heating our house with corn

[gilby]

Hi we live in the midwest, where the winters get pretty cold. We recently purchased a corn stove, which we heat our house with corn. Yes, shelled corn. We have had our stove for 8 days now and the furnace hasn't ran once. I do understand it hasn't been real cold, but so far our house has been staying between 71-73. OUr night have been getting down to around 30 and days in the 50's. We were tired of the high gas bills. Our home is around 2400 square feet. We are able to heat our home for the price of a a bushel of corn a day, which right now is around 1.70 a bushel, which is around 60.00 a month. It sure beats the 200.00 gas bills. The money we are saving on our gas bill will be put away for our next vacation. Hopefully the stove will pay for itself in a couple of yrs. If anyone is interested in purchasing a stove like this I would highly recommend buying one. We are very happy with it. I am curious to see what it does when it is -20 degrees out, ok not that I want it that cold.
Gilby

 

[mrsschlep]

I have never heard of this before. We heat our house with coal and wood, also to keep our oil bill down. I was just wondering, does your house smell like corn all the time then? Just curious.

 

[hercamore]

Sounds good.

Ar eyou an Iowa resident?

How/where do you buy the corn?


herc.

 

[SplshMtn99]

We heat our home with a wood burning pellet stove since electric heat was too expensive. I believe pellet stoves (or some of them) can burn corn or wood pellets.

First time I heard about corn burning stoves... all I could think of was a home full of popcorn. LOL

Curious too, where do you buy the corn? I've never seen it sold where we buy pellets.

 

[gilby]

NO the house does not smell like corn. Believe me that was the first thing I ask the salesperson. It does not raise your house insurance either. We buy our corn from a local farmer in minnesota. We store about a months worth of corn in barrels in our garage with tight lids, so no creatures can get in. We are recording how much corn we are using so we will have an idea for the next yr. putting into consideration that each heating season will depend on the weather. We are hoping that we can get a tax break by buying a stove, but they are still trying to get one passed.

 

[Bakerone]

I used to live in the mountains of Western North Carolina and had a corn stove about 12 years ago. I liked it because it was easy to start and a lot less messy than wood. We did have problems with the auger getting clogged from time to time.

 

[Leader of the Club]

Originally posted by gilby
We are recording how much corn we are using so we will have an idea for the next yr. putting into consideration that each heating season will depend on the weather.

Hubby also suggested keeping a record of the average tempurature each week.

 

[gilby]

good idea, never thought of that.
thanks

 

[Chicago526]

Huh! My BF's mom heats her home with wood most of the time, she has a small house and heating oil is outragous. I've never heard of heating with corn, but it sounds like a great idea! Talk about a renewable resource!

 

[Lucky4me]

That is so cool! Or warm??

We heat with wood to save on electric and also have a back up gas heater just for one floor. We are at the point of needing a new stove or installing a gas furnace that will heat the whole house. That would cost about $7,000!!

With oil going up and with no end in sight, I think we'll skip the furnace and buy the stove.

I wonder if they sell corn stoves around here-Upstate NY? I am so tired of heavy, dirty, dusty and buggy wood!!

Google time!

 

[cra-z-4-dizney]

I should get one of those, heat my house and have popcorn at the same time....

 

[lovewdwdvc]

WE live in Iowa. We do not have one as we do not need a new furnace but htere is a distributer near us. If you want I can get his name and phone. I have no idea if he can sell one and someone local put it in or how it works. it has gotten rave reviews in the local newspspers.

 

[mousy_in_canada]

That is AMAZING! I will look into this.. my house is a 2 story 2400 sq foot house.. do I need one on each level?
How much does it cost to heat all winter... hmmm my heating bills run OVER $200 a month in the winter closer to 300 and that is TO much for me.... how much are these units? sorry too many questions.. we have a wood fireplace with insert and a blower and it helps but it is such a pain to load it all the time.. tell me more please!

 

[gilby]

No I don't mind the ?'s. Our unit cost around 2500 installed. There are different size stoves, so the price will very. They told us we should burn a bushel or a bushel and a half in a day, depending on the weather. It can get pretty cold in minnesota. So you figure corn prices right now are about 1.75 a bushel. So a bushel and a half would be around 3.25 a day, figure that by 30 days you are less then a hundred a month. We are really impressed by our stove. In fact we shut it off last night, because we are leaving for Disney on wed. and we could not believe the difference in temp of the house with running the furnace versus the stove. The stove keeps the house so much warmer, its constent heat. Our gas bill would run us 150-300 a monthe depending on the month and weather, we will be saving a chunk of money each month. We are hoping the stove will pay for itself in 2 yrs.

 

[gilby]

One more thing, they may have inserts to put in fireplaces to replace the unit from wood to corn. I don't remember for sure. The stove itself is very little maintenance. The only part that gets warm(hot) is the glass the sides basically stay cool. We fill up the hopper about once a day. They are talking that natural gas prices are high this yr and a 25% more for next yr.