eribrav

Yes, here in the great northeast we have a shortage of pellet fuel for pellet stoves.
(Since I think they may not be common in all parts of the country,I'll mention that pellet stoves burn small sawdust pellets to heat your home. They are highly efficient, not expensive to run, and use a waste product from sawmills. They also don't require you to buy fuel from Islamic fascist fanatic regimes, but I digress).
Probably because of the high price of nat gas and oil, pellets are in scarce supply right now. Turns out that most pellet stoves can also burn corn. That's right, corn. I bought a big 50 pound sack of dried corn, like you would feed farm animals. Mixed in some pellets and it's cooking away in the stove. Awesome!
We could take all the corn that's being grown with our huge agricultural subsidies, and instead of subsidizing sugary crap like all the products made from corn syrup, we could heat our homes! How cool is that?

Sage

Well, the problem with that is you'd get an industrial revolution all over again- everyone burning "dirty fuel" releasing soot and ash into the air. Now, I don't know if everyone burning corn would mean that there would be more overall or less overall pollution than from using electricity/coal/oil derivatives in large quantities (like power plants and such).

Plus, food would be a hell of a lot more expensive if it all had to use real sugar instead of corn syrup. So what you would spend on food would counteract all the money you saved on fuel oil.


But that is pretty cool- is it warmer/cooler than a wood stove? Do you have to put in the pellets more frequently? Are there more or less ashes?

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mrklixx

Dang! I misread the title. Thought it said "Heating my house.....with porn!"

So does your house smell like the charred remains of a movie theater?

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eribrav

We have a fireplace insert stove, which holds about 40 pounds of pellets. That will heat our house for most of a full day, with the oil heat turned completely off. You can buy bigger, free standing stoves that will hold 60 or 80 pounds of pellets at a time.

I honestly think it's not any dirtier than a power plant burning coal or oil. After you burn 40 pounds of pellets there's maybe 1 cup of ash left behind.

Haven't tried running it on porn yet!

Manuel Hong

My sis has one of those stoves, I'm calling her now to tell her about it!

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cj2112

I don't know if this is a good idea or not, what about the creosote buildup in your chimney? Does corn create creosote when it burns, or does it burn relatively clean?

eribrav

That's a good question, and I don't know the answer. Makes me want to go find out though.

Sweetpea

my gosh, i've heard of that but thought it needed a particular kind of stove...

But You can do it with any kind of pellet stove without doing an damage??

(as a side note, we have one and that thing is so inexpensive and heats the whole house! i would highly recommend)



sweetpea

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cyrnel

Those are nice. My sister has one. I've pondered how to convert free firewood into pellets, but can't come up with anything besides a herd of pet beavers. Anyway, I'd love to get one of those stoves & ditch the firewood mess.

Corn should be okay if it's relatively dry. Anything that burns inefficiently will cause the buildup. High water content, poor ventilation, smoldering, lots of paper, etc. That's why it's important to use seasoned wood w/ no more than ~15% water content.

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pattycakes

wood chipper to the rescue!!!!!... well i think it would work aslong as the wood was already dried out

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Charlatan

The problem with this, as Sage pointed out, is that burning wood or corn is very dirty.

While it is cheap to run these stoves you have to ask yourself, "What if everyone heated this way?"

The air pollution would increase massively and huge tracts of forest would have to be cut down to supply the wood (or pellets) to burn. While it seems OK that corn is used, I don't think there would be enough for all out needs.

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cyrnel

I have a smallish chipper. No go. A wood chipper that could digest even pre-split logs would cost $10-20K. Fuel & maintenance costs are high, too. I don't think it's economically feasible unless the chips are a byproduct of some larger process like planing or paper mills.

/trudges out back for another load of spider-infested firewood

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eribrav

Actually the pellets are not wood chips; they are sawdust, pressurized into pellet shape. A chipper could not produce them.

Burning the pellets is NOT dirty. They are combusted very efficiently, giving off mostly CO2 and water, which is what you get when you burn oil or nat gas cleanly as well. If you haven't seen a pellet stove burn, I can understand the confusion, because you may be thinking it burns like wood in a fireplace. Not true.

As far as the corn, we cleaned the stove this morning, and it was definitely dirtier than any other week we have used it. We burned a 50% mix of corn and pellets most of the week. The weather has been mild, so can't blame the level of soot and ash on anything else but the corn. I spoke with a woman who sells and services these stoves. She indicated that some producers are starting to tailor production of their corn for use in stoves....maximizing the oil content, drying it more thoroughly etc. Appparently the corn we used, plain old cow corn, is quite dirty. We'll be sticking with pellets for the foreseeable future.

raeanna74

I have been wishing for a wood furnace for our house. I grew up with one and it was so much better, easier to pay our heating/electric bills for the wood rather than gas heat. I hadn't even considered a pellet stove even though I've heard of them. Looking at costs and other aspects it seems like it might be just about the same cost to purchase and have installed a pellet stove as it would be for a wood stove.

What would you estimate is your average winter expenditure of electricity for the stove since it has to use electricity to continue pulling corn from the pellets as it burns the pellets?

How new is your furnace? How frequently do you have to load it with fuel?? How big of a load does your furnace hold?? Do you have a top load or bottom load stove?

For those who complained that this method of heating would be more hazardous for the environment I found this.

And also learned that "Compared to EPA-certified wood stoves that give off about 5 grams of particulates per hour, pellet stoves have very low particulate emissions, some far less than 1 gram per hour." Home Tips

It seems that I am going to have to consider this possibility for heating more seriously. It seems to be the cheapest and overall possibly the most environmentally sound (Disregarding solar panels, etc.) method of heating my home. If you consider that the fuel is made from recycled materials that might otherwise be wasted and the pollutant output is relatively low compared to other forms of heating - I think this sounds like a great idea.

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eribrav

[QUOTE=raeanna74]I have been wishing for a wood furnace for our house. I grew up with one and it was so much better, easier to pay our heating/electric bills for the wood rather than gas heat. I hadn't even considered a pellet stove even though I've heard of them. Looking at costs and other aspects it seems like it might be just about the same cost to purchase and have installed a pellet stove as it would be for a wood stove.

What would you estimate is your average winter expenditure of electricity for the stove since it has to use electricity to continue pulling corn from the pellets as it burns the pellets?

I don't see a big jump in electric usage from the stove. The pellets are gravity fed, although an augur helps them along at the proper rate. There's also a blower fan to circulate the heat. I think maybe it increases our electric use by 30 or kW per month. We have REA power, which is very cheap, so the bump in the electric bill is barely noticeable.

How new is your furnace? How frequently do you have to load it with fuel?? How big of a load does your furnace hold?? Do you have a top load or bottom load stove?

This is the third winter we have had it. I fill it iin the morning when I wake up, right after work, and again at bedtime. It holds about 40 pounds of pellets. Most freestanding stoves have larger hoppers and accordingly would need filling less often.


For those who complained that this method of heating would be more hazardous for the environment I found this.

And also learned that "Compared to EPA-certified wood stoves that give off about 5 grams of particulates per hour, pellet stoves have very low particulate emissions, some far less than 1 gram per hour." Home Tips

It seems that I am going to have to consider this possibility for heating more seriously. It seems to be the cheapest and overall possibly the most environmentally sound (Disregarding solar panels, etc.) method of heating my home. If you consider that the fuel is made from recycled materials that might otherwise be wasted and the pollutant output is relatively low compared to other forms of heating - I think this sounds like a great idea.