Corn stove \ furance

[four_by_ken]

I searched and was surprised to not find anything on here about them. I am just looking for personal experiences and advice about them.

Anyone?

Thanks
Ken H.

[lblair]

I have a pellet stove (wood pellets) works great, easy to clean and maintain. Very little ash. Only thing is pellets are 160 per ton and i burn 2 ton a season. plus i burn oil with our furnace but not much of that.
Larry

[Slamfire]

The only ones I've seen were over $2000 and were unvented. That's a little on the scary side for me.

[four_by_ken]

Strange, I havent seen one that is not vented. They are all using what I believe is class B pipe. Same as a gas dryer vent. And they only need to be run outside, not up to the roofline, just as a dryer vent.

The ones I have been looking at are in the $1600 range.

Ken H.

[lblair]

The pellet stove needs more than dryer vent pipe, but needs only a small rise to create draft. Its a stainless lined 4" pipe that inter locks together with a rope seal at all the sections. Its pretty cheap though and should last forever.
Larry

[oakiemac]

We bought a corn stove last winter and we really like it. It directly vents out the side of the house. I just pour in one bag of corn a day and there is no mess or fuss. It heats our living room nicely. It wouldn't heat a whole house but makes a good one room heat source. It is attractive and a good conversation piece. We buy the corn directly from a farmer-cheaper than buying at a grain mill. Any questions just let me know.

[Pat]

OAKIEMAC, I knew that corn was burned for fuel in stoves but thought it was just an alternative fuel for pellet stoves. I know it can be an alternative for pellets but from your comments it seems there is also a stove intended to burn corn.

Pellet stoves can be equipped for electric ignition and thermostatic control (change the auger speed). What about corn stoves? How is yours started? Can the fire be "turned down" significantly successfully? I need a decorative parlor stove with relatively low output for a small sitting room that is well insulated (5 inches of styrofoam on cast concrete walls.) I'd like to have a decorative stove with visible flames that wouldn't rapidly overheat the room. The room is about 10x15 with 9 ft ceiling and 10 linear feet of windows/doors on exterior wall and a 3-0 safe room door in another wall. I don't think anything over 5000 Btu would be practical. I can install a register above the stove to exhaust hot convected air and blow it into another room but radiant heat will still pose a problem if the stove has too high of an output.

TIA for any thoughts,

Patrick

[rushed]

We just purchased a corn stove, bought grain from the elevator, it is very trashy, how do you clean it? :Rushed

[PeteinCO]

I too am in need of a small, low output heater like Pat describes, for a Den in our basement that is 21x13. If anyone knows of such a thing, whether wood, corn, pellet, or whatever, please reply.

[Pat]

If you don't have any condensation considerations and a fresh air source and you don't mind vent free gas heat (legal in your area?) I can get you a make and model of a very small one. It has about a 4x6 inch single ceramic block that emits infrared and the heated air convects out the top. It has a safety pilot and piezo electric ignition (mechanical clicker) it is manually regulated, no thermostat.

The smallest I could find with a thermostat (built-in not on-wall) has two of those ceramic cells. I would have preferred a single but wanted a thermostat since this is for my mom (getting on in years). I put it on her 10x33 ftsun porch and it makes it useable while it is 15 degrees outside.

I finally decided I had found the smallest lowest output decorative gas log direct vent heater that I was going to find and went to buy two, one for the basement and one for the siting room B U T my wife saw one in green and it would look oh so nice in the "garden room" (AKA sun porch) so we have 3 now. They are heavy cast iron units, castings were originally for a wood stove I think... very heavy cast iron. Brand is Jotul. I have attached a picture of the black one for the basement.

Black is the cheapest (under a grand) while the prettily painted units are about a grand. They can be run on-off or controlled by a milivolt compatible wall thermostat. Come set up for natural gas but have a conversion kit included for propane. Seem extremely well made and rugged. Haven't set up the included log set yet and haven't seen one working so not sure how nice the fire will look but for the bucks it better be pretty good. It is variable and will turn down under 11,000 Btu.

I will be installing a register in the ceiling above it to draw off any excess hot air to prevent overheating the small sitting room. I'll either use a powered duct to dump the hot air in the adjacent bedroom or pentrate the concrete ceiling and make a register connect to my wifes tea room above the sitting room.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]