Sanguine Tenacious Tidings

Corn: Eat it or burn it or feed it to the livestock

What is your most important project now?

We are installing a corn stove to help with winter heat. The flue is clean. The stove is ordered. It is a matter of getting the stove in here so it can be installed. We have never burned corn before. It will be something new to get acquainted with how and how much? How much corn will it use and how to keep the stove properly burning.

We also have been using infrared heaters for the last couple years. They are economical heat when using electricity. Still the electric bills double for a couple of the months in a year.

I also am buying some of the things I need to set up the solar panels I already purchased. So, I guess my important project is heating the house this winter at a price I can afford.

Corn is renewable energy. It does not take away from feed grown for livestock. It does add a needful money crop for farmers. It burns hotter BTUs than wood pellets.

In an article by Judith W. Monroe. from the link, there is a lot of comparisons to wood heat.

{link: https://www.backwoodshome.com/i-heat-my-house-by-burning-corn/}

In her article she says, “ 2.2 bushels of corn produce one million BTUs of heat at an average cost of 8.79 dollars. The same amount of heat produced by wood cost is 22 dollars.” It takes years to grow a tree.

Corn pellets are dense. The corn packaged for corn stoves as fuel is 15% moisture. That is important. The corn must be cleaned and dried properly in order to burn efficiently without a problem. The fact that the multifuel stove we ordered is able to be loaded and burn efficiently all night without watching or refilling will be a step up for us. The stove we ordered is multifuel so it will burn other kinds of fuel pellets, with some adjustments, such as wood pellets and cherry pits. But, we are primarily expecting to burn corn.

Our wood furnace used to go out about 2 hours after we stopped filling it. That meant the house cooled down during the hours we were sleeping. I learned to burn wood pellets in our wood stove a few years ago. However, it is not as heat efficient using wood pellets and you still have to load it by hand on a regular basis. Multifuel stoves are more efficient and have a hopper that feeds the stove automatically, I will need to find out how to fill it and when to fill it.

There will be a period of adjustment making sure to clean the stove efficiently and pour the bags of corn into the hopper at regular intervals. I”m looking for ward to the change.