John wrote:
Al Dykes wrote:

In article ,
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.
--
My experience and opinion, FWIW



Can scrap paper be pelletized for your furnace?

Nobody's mentioned the pollution aspects of home heating. A megawatt
coal plant can use technology that, AFAIK, isn't in a home furnace.
In the 70s I was reading about towns in snow country requiring
catalytic coverters in new construction.

--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m

Don't blame me. I voted for Gore.


Some coal gen plants are burning corn as a secondary fuel.
It works out to be cheaper than coal.

John

This would be a bad time to mention that i burn 7-10 cords of firewood
per winter

IF pellets were more affordable here i'd think it was great or if i had
a pellet press i'd visit the local woodshops and shovel their dust
collectors