tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191028182011-11-27T17:17:48.608-06:00In the spring of 2005 we installed a corn burning boiler in our home to be the primary heat source for our old house. This blog chronicles the day to day experiences with an alternative fuel and offers suggestions on how you can do the same. Visit my web site at http://www.iburncorn.com for more information.John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.comBlogger491100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-72376828240739164582007-10-15T11:38:00.000-05:002007-10-15T12:15:39.213-05:00

I was looking for a good reason to make a blog entry. Today's Blog Action Day is that reason. I really wonder some times if burning corn is an environmentally concious thing to do. The fuel, its true, is renewable. But yet, it relies on the oil infrastructure to be in place. Farming is a resource intensive operation. Between the diesel fuel used in implements, to the natural gas feedstock

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-67972981595037811722007-10-01T20:22:00.000-05:002007-10-01T20:27:53.721-05:00

I spent the weekend visiting my mother in the nursing home this last weekend. She is one of the few residents with an intact mind. Her problem is her 90 year old body just isn't what it used to be. Unfortunately for her also, her taste buds are still intact. It is a rough combination. Nothing worse than being mentally sharp enough to know; what you are eating should taste like meat...The

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-63412718094792421862007-09-26T23:35:00.000-05:002007-09-27T00:07:09.061-05:00

Here is my annual promise to keep up better on my blog. :-)It has been a busy summer. I have been painting the east side of the house this year. There were some old cedar shakes on the gable end that were falling off and rotten. So, I pulled all of them off and replaced them. I didn't replace the windows at the same time. I hope that wasn't a huge mistake. But, I was already enough $$ into

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-52077740057584159532007-08-30T01:42:00.000-05:002007-08-30T11:49:40.638-05:00

Welcome back everyone. It has been a long summer but it is time to start thinking about corn burning again.The Minnesota State Fair.I took off work an hour early today, since it was my day to sit in a cubical in St. Paul, and took a trip to the Minnesota State Fair. It was an enjoyable trip.My first stop was at Freier's Fireplace Store where I ran into what I hope to be my next corn burning

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1163897933781968322006-11-18T18:45:00.000-06:002006-12-11T19:44:58.986-06:00

Just a few details on what is going on here.First off, I am sorry about keeping the "Fresh" graphic on the blog tab of the forum. In my mind, there was a fresh entry. My body had just simply not gotten around to typing it out.I now have about a month of burn time on the new style bottom feed burn pot on the Traeger. Alls in all, I would have to say this burn pot runs exactly like the old

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1161488923465861942006-10-21T22:29:00.000-05:002006-10-21T22:48:43.476-05:00

Thinking maybe you are making your plans for the coming week, I am going to be speaking to a group of like minded folk, corn burners all. I will be in Rice Lake Wisconsin on October 26th, speaking for the Northwest Wisconsin Corn and Wood pellet Forum will be held at the WITC conference center, 1900 College Drive, in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Barron and Polk County UW-Extension are organizing the 6-

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1161487162424811062006-10-21T22:18:00.000-05:002006-10-21T22:29:34.856-05:00

The pre-2006 heating season stuff.Well, the corn has been ordered. It is coming from River County Co-op here in Chippewa Falls. I just bought today (Friday), as the price continues to climb. I feel like it will drop down at some point but right now I am predicting the corn prices to continue to rise. I think that the rise in price is somewhat due to speculation on buying corn for ethanol

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1161059671710417532006-10-16T22:34:00.000-05:002006-10-16T23:34:31.786-05:00

Today is day five of burning corn in the new style Traeger burn pot. I would have to say I am cautiously optimistic. It has really been going quite well. Five days and I have been running the same burn pot. I have not poked or prodded at the fire and clinker, hoping to just see how it goes un-attended.I can't give it an unequivocal thumbs up though because we have been having some warm days

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1160633654370796182006-10-12T00:45:00.000-05:002006-10-19T14:11:08.066-05:00

So here I sit. Down in the basement again. Laptop balanced on top of a Traeger burn pot. Opening the boiler door once in a while to check on the fire. It seems like deja-vu. It seems like it, because it is. Two winters ago, I was a new corn burner. Still... um... yeah, I have to say it, wet behind the ears (heh heh) and I was lighting my corn burner up for the first time. Looking at the

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1158014531580496012006-09-11T17:36:00.000-05:002006-09-11T17:42:57.090-05:00

For those of you who are interested in solar, as well as biomass, there is a forum coming up you might be interested. It is put on by Andrew Dane and UW Extension - Focus on Energy. The program Northwest Wisconsin Solar Energy Forum Andrew is the same guy who put on the wind forum several months back. Hope to see you all there.

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1155960868580829802006-08-18T21:56:00.000-05:002006-10-06T23:25:48.420-05:00

I had an interesting day today. I took an hour off my day job and drove over to a local company that has just gotten into the corn furnace business. The company name is Energy King (http://www.energyking.com/)and I had a chance to talk, and get a tour from, John Anderson who is the national sales manager for the company. I have to say, I left their plant pretty impressed.Though Energy King is

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1155021913850785782006-08-08T02:24:00.000-05:002006-08-11T08:44:06.920-05:00

Tonight is the first night where there is just that little bite in the air. It is sixty degrees out right now and it feels it. A corn burner's heart starts to look toward the winter. Thinking about those first fires of the season. Checking the gas meter after a warm cozy day and seeing in the exact same spot it was yesterday. Yeah, that get's a corn burner's heart beating faster....It should

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1154579056026398462006-08-02T22:18:00.000-05:002006-10-23T13:31:36.010-05:00

So here it is. The Traeger bottom feeding burn pot. I am really excited to try this baby out. If it would have shown up a week earlier, we had a spell of fifty degree weather, it would have had a fire in it. As it was, it was mid eighties and I just didn't feel like starting a fire.Here are a few more images of it:You can see here the air hole configuration. They no longer have air holes

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1154488684377085922006-08-01T21:47:00.000-05:002006-08-02T01:11:12.446-05:00

I am sitting in a coffeeshop in Walker Minnesota, pondering the future of corn burning and the future in general. Northern Minnesota is a great place to sit and ponder. I came to this coffeeshop hoping to get wireless internet access but I was out of luck. The guy behind the counter told me that though the shop had did not have wireless service, one of the businesses close by had it and he

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1154316948997154552006-07-30T22:34:00.000-05:002006-07-30T22:40:52.500-05:00

Hello everyone. I have been on vacation for the past week so naturally the day after I left town the forum died. Sorry about that. I am back and will be looking into the forum tonight and tomorrow.I also have a blog posting that I have written up at the lake. Going to try to get that posted tomorrow as well.

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1149196950556118242006-06-01T15:47:00.000-05:002006-10-06T23:33:32.503-05:00

The Corn Burner's Forum is now open to the public. The address is http://forum.iburncorn.com the testing is over. It still has one feature that doesn't work, the spell checker, but I am working on that and hope to have it fully working soon.

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1148793352211282322006-05-27T22:08:00.000-05:002006-05-28T00:15:52.266-05:00

Still hidden though. I gave out the address to about a dozen people who are in there posting a few messages in it and testing. It seems like it is going to work. If you want to get in on the testing, drop me a mail and I will send you the address.

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1147924444045583032006-05-16T21:55:00.000-05:002006-05-17T22:54:04.106-05:00

The new web server, setup to be the new Corn Burner's Forum, has been shipped to the ISP. Here is a photo of it all boxed up, the wife is just ready to go out the door and take it to the post office with a bunch of her EBay sales. I am hoping it shows up at my ISP on Thursday. So, don't dispair folks! The forum is about to be back online!I had really hoped that I would be able to migrate over

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1147396132097283662006-05-11T19:23:00.000-05:002006-05-11T20:27:49.346-05:00

I don't know about you, but I am burning corn again. As a matter of fact, I think you are doing the same thing. You want to know how I can tell the outdoor temperature? I look at the hits on my website. The hits go up, people start emailing me asking when the heck the forum is going to come online again. That pretty much tells me that it is cold outside. Today, you are sure right. It's 40

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1147235050545752502006-05-09T23:14:00.000-05:002006-05-09T23:24:10.556-05:00

Hello everyone! It has been a long month, and it is what, the 9th? Oh dear.Already this month we have had some low points. I took a call I had not been looking forward to receiving. My wife's step dad passed away from cancer last week. It was a very rough week on her. She went to her mom's house for the week. She delt with a whole bunch of family issues, as happens at times of death. It

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1143825335437238992006-03-31T10:51:00.000-06:002006-04-03T10:51:09.706-05:00

Saturday night we had tickets to see one of my favorite bands at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The band name, and here's the irony, is Korn. The wife spent enough on the required "new outfit" to make the tickets look cheap. We went with my nephew who got us some really great seats. Visually, I would have to say it was a great show. The sound was really not so good though. It was like

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1143697005902858592006-03-29T23:30:00.000-06:002006-03-29T23:36:45.923-06:00

Only time for a short note. Just wanted to write, that tonight we have the corn fire off. We are hoping to pick up enough solar tomorrow to keep the house warm during the day. Spring time has come, even though I know that winter is still lurking around the corner, and is sure to make at least one more unwelcome appearence. For tonight though, and tomorrow, we thinking spring thoughts.I want

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1143434989487417402006-03-26T22:34:00.000-06:002006-03-26T22:49:49.503-06:00

I don't know for sure what the temperature got up to. But it sure was a great day here in Wisconsin. It was nice enough for me to declare it to be the first official day of yard work. I am planning on building a retaining wall behind my firepit in the backyard this year. So I carried a bunch of the stones I picked up while on the family farm a couple of weeks ago, back to the area I am

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1143002063845259722006-03-21T22:13:00.000-06:002006-03-22T08:17:58.880-06:00

I am reading my email in the basement of a hotel tonight. Wishing I could be home sitting on a corn fired radiator drinking a beer. It never really strikes you how good that beer tastes until you are sitting somewhere you can't get one. :-) I am pretty much a one beer a night kinda guy. Actually my average is a little lower than that. Some nights I forget to have one. Other nights, I open one up

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1142800677163926442006-03-19T13:04:00.000-06:002006-03-20T08:33:16.800-06:00

Last night I put up the pictures of what a cracked burn pot looks like. This morning, the pot has cooled down enough so that I can clean it up and put some boiler cement on it. The cement really looks a lot like concrete but it drys with more of a glassy surface.Here it is as I am spreading it. I just dip in with my finger and squeeze it into the crack. It doesn't really take much. Like I

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1142740315290796462006-03-18T21:35:00.000-06:002006-03-18T23:10:13.186-06:00

Well, I am rested up after a good night's sleep.Check out my new corn burning equipment. This old bit of hardware came from my father's farm, by way of my brother in law's chicken shed for the past twenty years. It is a fanning mill, and is used to clean grain. I am guessing the machine must be about 80 years old. It was pretty much ancient, back when I was a kid, helping my dad clean seed

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1142486060936570822006-03-15T22:48:00.000-06:002006-03-18T14:12:46.740-06:00

I went to type in what I was going to have as the title to this post. "Busy Weeks" I got as far as B,u,s and the computer popped up and suggested the rest. I guess have I have typed that phrase too many times lately.Winter has returned to Wisconsin. We got about a foot of snow on Sunday night. Eight inches predicted for tonight. I guess we are getting our winter late. The snow is a pain

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1141708172345448902006-03-06T23:08:00.000-06:002006-03-06T23:09:32.356-06:00

I hate to say the forum is up, only to have it crash again, but.... the forum is up. I might have found the problem, it was with one record in the database.--ja

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1141341788312561662006-03-02T17:21:00.000-06:002006-03-06T05:08:39.686-06:00

I have contacted an ISP about hosting the forum, even set it up and ran it for a while tonight. It seems like there is something wrong with it though. I will do some more checking into it in the morning. It ran for about half an hour and then suddenly the ISP's server went away.I am now looking into the possibility that maybe one of the posts has some bad data in it.--ja

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1140676195630687082006-02-23T00:21:00.000-06:002006-02-23T00:29:55.643-06:00

I should give some credit where credit is due. I want to announce that the wife ran the corn burner for three days while I was gone. She had a few little problems. She worked through them. I would also confess that I came home, took a look at the fire. Thought it looked a little too fed and so shutoff the feed on the stove. ...of course, fully intending to turn it back on in 15 or 20 minutes

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1140674981719058602006-02-22T23:56:00.001-06:002006-02-23T00:09:41.720-06:00

Homecoming tonight. I am back in Chippewa Falls. I got a little time to look at the new server tonight. I had been looking at some software called Blue Dragon. It is free software that runs on a computer and can send out dynamic web pages, like the forum is. I had looked at it some before I left. I had downloaded the newest version and tried to install it on the new server. It would

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1140580029805718492006-02-21T21:31:00.000-06:002006-02-26T05:55:55.950-06:00

I bet it was more fun than where I am. I am sitting in a hotel, so that part might be the same. The difference is I am working nine hours a day. Then sitting in a hotel, where I have very limited net access (a fact that I never realized would drive me so crazy!). What's worse, the area the hotel is located in is dry, SO I CAN'T EVEN HAVE A BEER! Aaaaaagh.On top of all this, my web server

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1138500036750643042006-01-28T15:43:00.000-06:002006-02-21T12:19:37.533-06:00

Well, I was sitting outside a few days back, another typical January day in Wisconsin. I was sittin' there in the sun, wearing a t-shirt, drinkin' a beer. I was saying, you know, this winter stuff, it ain't so bad....Ahh, but I have lived in the north for too long. I just feel like there is going to be hell to pay for all this nice weather. The last couple of nights we have been getting a

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1138162329078645992006-01-24T20:55:00.000-06:002006-01-24T23:38:49.920-06:00

I apologize in advance to all the computer illiterate corn burners out there. Suffer through, I need to talk technical for a bit. I will try to get to some actual corn burning talk before the post is over. I have seen some of the posts on the forum and heard from a few of you so I know there are some geeks burning corn too. I will let you know something I discovered today.Today was sort of a

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1137647030046851162006-01-18T23:02:00.000-06:002006-01-18T23:03:50.056-06:00

Sorry folks, the server is crashed out again. I think this will be coming to and end. I have the new machine all setup. Now I just need to do some testing on it and then I will ship it out to my ISP.--ja

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1137478176478841432006-01-16T23:49:00.000-06:002006-01-17T12:59:45.606-06:00

One of the really great things about running this web site is some of the great email I get. On any given day I get somewhere between five and ten emails from corn burners, or wanna-be corn burners. I get a lot of questions, I get a few suggestions, and I get alot of good general information. Here is one of the good information ones.Don writes:In October of '05 I decided enough was enough.

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1137476985653131992006-01-16T23:28:00.000-06:002006-03-16T09:07:52.206-06:00

Ah well. I am being outted this morning. I was one of the topics in the company newsletter that came out on Friday. With the holiday Monday, it is hitting everyone's inbox Tuesday morning. Remember Walker, paybacks are hell.... :-) Every time MPCA webmaster John Abbott opened his heating bills last winter, it was a painful hit to his pocket book. With a monthly natural gas bill approaching

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1136621963679933592006-01-07T01:50:00.000-06:002006-03-15T13:40:53.600-06:00

A small project that I did is to wire in two lights into my zone pumps. I did that during the time we were running our boiler to do our domestic hot water 100%. Our electric hot water heater was shut off. Currently we are using the boiler as a pre heater to the electric hot water heater. More about that later.My trouble was the pumps run so quiet, you really can't tell which one is running.

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1136619191855432222006-01-06T23:14:00.000-06:002006-01-07T22:49:36.023-06:00

Christmas is over. The Rellies have all gone home. Life is coming back to normal. Gosh, what all has been happening on the corn burning front? Well, the Traeger pulled a little trick on me a couple of times. The way my corn burner works is to have two motors to move the corn. It has a cup motor on the top, which is a geared down motor that attaches to a shaft via a couple of allen-set

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1135232527056621302005-12-21T23:53:00.000-06:002006-01-02T22:27:58.790-06:00

I get a lot of personal email from the corn burning site. At least two or three a day. More during a coldsnap. :-) Somebody wrote to me the other day and he surmised from reading all my posts that corn burners are not ready for prime time. I don't know. I'm not sure what I answered back, I am not even sure I even did answer. It's a tough question. Can I see grandmother in Topeka using a

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1135057462963424652005-12-19T23:12:00.000-06:002005-12-21T14:45:00.066-06:00

OK, that last post did look kind of rough. Poor spelling and puctuation optional. Sorry about that. I was just afraid if I didn't get it posted, pretty soon a week would have gone by.So, the Icynene insulation salesman came for a visit. I want to get a bid on insulating our attic which currently has no insulation. What we settled on was, I am going to shim the sidewalls out to six inches.

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1134974696839246802005-12-17T10:24:00.000-06:002005-12-19T00:44:56.870-06:00

This is sort of rough. I haven't even spell checked it. Tomorrow will be my first day back to work after being off for a week. I don't want to leave it unposted. I will follow up later in the week. So, here it is, my post for Dec 18th:I have been out sick for the past week. Ugh! It was a nasty chest cold that really got me down. So, not much has happened on the blog or the web site this

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1133824909544755542005-12-05T17:21:00.000-06:002005-12-05T23:39:02.173-06:00

Corn stoves for homes are hot item An article in the Star Tribune attests to the popularity of corn burning stoves. We are defined as a "Consumer Craze" rather than a good idea who's time has come. Still, it is good to see this. The more people interested, the more companies are going to be interested in the corn stove building business and I have to think that is good for all of us. On an

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1133811741085876052005-12-05T13:42:00.000-06:002006-01-31T13:40:16.953-06:00

Fireplace Stoves, Gas Stoves, Pellet Stoves, Fireplaces, Fireplace Inserts by QUADRA-FIRE: Products - Pellet Inserts I think some of our problem when it gets to these really cold days is that our Traeger TPB-150 Corn burning boiler can keep up with the demand of the house, but *just barely*. Part of this is an attic insulation issue (we don't have any), but I think part of it also is just the

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1133417270648578532005-11-30T23:12:00.000-06:002005-12-16T09:16:12.980-06:00

Wow, what a couple of busy weeks! Thanksgiving was good here. The day leading up to the day of was warmer, then it dropped into the teens on the day itself. You can be a lot more comfortable in a warm house on a cold day without that ku-ching of the gas meter to think about hour after hour. Everything has been running pretty good but I had a slight overflow of corn from the burn pot on

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1132722350416265032005-11-22T23:53:00.000-06:002006-03-15T11:42:15.173-06:00

Well the plumbing project is done. As a little bit of background, we use a corn fed boiler to heat the old fashion cast iron radiators in our house. As part of the boiler it has built into it a "tankless coil" domestic hot water heater built into it. Last year was our first year of heating the house with corn. This year I decided to hook up the water heater part.We are exclusively using our

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1132470983180703022005-11-20T03:38:00.000-06:002006-03-15T13:33:31.553-06:00

I have been working on a little plumbing project this weekend. A couple of weeks ago I got an email from someone off of the web site who was talking about how great the tankless hot water heater on the Traeger corn boiler was. I had not hooked mine up last year because I figured there was enough for me to figure out without the wild card of trying to use the furnace as our domestic hot water

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1132414706941221172005-11-19T08:26:00.000-06:002006-02-13T19:23:53.616-06:00

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

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19102818.post-1132341296908151342005-11-18T13:01:00.000-06:002005-11-18T13:34:51.116-06:00

Here starts the event blog of a person who burns shelled corn to heat his family's home. What I hope to do is make it easy for myself to give people and insite into what it takes to heat with corn.I am not currently planning to allow feedback on this blog. If you would like to give me feedback, please visit my web site at http://www.iburncorn.com and fill out a feedback comment, or better yet,

John Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691685688354223974noreply@blogger.com