Corn Furnace

[crosses]

Has anyone ever seen or use a corn furnace? Is there anything special that one needs to know about them and do they really save a lot of money? I just saw this article about them and became curious.

[frugalmomof1]

My DH looked into corn furnaces last year when we were looking for an alternative to oil. He found that they were very efficient and inexpensive to run, but there aren't any places locally that we could purchase corn from. So he decided to install a pellet stove instead. That is pretty much all we used last winter, and it saved us about 50% on our heating cost.

[creditcardfree]

It is an interesting concept. I had a neighbor asking me last night if I knew anything about those. He thought they would be 2-3K, plus another 2K to install. He was worried about bugs, getting into the corn.

[banana]

frugalmomof1 - Can you please elaborate on your pellet stove? I am interested in getting one but unsure where to put it. I live in a ranch with a partially finished basement. Our living room on the main floor has a fireplace and I was thinking it would be a good idea to put a pellet insert there but I am afraid that it would be tooo hot in the living room. If we put one in the basement I would be afraid that the heat would not be sufficient on the main level. Where did you install yours? Does it heat your whole house or are certain areas still cold? Any tips would be appreciated.

[JBinKC]

I agree heating with corn proabably the mosty economical way to go if you pay for a fuel now but you still have to find a source of it and a large place to store it to prevent rodent infestation. Another thing to consider is the future. The big question remains do you think corn prices will stay low forever when our corn supply will be used more and more for transportation fuel?

I think if you are going to bother spending the money heating with a solid fuel device for quickest payback you might as well choose wood and then do your own free scrounging which isn't as hard as you think. ie good sources for wood is the town dump, local arborists, websites like freecycle and craigslists or cut your own.

[frugalmomof1]

Originally Posted by banana

frugalmomof1 - Can you please elaborate on your pellet stove? I am interested in getting one but unsure where to put it. I live in a ranch with a partially finished basement. Our living room on the main floor has a fireplace and I was thinking it would be a good idea to put a pellet insert there but I am afraid that it would be tooo hot in the living room. If we put one in the basement I would be afraid that the heat would not be sufficient on the main level. Where did you install yours? Does it heat your whole house or are certain areas still cold? Any tips would be appreciated.

Hi Banana,
Our pellet stove is installed in the dining room. We have a 2 floor 1500 sq. ft cape and it does a pretty good job of heating the entire house. The 2nd floor does get a little chilly on very cold days, as does the 1/2 bath located in the far end of the 1st floor. It might be too hot if you put it in the living room, unless you have a very open floor plan (which we do not).
HTH!