Generally I like those in concept. Chip type anyway - corn is fine also.

I'd have an inverter on a battery on a charger - or a UPS large enough to last
blackouts...

Hard to turn the screw to crank fiber to the fire. Wish there were thermo couples
on the stack to generate the power to turn the screw! That might be an idea.
Then a small startup battery would do it in a blackout.

Martin
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH & Endowment Member
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder



Steve wrote:
I have been burning wood fiber pellets for 3 years and it sure beat the
labor involved in cutting/splitting wood (which is available on my property
or near by)..

The efficiency of a modern pellet/corn stove are up around 85%. If you
don't believe the literature, just place your had on the unjacketed flue
pipe of a well tuned pellet stove.

My present stove (Quadri-Fire) is capable of burning corn but will not
ignite automatically unless there is about 25% mix of pellets. Once lite, it
will burn until the thermostat turns it off. On pellets, it will run on
automatic continuously, as long as there is a thermostat demand and fuel in
the hopper. It will re-ignite automatically on pellets.

The only other maintenance is a weekly clean of the small amount of fine ash
and an annual cleaning of the heat exchanger. Good quality pellets only have
about 1% ash.

Not sure of these figures for corn but have heard they are similar.

If I had a good supply of corn in my Pac. NW area, I would give it a try..
Pellets presently cost me $139 a ton or about.

I can heat my very old mfg home (1152 sq/ft) on about 3 ton a year.

The stove is of marginal size, 40,000 btus but provides as much heat as I
need.

I consider corn a renewable energy source while wood pellets are presently a
wood by-product. The local demand for wood fiber for paper and partial board
may soon drive the price of wood pellet high enough that corn my be the next
alternative.

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