One of the reasons I wanted to get this blog going is to talk about some of the problems and the day to day actions of burning corn. I also want to talk about some of the problems I am having in the hope that as time goes on I will solve these problems and you won't have to live with the problem, only the solution.
The weather is not quite so cold today, currently 37 degrees and snow on tap for later today. The corn burner is keeping up just fine in this type of weather. It wasn't so rosy a few days ago. We are in that variable season, where it can be below zero one day and the next day it is t-shirt temperature.
Two nights ago the house was cold. It was zero outside and the corn burner had been burning hard all day. It seems like one of the problems we have is the burner gets behind. Once this happens, more and more corn piles into the burn pot and it starts to build up on the rim of the pot. If left running the corn will start to push over into the ash pan. Eventually the fire will smother out but not before a whole bunch of corn gets wasted and becomes a smelly mess down in the burn pot.
I have a few theories. I think either I need to open up the draft fan some. (I will put a picture of it's current position on later) Perhaps this corn is different and needs more air to burn correctly. I know I am going through a section of the corn that seems to have more fines in it.
Another theory is last year I burned a corn/wood-pellet blend. Maybe I need to pick up a few bags of pellets and see if this helps the burn some. Perhaps burning straight corn as I am now just won't work durning real hard burn times.
Or, the last theory, perhaps my boiler is just a little bit under powered. Maybe it doens't have quite enough BTUs to keep up with the heat loss of the house. It is rated at 150,000 BTUs, and my gas furnace was rated at 130,000 so I figured I had BTUs to spare, but sometimes manufacturers play a little fast and loose with the BTU numbers.
An important question to ask your dealer, when you are buying a corn stove, is if their BTU ratings are input or output BTUs. Lets look at an example; if your stove is rated at 100,000 input BTUs, that means if I put corn into the stove that should mathmatically compute to 100,000 BTUs and my stove has an efficiency rating of 80%, my output BTUs would be 80,000. But, how many BTUs does a bushel of corn have? I have read manufactuer's claims from 7,000 to 10,000. That could play a big difference in the end result, how warm you are sitting on your sofa.
--ja
3 comments:
You are not going to find anything as easy as turning up the thermostat and as long as you paid last months gas bill your house gets warm. It *is* more work than gas. It is a lot less work than burning wood.
My boiler is not yet a year old. Are there easier ones out there? Maybe. Some of the freestanding models that sit in your living room and look like a wood stove are a little less work. All of them deal with the same things though, ash, clinker, dust.
Is it worth the work? I am paying less for my heating season's worth of corn than what I paid for my January gas bill the year before. To me, that makes it worth it. To others that have the income to just write out a check, maybe it is not.
"Dark and difficult times lie ahead, Harry. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right... and what is easy." ~~ Albus Dumbledore
Check my web site, Manufacterer page where I have what I think is a complete list of the builders of these stoves.
A couple of questions, to ask is how they compute their input BTUs. How many BTUs do they think a pound of corn has? I have heard numbers from 7,000 to 12,000 so you can see how that could have a pretty big impact on what the final number is.
87% also seems like pretty high efficency, and though I don't want to say anything against AES, I would make them convence you that they are not pulling your leg a little bit. Maybe they really are that efficent and so much the better for us all.
kb8-- hi every one i have an AES magnum baby country side (dc) and i hate it worst thing i ever spent my money on i know people who have other models and not even close to the problems i have and AES does not want to help they wont even let me ship it back to factory for them to check it out since i don't have a tech in my area any more there was one but he could get AES to stand behind their stoves they have so much trouble selling them they had to go to where folks can buy direct from factory looks like i am going to have to count my lose unless some one would be interested in buy it i hope this helps people and if i might say DO NOT BUY AES.
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