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Cheap heat for your Archery shop or home

Hardcorehunter

Hardcorehunter

UL Shelter/Stove Geek
Guys, I just installed a 50,000 BTU corn stove in my great room and to say that I am impressed is an understatement. This thing cranks out the heat and is WAY cheaper to run than natural gas or propane . It is a multi-fuel and will run on corn, wood pellets, cherry pits, or soybeans. Buell hunter ,this would work great for your archery shop or any of you other business owners or homeowners. The stove puts out carbon dioxide instead of carbon monoxide. It only has to be 4" from a wall. The metal on the wall behind the stove is for decor only and is not required for the stove. The back of the stove remains cold and you can see that a curtain is right beside the stove. These are way easier to vent than a woodburner too. A wood burner was going to make my homeowners insurance go up $200 a year and the corn stove doesn't. This is so easy compared to cutting and splitting wood. These also burn so efficiently that there is very little ash. I mix 3 parts corn to 1 part wood pellets. This is the hopper in the 3rd picture that is at the top of the stove at the rear of it. It holds 60# of corn. My wife had this antique wash basin that we put next to the stove. The left side holds corn and the right holds the wood pellets.
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does this require "any" outside ventilation? How expensive was this set-up. Looks very nice.
 
What brand do you have? What is the price range? Where do you buy this type that burns so many types of fuel?
 
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Total cost for entire setup; just under $2000. Stove alone can be had for $1399 at Thiesens in Ames right now as they have a sale. Orschelins gets $1599 and I bought mine at Litzel lumber in Ames for this price. Outside exhaust kit was $250 and optional fresh air kit was $50.
 
It is the United States Stove company and the model #6039 is called the American Harvest. My buddy has had one for a whole year and he just loves it too.
 
My grandparents used to heat their home with corn and corncobs years back; amazing how history repeats itself. I had to do something; my heating bills have been $600-$800 per month the last couple of years. I have a huge 6 bedroom home. Right now the weather is mild and this stove heats it easy at a lower heat setting. When it is real cold I am sure it won't be able to keep up though. We plan on adding another next year at the opposite end of the home and be free from the gas company.
 
I haven't heard a bad thing about a corn stoves. I know a lot of people that run em.
 
Hey HCH. Before you go ahead and make any investment in another stove or heating type unit, I would have your home checked for air leaks and get it sealed up. Otherwise, you furnace or boiler is really inefficient and could use a tune-up or worse need to be replaced.

Sounds like it's the wind that is really sucking the heat out of your home -especially on cold days. Not sure if you have a natural gas utility but most utilities now offer some type of energy audit that will go a long ways for you at a really reasonable cost.

If you can identify the lack of insulation areas and correct the problem in your attic and/or walls it will be a quick fix. Attic insulation will get the most bang for your buck and really cut down on heat loss. Replacing windows and adding insulation to your walls will help but put your payback out a number of years because of the upfront cost.
 
I have that exact model. I have had my gas furnace shut off for over a month now, no need to turn it back on. My stove is installed in my finished basement. The basement gets up to 80+ degrees, the main floor gets up to 75+ degrees. I light it at about 8 PM & let it empty itself by morning. The house has not gotten below 69 degrees yet during the day. We used to set the furnace at 67 degrees. Usualy when I get home it is still over 70 on the main floor at 5:30 PM.
I built a 3500# corn bin in my garage. I order my corn from the local elevator. It was $136.00 including delivery for 3300#. I've burned 1200# so far since Oct 9th.
I love this stove & the heat
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Thanks Winniejoe. I need new windows in this old house bad. It has blown in insulation in the walls and attic insulation. It is 4200 sq ft, 13 room, 6-7 bedroom house. I have been meaning though to have alliant energy come over and give me an energy audit.
 
Handcannon; sounds like a cool setup. I would like to see pics of your storage system. I have a barn on my place with a full loft in it. We really like this antique wash basin in the house for the corn and wood pellet storage. Each side will hold 80#'s of material and makes mixing the two along with the oyster shells a breeze. I am mixing 3 parts corn to 1 part wood pellets in a 5 gallon bucket. In this I add a cup of oyster shells. I too buy my corn at the coop and it tested 11.5%. Recommended moisture is 14% or lower. I guess the oyster shells helps corn with high starch burn better.
 
What amount of square footage are you guys heating with the corn burners. I'm in the middle of building a new place and am seriously looking into alternative heat sources? Ive looked into corn stoves verses corn furnaces, and the furnaces are about twice as much as the stoves but then they will run almost 2 weeks before needing a refill and will heat twice as much area. So it would be great if I could get any info on how much area the stoves will actually heat. Thanks
 
My bin is simple. Cost me $100 out 3/4" plywood, 2X6s & bolts. I built it as tall as I could being able to tip & empty a 5 gallon bucket of corn over the top edge. It is 4' wide, 3.5' depth. The bottom is slanted towards the front & I have a small sliding door for the corn to come out that I put a bucket under. I had to make it a vertical bin because of limited space in my garage. My parents have more of a horizontal bin that holds 4500# (that lasts them all winter).
I used to use the oyster shells but they make my agitator clog up rock solid by morning. If I don't use the shells my agitator is far cleaner & the build up is easily removed. Another trick for build up removal is to take the stainless agitator & stainless firebox & soak them in a bucket of hot water while you are at work. By the time you get home it will be 99% clean all by itself.
Right now I burn about 30# a day, sometimes 45# on the really cold nights. I'm heating 1500 sq' basement(family, laundry, shop, toy rooms) & 1500 sq' mainfloor(4 bedrooms, 2 bath, kitchen,& living rooms).
I also made a pipe cleaner. You can buy one for about $15 that is 10' long & will not make all the bends. I took a brand new toilet brush in the store (Menards) & made sure it fit my 3" pipe. I cut off the handle, installed an eyebolt, 13' of coated 3/16" cable, & a 1" steel ball on the end. I take off the pipe cap outside, stick the steel ball in the pipe & it finds its way to the stove, comes out the clean out tee, I pull the cable & the brush comes right on through & so does the built up ash. I do this once a week, there isn't very much ash, it's just a precaution I take.
 
My neighbor down the street has a big house & a corn furnace. They say it works great. Stoves seem to be most popular around here because you can stick them just about anywhere in your home.
I'm at the point that I don't care if corn costs $100 a bushel - I'm tired of being raped by my natural gas supplier. You should hear these guys try to talk people out of corn stoves. It happened to me, some of the claims & statements were absurd. I already knew otherwise from my parents having a stove for 3 years now.
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I'm not trying to start a fight, the bottom line isn't the only line to consider when making this kind of decision, but here are a couple things to consider strictly from the economic standpoint.

Natural gas is rated at 15.4 therm/million BTU

Corn is rated at 452200 BTU/Bushel(corn refiners association)

LP is rated at 16.5 gallons/Mill BTU

I don't have the foggiest what LP goes for these days, but by my calculations a corn stove isn't that cheap right now when you compare it to natural gas.

I'm paying about 26.3 cents/therm after everyone gets a cut, which comes out to $4.05 per MMBTU. Corn at $2.75/Bushel gives me $6.08/MMBTU.

Pellet stoves are rated at about 90% efficiency, which is comparable to a new gas stove. I do think there would be a fairly decent increase for the pellet stove because the entire unit is inside the walls of the home instead of having duct snaking through the attic, but I'm not sure it would offset the savings with gas. Granted, both of these are commodities, so you're essentially betting on which one will be more expensive down the line. For reference, corn would have to hit $1.83/Bushel for you to break even with my gas company, or a storm coming through the gulf would work it the other direction.

If you're a farmer, I think it's a great deal because you're always going to get at least the natural gas equivalent for your crop, and if corn goes through the roof (think ethanol), you can buy a gas furnace.
 
A friend of mine down the road put one in, in place of an unused fireplace, and he loves it. I have started to consider getting one of the stoves for myself also. Since I have an acre corn food plot, which as of this week is still 80% intact, I could theoreticly plant my plot each spring, hunt it until thanksgiving, then have the neighbor come over and combine it for me. He could then just empty the combine right into a storage bin for me and presto, free heat for the rest of the winter. I would think the corn would be plenty dry by late Nov even without going through a bin dryer? Any reason that would not work?
My house is only 3 years old though and has mega insulation. I'm not sure what a year of heat costs me, but I doubt its over $1K so I'm not sure its worth it in my case. Tempting though, and I will seriously consider it for my shop I want to build next year.
 
Good topic and interesting.

That's an interesting point your making and something to take into account (other costs). I certainly am not knocking corn burners but there are other costs to consider too. Corn stoves still require electricity, fuel. Not much.

A couple other things to clear up too.

1 MMbtu's of natural gas is equivalent to 10 therms. For LP it takes 10.91 gal. to equal 1 MMbtu (million btu's)

Not sure how you arrived at 26.3 cents/therm. Natural gas hasn't been that low as a commodity for a few years now and you still have to consider costs to transport on the pipeline and add in the utility distribution costs. Everything added up (commodity, transportation, distribution) with today's prices are around $6-$8 dollars a MMbtu and in some cases higher depending how gas was hedged.

My father-in-law got rid of his pellet stove because of cleaning and odor from the pellets. The pellets did leave a residual smell in the house too.

Costs to heat/hot water/cooking for average size home with natural gas will be around $600-$1000/year depending on where you live, the efficiency of your furnace and insulation of your home. Up here in southern MN some bigger/older homes will use more. Cold and really windy days will really suck the heat out of a home.
 
My house has never been warmer and there is no odor from the stove. Even with high corn prices I can not heat my home with natural gas for $5.25 a day like I have been with this stove. Granted it is not cold out but I have been somewhat cranking it just to see what it will do and to give me an idea of corn consumption.. My setting is only on 7 and it is 72 degrees in the central part of my home right now and my upstairs is quite a bit noticeably warmer. We even opened the doors during thanksgiving as it was too warm. My house is 4200 sq ft and in no way is this going to handle real cold weather for a house this size. My last months heat bill was $435 for gas and the weather isn't really any different now as it was a month ago. At $5.25-$6.00 a day for corn and pellets the monthly cost will be $158-$180 per month. If I add another stove next year at the opposite end of the home, I will be able to handle sub zero weather and be free from the gas company. Corn is at an all time high due to poor yields through out a lot of the nation this year, of course ethanol has had an impact too but hey are putting up new plants that actually use the entire corn plant. As much as I like to see the farmers making good money on their crop, it looks like corn won't stay high. The price on corn has been the same for around 30 years and a few ethanol plants and poor yields won't affect the prices for the long term IMO.
 
Handcannon, my plans actually all along have been to buy one of these small grain wagons that farmers no longer use anymore and fill it up when needed and store in my barn. These wagons can be had for a song and a dance as farmers all use semi's now or huge grain wagons that have tires taller than us.
 
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