How to Use Corn Burning Furnaces
With rising energy prices and concerns for the environment, many people are looking for alternatives to traditional fossil fuels. One alternative is the corn burning furnace. In many homes a corn burning furnace now provides some or all of the home's heat during winter.
A corn furnace has an air jacket surrounding the burning chamber and this heated air is forced by a blower motor into ducts leading to various rooms of the house.
The corn burning furnace doesn't actually burn corn. Instead, it burns the corn cob that is left over after corn has been dried and then scraped from the cobs for seed, cracked for a variety of animal feeds, or ground into meal. And since corn cobs produce four times the heat of an equivalent quantity of propane and cost less, the savings in heating bills can be tremendous.
In the past corn cobs have been considered a waste product. Today, thousands of people pay good money for corn cobs and use them just as they would use wood in a wood-burning stove.
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Instructions
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Purchase a corn-burning furnace and install it or have it professionally installed. A corn-burning furnace requires heating ducts leading from a hot-air-collection box on top of the furnace (known as a plenum) which are force-fed the hot air by a blower. The heating ducts must lead from the plenum into different rooms of the house.
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Purchase corn cobs to be used as fuel. Many farmers have left-over cobs after feeding their livestock. Many farmers use all or a portion of their corn cobs in their own furnaces, but many have excess cobs for sale. Generally cobs are 30 to 50% less expensive than wood.
Corn processing plants and animal feed stores also often carry corn cobs for sale. -
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Load corn cobs into the automatic hopper located on the side of your stove. Most corn-burning furnaces have a thermostatically-controlled hopper which automatically feeds cobs into the combustion chamber as they are needed to maintain a constant temperature.
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Occasionally clean the soot from the combustion chamber as per the stove manufacturer's recommendations. While corn cobs burn more cleanly than wood, there is still a residue left over and eventually this residue builds up to the point that the furnace must be cleaned.
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Do not burn corn cobs in a traditional wood-burning stove. Corn cobs produce far more heat than wood and they can damage a traditional wood-burning stove or furnace.
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Tips & Warnings
You will need a steel-box in which to store your cobs prior to burning. This box will keep vermin away from the cobs as well as keep them dry. Do not burn corn in fireplaces, furnaces or stoves designed for wood. The extra heat produced from burning corn can damage these devices.
