I bought a used a Crossfire fireplace insert last year to burn corn instead using my coal burning insert. I burnt corn last year and didn't much heat out of it. This year, I'm using wood pellets, and still don't much heat out of it. I'm burning about 100+ lbs wood pellets a day. Last year used about 120 lbs shelled corn a day. About the same . Don't feel much unless I stand close to it. The fuel furnace runs as much with the pellet stove on as without. I have a big old farmhouse, but have new windows and insulation. The coal insert put out enough heat to heat it, but since I'm farming and have corn, I switched. I don't have dry corn yet, so got a skid of wood pellets to start. I have the exhaust venting in the chimney with 2 feet of 4" pipe extending to flue. Wonder if there is a higher output switch to make it blow more air our of heat exchanger? Or if anyone has suggestions how to get more heat out of it.
Country Flame Crossfire doesn't put out much heat
- Thread starter Bill Prichard
- Start date
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Gee, I farm and roast field corn as well. I never run straight corn, always a corn-pellet mix (2 parts corn to one part pellets) and my corn is always below 12%RM and usually closer to 10%. The drier it is, the hotter it burns. and at 40K BTU, no matter what you do, that unit will never heat your house, you'll always need a backup central furnace to carry the heat load. Mixing in pellets eliminates the clinkers and mixing in pellets, you can use the least expensive pellets you can buy.
Sounds to me like you also have a fly ash issue in the stove or the venting. Did you clean the stove and the venting carefully when you shut it down last spring?
Using a pellet - biomass stove as a primary heat source is bad ju-ju. Won't ever happen except on very temperate days.
You can only get so much blood out of a turnip and you have a small turnip....lol
Sounds to me like you also have a fly ash issue in the stove or the venting. Did you clean the stove and the venting carefully when you shut it down last spring?
Using a pellet - biomass stove as a primary heat source is bad ju-ju. Won't ever happen except on very temperate days.
You can only get so much blood out of a turnip and you have a small turnip....lol
is it just me or is that a excessive amount of pellets for a day... Even maxed out i don't think my stove would burn !00lbs a day. Not to mention in my manual it states not to run it on the 2 highest heat levels for more than 20-30 min. To me that's not burning no ware near as efficient as it should be
Sounds to me like well coated (with fly ash) HX surfaces. Fly ash is an excellent insulator. Never burned anywhere close to that much in 1 day. If it's clean inside, which I doubt, then the birds are staying warm up on top of the venting pipe.
Something is very screwy.
I cleaned out all venting and still don't get much heat. Seems like the fan that blows out the tubes should blowing more air. Just blows about a foot in front of stove.
New distribution fan or an old one? You ever bother to service the bearings in it if it's an old one? Reason I ask is because as they age, the bearings get dried out and the fan won't spin properly.
One thing I do every spring is the distribution blower and the draft fan comes out and both get serviced as in cleaning the build up fly ash off the draft fan impeller and both motors get their bearings lubricated or replaced as needed.
I religiously strip mine every spring when it gets it's 'deep clean' which includes all the venting too. I have mine set up so I can remove all the venting except the straight 3 foot section that goes through the wall thimble from the stove to the outside venting and I use a 3-4" transition Tee from the through the wall to the vertical with a clean out cap on the bottom that fits up to a leaf vacuum, for a mid winter suck out, turns the deck a nice shade of soot black but it washes off. I take all my venting down and pressure wash the inside with Purple Power and the pressure washer, gets all the build up crud off the inside stainless liner, both fans come out, the draft fan gets cleaned with a bristle brush, all the bearings lubed or replaced as necessary and all put back together again and I fog the firebox with Stabil Fogging oil to keep it from rusting over the summer.
This stove is 16 years old this year and I have never replaced one component other than my 3-4 transition Tee on the outside, last year it got a small hole in the outer galvanized jacket so I replaced it. The stainless liners have stayed good right along, even though I burn corn and pellets and corn gives off nitric acid fumes, never had an issue with the stainless.
All major components are original and they all work just fine. Running right now but on 100% pellets. I was too lazy today to mix up my usual 4 garbage cans of pellet-corn mix. Dried field corn burns much hotter than just pellets but it creates clinkers. The pellet mix eliminates the clinkers.
Have 2 tons of pellets in the barn and 7.5 ton of corn in the grain tank. I'm set for anything mother nature can dish out.
This stove is 16 years old this year and I have never replaced one component other than my 3-4 transition Tee on the outside, last year it got a small hole in the outer galvanized jacket so I replaced it. The stainless liners have stayed good right along, even though I burn corn and pellets and corn gives off nitric acid fumes, never had an issue with the stainless.
All major components are original and they all work just fine. Running right now but on 100% pellets. I was too lazy today to mix up my usual 4 garbage cans of pellet-corn mix. Dried field corn burns much hotter than just pellets but it creates clinkers. The pellet mix eliminates the clinkers.
Have 2 tons of pellets in the barn and 7.5 ton of corn in the grain tank. I'm set for anything mother nature can dish out.
