Corn Stove Guide » Shelled Corn

Locating a Supplier of Shelled Corn

admin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:28:14 +0000

Before purchasing your Corn Burning Stove first identify a reliable supplier of shelled corn. To find a good supplier start by going to your local feed or garden centres as well as any mills and grain elevators nearby. If you know any farners contact them directly to find out if they or other farms sell shelled corn to you as this could be a cheaper source than going though a middle man.

Be sure to check the moisture conten as you are looking for shelled corn with moisture content of less than 15% to ensure good combustion characteristics.

Probably the most expensive place to buy shelled corn is from a fireplace/hearth shop where the corn is sold in cute little decorated bags and has ben marked up in price.. In many cases, its best to buy in large quantites of corn to be able to get the best price for the shelled corn. You may have to by 25 to 100 bushels (1,400 to 5,600 pounds) to be able to negotiate the best rate for the corn, but remember to add in the cost of delivery to your home.

The price of the shelled corn will fluctuate though out regions in the USA and depending on the time of the year too, so best to buy to stock up when the price is good.

Limitations of Burning Shelled Corn for Heat

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:27:11 +0000

Burning of Shelled Corn can have its limitations, and probably the bigggest limitation comes with the corn Stove itself. If your Corn Stoves use an auger to feed the combustion unit and a fan to moe the air though the corn stove to heat the room and should require electrical power. So if there a power outage then the corn stove stops and some models will require a manual reset after any power interruption.

Secondly As most house layouts dont allow air to ready move though, a centrally located corn stove will not heat the whole house. If this is the case with your house than buy a corn stove to fit the room rather than the house. As a oversized corn stove will make that room unbearably hot.

Why Burn Corn

admin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:34:33 +0000

There is currently on the market a number of manufactures that make stoves which burn shelled corn, basically the stoves are similar to wood or pellet stoves, they have been design for dry granular fuel. Typically corn burning stoves have a combustion air fan and a fuel stoker, both of which are not common in standard wood stove construction.

Why burn corn?

The corn used as a fuel in stoves have two requirements of this corn fuel:

The shelled corn must be dry, with preferably 15% moisture content or less. Corn which is higher in moisture content will have a lower heat value per unit weight than "dry" corn. Also moist corn may also cause flow problems through the fuel loading auger.
The shelled corn must be free of fines. Dirty corn which has a lot of fines and cob pieces will cause problems with the fuel loading auger.

The storage, moving and handling of grain corn has evolved tremedously now every year farmers harvest, dry, convey, and store millions of bushels of corn. The equipment to do all these things is readily available. Consequently putting a corn storage system together for a home heating set up is possible with augers, conveyors and storage bins which are readily available.

Two reasons why corn is so attractive as a heat source are that dry shelled corn is so easily handled and in plentiful supply. Shelled corn also has a high heat energy per unit weight. Here's how shelled corn measures up to other solid fuels.

Table 1. Heat Energy of On-Farm Fuel Sources
Shelled Corn	7000 BTU/lb (16,200 kJ/kg) at 15% Moisture Content
Straw	6550 BTU/lb (15,200 kJ/kg) Air Dried
Corn Stover	7540 BTU/lb (17,500 kJ/kg) Air Dried
Wood	8000 BTU/lb (18,500 kJ/kg) Air Dried

You can see from this table that shelled corn has heat energy close to that of wood.