Cob corn? In a standard wood furnace

Been lurking for a while and decided I would join in here.

Anyways, I am wondering if well dried cob corn can be burnt in a stove/furnace? Seems like it would do ok but have never heard much about it. Any thoughts..

I knew someone that had a whole corn crib full that was starting to mold so he used it to heat his house instead. I guess it worked good but it was very dusty to work with. He ended up not using it all.

I tried it in our old woodfurnace. Didn't have much luck, and it requires more air to burn. I know exhaust from corn is very corrosive, so take that into play. We had a old clay liner so I didnt worry about it.

Make sure your flue is multi fuel rated. Corn is Very Corrosive.

Thank you, I have a clay lined chimney at this point. I am just planning for next fall when I hope to get a wood furnace or something that burns for free or nearly free. The house I am moving into has oil ( new furnace going in next week) and I am getting spooked by the prices. My situtation may change and not have the time to cut wood but i do have corn equipment which got me thinking.


-Mike

My business is hauling milk for dairy farmers. The price of corn is out of site. The ones that grow it are even having a hard time to justify it. how does corn compare to cord wood? Pellets? ........look at coal too!

That is true. Wood is free to me minus my time, pellets are an option at 210ish a ton right now but have no idea how many tons I would use in a season, Oats and would work cheap as I can grow and harvest corn would be not too bad since I can grow and harvest in cob form only at this time, coal locally is 330/ton which seems awful high? The records I found on the house show anywhere form 900-1500 gal of oil a year which is scary granted the duct work was bad which would make even a high efficiency furnace operate at 50% if lucky. Getting that all replaced now but don't see us using less than 700 gallon which at $3.78 is a still more almost triple what I am paying in my current home with NG.

330 for coal don't seem bad for the btu's you get out of it. pay attention to btu's per ton of whatever you what to burn. plus moisture content.

I had the same thought about using pellets in the wood burner. I don't know how pellet or corn stoves work, but the info I read says it generally doesn't work due to airflow. There is a special basket sold http://www.thepelleteer.com/ that can be used for pellets in a wood stove or insert. I would try to make one out of plaster lathe before I bought one. I'm not sure, but do corn kernels burn similar to pellets, as far as the need for airflow? There are stoves that are made just to burn corn or pellets, They need electricity to operate. Burning pellets seems expensive to me. the Pelleteer states a 6 hour burn time for 17 pounds of pellets in the 18 inch model. On a cold day you would need 60 pounds of pellets to burn 24 hours. A 40 pound bag is around $5 bucks?. I dont know, but I would think a farmed product(corn) would cost more than a sawmill waste product(sawdust). Still cheaper than oil- I like my free firewood scrounged from all over town throughout the year. http://www.stretcher.com/stories/07/07dec03d.cfm#.ULrrl4M8CSo

First thing i would look into are ways to improve the house insulation. Next i would decide if you want to cut wood for heat because it is a big chore to css firewood from one year to the next. Wood pellets would be my second option, but buy in bulk and shop around.

You need to compare heat OUTPUT for dollars. Coal is super dense with energy.

Every heat source also has a factor in there for work you need to do.

A lot of us are comfortable with the labor aspect of tending a fire.

Pellets are less hands on work. Oil and propane are less work.. but just as painful... WRITING CHECKS!

JP

Exactly. You still need to go out and do what you do to earn dollars to pay for the heat. I just happened to have some free time to scrounge 8 cords, and split and stack at my leisure. Also lucky that 3 of those cords were already cut and split. I have maybe 2 -3 years of firewood for not a whole lot of work, in my opinion.