on the north side of my house. You call 'em weeds if you want but any tree is welcome in these parts. I'm absolutely serious about 30 miles to the nearest tree planted by Mother Nature.

[EnviroEngr]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pip', 'H')aha, I planted 60 eastern red cedars last year, and I'm planting 60 more this year in a windbreak on the north side of my house. You call 'em weeds if you want but any tree is welcome in these parts. I'm absolutely serious about 30 miles to the nearest tree planted by Mother Nature.

[ararboin]

If you're stuck on the notion of burning corn, why not get a regular non-electric wood stove and burn the corn still on the cob? That way you'd get the extra heat from the cob and wouldn't have to mechanically shuck the corn.

[pip]

That would be a good idea and less work in a hard landing where I had to grow my own corn to burn. For now, the corn for is shucked and shelled by a combine. I plan to take my pickup to one of the local grain elevators and have them load it up. I'll then sack it up in feed bags I've been saving this winter. I'm looking for a propane alternative for right now, and I don't have time to grow and pick two acres of corn.

[charperus]

Hello "Pip",

There is a post on www.ar15.com -> Survival Forum related to "Alternative Heating":

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b ... 3&t=336555

(sorry don't know how to make it "HOT"...)

and in the thread, there is a link pointing to a CORN BOILER:

http://cornstoves.com.bizhosting.com/tr ... oiler.html

I have never used any corn-boiler and can NOT help you about its pros & cons nor I am working for that company ...

Good Luck in your "quest",

Chris

[BabyPeanut]

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0507/S00299.htm
Excerpt: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Burning corn in a stove may seem bizarre, but it is no more bizarre than fermenting and distilling it into ethanol to burn in our cars. As gas prices go up, people are looking to ethanol and other biofuels to substitute for oil. Unfortunately, it is a bad bargain - one that is being encouraged by giant agribusiness firms like Archer Daniels Midland and Monsanto that reap huge profits from corn and taxpayer’s wallets.

Corn is already America's most heavily subsidized crop, sucking up about $10 billion a year (according to OXFAM) along with all that water and fertilizer. About 13 percent of the corn crop is now devoted to ethanol production, but that would increase dramatically if the Energy Policy Act of 2005, now in a House-Senate conference committee, were to pass. The Senate version of the energy bill would require US ethanol production to more than double - from 3.3 billion gallons in 2004 to 8 billion gallons by 2012.

Subsidies hide the true monetary cost of production, but the big accounting scandal here is the energy accounting. A study by Cornell ecologist David Pimentel and UC Berkeley engineer Tad Patzek found that when all the inputs to farming and ethanol production are accounted for, ethanol uses 29 percent more fossil fuel energy to produce than it yields in your gas tank.

[Devil]

I have always known that agricultural subsidies are too expensive and, to be moderate, downright stupid. Agricultural products should, in all countries, be subject to the normal economic pressures of supply and demand.

If I were a nuts and bolts maker and I wittingly produced twice as much as I knew I could sell, would the government buy the surplus off me? Of course not! But if I'm a farmer and I produce twice as much wheat or potatoes as I could sell, why should the government give me money to allow me to sell to a wider market? I would be better employed cutting down the production of that product and using the land for growing a different crop that is sellable. If I don't, then tough cheese, I have miscalculated my planning and should take the consequences for my errors. Similarly, why should the government underwrite losses due to natural catastrophes? There are insurance companies to do that. I should pay a premium calculated by an actuary and be reimbursed if my crop fails due to drought, flood, hail or whatever, not expect the government to act in the place of the insurers. If a fire burns down my nuts and bolts factory, will the government pay me to rebuild? Of course not.

And why am I so opposed to government subsidies? Because we cannot afford it. For every unit of currency paid by the government to farmers, it costs the taxpayer 3 units of currency. So the loaf of bread or litre of milk may sell at 50 cents or whatever, but it probably costs us, in reality, 150 cents, the other 100 being taken in taxes. Without subsidies and a free market economy, it would cost us only 80 cents: net gain to the producer 70 cents which would otherwise go to pay the salaries of functionaries, farmers' lobbyists and other parasites on the gravy train.

In the EU, over half the total budget goes to the "common agricultural policy" which is a polite way of allowing farmers to over-produce at the taxpayers' expense and to fund an army of parasites in Brussels and the Member States' capital cities. Yes, over 50% of the total budget, at a time when the masses of jobless are becoming poorer and poorer. And does this money go to the countries that really need help? Never! The lion's share goes to one of the three richest countries, France. And France refuses downright to sit at a negotiation table to discuss a more equitable distribution of the CAP subsidies. France wants more and more while contributing less and less.

I say that we must abandon all agricultural subsidies immediately, and world-wide. Then if "energy crops" can be viable for the farmers, so be it. If they make more profit growing food for sale fairly and squarely, then so be it, as well. Let supply and demand rule the production of biofuels.

[The_Toecutter]

I agree with the above. Given its uses, hemp would be a valuable cash crop as a replacement.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Devil', 'I') have always known that agricultural subsidies are too expensive and, to be moderate, downright stupid. Agricultural products should, in all countries, be subject to the normal economic pressures of supply and demand.
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