I live in East Longmeadow, MA and I’m researching everything i can find out about burning corn. I’d like to purchase a multi-fuel stove to burn both corn and wood pellets and have no idea what stove to buy. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
Bixby corn stoves are nice. They’re a little pricey but are feature rich. If it’s simple your after then a St. Croix is nice. Englander builds a corn model as well.
You need to look at iburncorn.com at the bottom om my sig line. You will find lots of answers there though the decision is up to you in the end. Really most of them are just slightly different pellet stoves made different to accomodate the clinker that forms when its burned. First question is being where you live can you get corn? If its hard to come by you may not get much of a price which is what I hear about MA. You, like me aren’t in a corn state and if you had one now you would see that the price of corn has darn near doubled in the last month. Yup thats true, it went from 125 to 180 + and no one is too eager to bother with filling a small truck like a pickup. You could very well encounter prices like that and probably worse in your area. With these damned ethanol plants popping up all over and the nasty cold rainy Spring growing season the crop was way down here in the NE price has gone stupid since November. That was one thing I liked about corn, no stockpiling like pellets to avoid the gougery but the writing is on the wall there too it seems. Not that corn is so much hassle to store but pellets are a lot more convenient no matter how you look at it. One thing I didn’t know about out local corn is that most of these big dairy farms chop all their corn. That means they grind up the stalk and all which seriously limits the number of places you can get it. As for getting corn call the local feed lots like Blue seal and Agway, wherever there is a railroad
For that reason you may want to consider buying something multifuel rather than the bestest and neatest of the advanced corn specific models. With the price fluxuation and possibility of new fuels like switchgrass coming on line combined with your distance from the corn belt it should be to your benefit. At least with a multifuel you can buy what prices out best as there isn’t really any difference in btu output worth fighting over. Corn is more and yes I can feel the difference but it certainly does burn a lot dirtier. Another thing with the multifuel type you may be able to get away with wetter dirtier corn than some of the real fancy stuff. That can mean a lot in places like where we are where there isn’t really much quality at all to be found. I have yet to find the nice clean stuff they talk about even in the bagged stuff. If you buy from any place that sells it for burning get out your wallet. In fact I would recommend telling them you have some horses to feed if they ask when you are calling around. I have seen some of these farmers that turn into Texas Arabs when you mention what you want it for. If buying from a feedlot make sure they know you can pick it up whenever it is not busy and that you can and will call ahead yadda yadda yadda. Some of these places are real shitheads and there isn’t any other way to put it. They want to fill Freightliners and thats it. Truth be that 3 scoops from a Bobcat is about a ton in your truck in 3 minutes tops. They will also say you can’t fill a pickup because it all blows away. Lie, tell them you have done it before and it doesn’t lose a thing. It doesn’t or I was smokin crack the last few times I did it. Thats what I told the chick in the office when I called. Believe me the person you talk to often doesn’t have a clue and I have seen that more than once. That is the sort of thing you will be dealing with. Here in the NE you and I are just slightly smaller turds than the few small farms hanging on by their thumbs. These outfits want big bucks, big loads ect but they will sell to you if you tell them you will show up whenever its dead. Around here late in the afternoon like 4:30 seems best.
Dell Pointe is a nice stove that had problems the last few years but supposedly have them ironed out. They are pricy being over 3K. I have a Countyside which is now know as Magnum made by American Energy systems. Still pricy at around $2600 around here from a dealer you can get them from a couple of the online places as of last summer. Its far from cutting edge being one of the oldest successful designs I am told but its solid and fairly simple as these things go. No auto start is one big complaint an it is an irritation yet in winter it runs all the time anyways so its not so bad. You will find autostart only on one corn burner anyways, the Bixby, as far as I know since corn does not light off nearly as well as pellets. Bixby is pricing in at around $6k with the special pipe they make you use, proprietary and pricy of course. There are a few outdoor boilers which are real nice as they heat water too but they are around $8k when you are done putting them in. These seem something more for the Midwest than out our way and it seems that mostly businesses and farms are the main buyers
Mine works good but has its quirks like setting the draft so it won’t burn itself out on low. Mine uses simple Simpson Duravent which is much cheaper. There are a couple others but I don’t know a thing about them. England Stove Works just came out with a corn stove last season which is cheap and based on their simple rugged pellet stove. They sell through Lowes I believe though haven’t seen any at our local store. They are typically simple with a rather small hopper and no bells and whistles but around $1,500 which is one hell of a lot less for something not speaking Chinese or made out of tin foil. They, like Countryside use mostly off the shelf switches, blowers and the like to keep it simple and easier to scrounge parts. The Yahoo group in my sig line has a guy named Mike Holton who is a rep and is very helpful with questions issues and whatnot.
6k for a bixby is a little steep. The pipe is proprietary direct vent. More expensive than Duravent but not enough to make the bill 6k. Bixby also just came out with a UBB stove that has a massive 300lb hopper. It’s a really neat model. Also right now they’re giving away 200.00 rebates on the purchase of fuel after someone buys one of their stoves. I have one of the Bixby’s on the floor and am going to hook it up when time permits. I’ll report on it’s performance. Oh also it is a multifuel stove not just a corn stove.
Driz, you’re full of great info. I found a place for corn and he sells it for burning. It’s $170 a ton in barrels. Sounds good to me. I’d like to find corn at a cheaper price like $100 a ton, but this price will do fo rnow. Wood pellets are going for $289 around my neighborhood. And yes, I want my stove to be multi-talented. (corn & wood). I’m just trying to find out which one is best for my needs. I want it clean, efficient and not too expensive. I guess I’m asking for too much?
I just fired up a brand new Dell Pointe Europa stove . The heat is wonderful, is is supposed to be more effecient than other pellet/corn stoves. I burned pellets for a week & now she is burning corn. Here corn & pellets cost exactly the same so I will be going back to wood pellet when I finish up the corn I have on hand. The corn is a little too messy for me, the dust created while filling is incredible. The corn exhaust is also kind of stinky. It has been burning constantly for 8 days now, I emptied a 1/2 full ash pan tonight. The corn created about double the ash that the wood pellets did. I am concerned with attracting critters having that corn sitting around, when I spill a few kernals behind the stove, I am afraid that will be an invitation for them. Seeing what I am burning, & the cost, if I had natural gas, I would not be saving any money heating with evne a very efficient pellet/corn stove.
Driz, you’re full of great info. I found a place for corn and he sells it for burning. It’s $170 a ton in barrels. Sounds good to me. I’d like to find corn at a cheaper price like $100 a ton, but this price will do fo rnow. Wood pellets are going for $289 around my neighborhood. And yes, I want my stove to be multi-talented. (corn & wood). I’m just trying to find out which one is best for my needs. I want it clean, efficient and not too expensive. I guess I’m asking for too much?
Roadeo
ps. Driz, where are you located?
Ive seen pellets as low as $219/ton in your area, roadeo, just today, in fact.
I am up near Burlington Vermont. just across the lake in NY. $170 for barrel or bagged corn sounds like a deal these days. I was buying feedlot corn 2 years ago for $100 and got some in Quebec early last season from a feedlot for about $93. That was it though and it was 130 - 150 the rest of the year. Grit your teeth on the price of pellets. Yesterday the price at tractor supply was still $4.98 / $239 ton for pellets.
Since everything I touch at work is top secret voodoo baloney I can’ t say who or where but I just got a look at the whole sale invoiced price of some pellets this morning. It was from one of the best know and biggest brands and premium hardwood. THey were $3.59 give or take a dime 2 weeks ago. Today they were $1.79 / bag. Now of course thats invoiced truckload wholesale. Of course maby it was a mistake of some sort but I know I didn’t read that invoice wrong. I find it hard to believe the price could ever drop that fast.
I am up near Burlington Vermont. just across the lake in NY. $170 for barrel or bagged corn sounds like a deal these days. I was buying feedlot corn 2 years ago for $100 and got some in Quebec early last season from a feedlot for about $93. That was it though and it was 130 - 150 the rest of the year. Grit your teeth on the price of pellets. Yesterday the price at tractor supply was still $4.98 / $239 ton for pellets.
Since everything I touch at work is top secret voodoo baloney I can’ t say who or where but I just got a look at the whole sale invoiced price of some pellets this morning. It was from one of the best know and biggest brands and premium hardwood. THey were $3.59 give or take a dime 2 weeks ago. Today they were $1.79 / bag. Now of course thats invoiced truckload wholesale. Of course maby it was a mistake of some sort but I know I didn’t read that invoice wrong. I find it hard to believe the price could ever drop that fast.
Now Im sure curious, since our hardwood costs havent dropped yet…...$1.79/bag is so far below my current cost that Im thinking something is in error here. Kinda like buying gas at $1.00/gallon
