How do I "deep clean" my corn furnace?

[denno]

Hello,
A year or more back I asked some questions here about corn burning, got a lot of information, not to mention the added entertainment of two guys interrupting the thread to troll each other about farming.
At that time I read a thread that gave intimidatingly thorough instructions for cleaning a corn or pellet furnace. I can't find it again.

If there is a search function on this forum I don't see it.

Googling seems less than helpful----mostly vids of people vacuuming their living room corn stoves.

Can you direct me to a source of this information? (Or anyone feeling verbose?)

Thanks

denno

 

[Deezl Smoke]

Move your mouse cursor over the little triangle arrow just to the right of the main menus items above, like forums, and media. A new menu will drop down and you can choose search media, or search forums.

 

[adayrider]

I take mine out to the driveway just outside the garage door and fire up the air compressor. I take out both fans and blow every direction possible. And what a mess it makes. You should wear a mask.

 

[Bioburner]

It would help alot if you would put in your stove model into your post or signiture etc etc. I have four stoves that burn corn and all have a method into thier own

 

[Lake Girl]

We got a corn furnace (Superior, from Ja-Ran) this winter.

The manual seems to have minimal to say on cleaning/maintenance
http://www.teksupply.com/wcsstore/EngineeringServices/allbizunits/techdocs/SUPERIOR CORN FURNACE.pdf

Website appears to be down so may no longer be in business

 

[denno]

OK, the challenge of uploading pix.....

You will see I have been utterly remiss and never cleaned out the ashes from last burning.
The thread I was reading before said it was important to wash it all off to prevent chemical reactions, pitting, and like that.
Better late.......

The flame comes up from the pot pretty fiercely, and the plate over it burned right through late last season. I obtained a couple more plates, which you see are warped already; but ran into a guy who specified a thick steel plate with a piece of stainless tack welded onto it for a good replacement. He specified even the types of steel, and I hope I can still turn up that scrap of paper!

 

[adayrider]

Wow, that's a furnace not astove. So much for unplugging the cord and unhooking the 3" pipe and wheeling it out to the garage.

 

[denno]

 

[womaus]

Wow, that's a furnace not astove. So much for unplugging the cord and unhooking the 3" pipe and wheeling it out to the garage.

Might be easier to move the garage around the furnace....

Looks like you have fun project there. If it were mine I'd do my best to see if I could find schematics for a breakdown of the components, and if that was fruitless I'd start looking at removing the easy things, taking lots of pictures and notes along the way.

Or find a trusted old timer in the business, and funnel him some cash for the cleaning.

 

[Bioburner]

Your fire should not be so high as to be burning out the deflector. Looks like another copy of the corn furnaces. I have a boiler version.

 

[jrp]

These furnaces will burn that plate thru. I placed a cast iron stove griddle over the hole and have had no further issue. I do a pellet mix of 10 to 20% with the corn. Two bushels a day no demand 4-5 a day wiyh demand. Clean corn a must. Bulk deliver from a feed farm that uses the big Brock dryer is best. I have an 8 ton ourside bin and run a 4" hollow core auger into a cattle water tub in the basement. It dumps thru a fabricated screen cleaner like one on youtube but much larger to handle flow of auger. From there I mix pellets and use a vacuum carry thru a cyclonic cleaner over the furnace bin. The bin has a mesh over it to catch larger field debris that may jam the augers.

There is only a brush and vaccum cleam.

 

[jrp]

The byproducts are VERY corrosive and all cleaning done inspring including pipes. A great deal of heat goes up the chimney. If you perhaps install a majic heat in the pipe to the chimney you will see a good deal more heat in the basement. Be sure to shut all air down that may enter the furnace combustion area during summer months. Mine has been burning 8-10 ton a winter since 2009

 

[denno]

Belated reply. Thanks for the details. I talked over the possibilities of gravity wagons, bins, augers awhile back. Decided, on the basis of my physical layout that it is just as well for me to get bagged corn and pellets by the ton, get a friend to help pass them in through the cellar window, and stack them on pallets and horse them into the bin as needed.
I get my best corn from a local guy who is proud of his triple cleaning.
Don't have a real mixing system other than a little shovel. The bin is around 24 bags capacity. I load pellets in one end and corn in the other and figure they do some self-mixing going down the funnel.
Problem occurs when there is straight corn----clinker to the point of jamming up the augur entrance to the fire pot. Straight pellets, too much fine ash, ditto. When I see smoke backing up out of the bin, I shut down till it's cool enough and scoop out the fire pot. PITA!
One-to-one bags seems to work okay to prevent this. Since jrp's post I'm trying less pellets. (Is it my imagination, or does the corn burn hotter?)

Thanks for the model of how to do it perfectly!

 

[Bioburner]

I noticed in your pictures that your burn pot sits a lot higher and closer to the deflector plate than mine. Design error that is burning your plate up.
Corn has more btus per volume than wood pellets. One major advantage of stoves that monitor exhaust temperature to control feed rate. Bixby does that very well.

 

[denno]

Greetings again. I'm continuing this post with a new question until I figure out how to start a new thread. Can't find that button!

Sometimes my furnace seems to back up and smoke, lots of it, comes up out of the fuel bin. Usually cleaning out the fire pot of slag fixes it, but as I start up this season, the problem isn't going away.

There was a very good consultant who sold us the furnace and was always available to help, and I have an e-mail out to him, but I haven't communicated with him in a couple years, so I don't know if I will reach him. Aside from what I wrote to him, I am using leftover fuel, and surely it has gained some moisture content, but seems to be burning fine. Wrote to him as follows:

"
It took me awhile to formulate this question, and maybe you can tell me something about it.
Occasionally smoke apparently backs up the augurs and comes up through the fuel bin. Usually I get down to the bottom of the fire pot with the rebar (sometimes by letting the whole thing cool down), chip out some slag, and it clears up the problem.

After all this time, it occurs to me that slag in the fire pot shouldn't create any pressure to back up the smoke. So what does?

I also know that keeping the ashes cleaned out of the burning chamber and emptying the ash tray seems good for airflow.
The chimney has no obstructions I know of. (I remember when we were burning wood, ash would accumulate in part of the furnace exhaust channel and also in the bottom of the chimney, and interfered with the airflow out, and I had to take the vent apart and clean it all out.)

None of this seems to apply. Wind blowing down the chimney would just be a momentary thing, so I don't see that as any cause of filling the basement with smoke.

The only part of the exhaust I don't entirely understand is that just out of the furnace, on the vent going over to the chimney, the installer put a short piece at right angles to the vent with a free-floating damper in it. He must've told me why, but I don't remember."


I hope those of you who contributed thoughts before will get a notice that this dormant thread has a new post!
Rather than start dismantling my furnace-to-chimney vent pipes, plus anything else I can think of, it would be great to know what's up and where to direct my efforts to fix this.

TIA,
denno