Why burn corn?
More and more people are choosing to burn corn to heat their homes- and for good reason! Corn is cost-effective, safe, clean burning, and convenient. Choosing a St. Croix corn stove as your home heating solution is a smart decision. We have 100+ years of combustion engineering and manufacturing experience. As a result, St. Croix corn stoves are unsurpassed in their reliability and combustion efficiency.
So would anyone really want to burn corn? Isn’t corn food? Does it really burn? Is it economical to burn? Is there anything else that this product will burn if I don’t want to burn corn? Well the answer to all of those questions is YES! And here is why! Corn is a a product which is available just about anywhere as a feed for animals. If there is a farm nearby with animals, chances are there is some corn used as feed. Because of this widespread use of corn, a lot of it is grown! And when there is a high level of availability, the cost for it is usually low…. which is why people started to look at using it as a fuel in the first place. And corn as a fuel does burn well! The average BTUs found in a bushel of corn is 504,000 BTUs – thats a lot of heat! If corn weighs on the average of 56# per bushel (there is some slight variation due to growing conditions), then every pound contains 9000 BTUs. So corn does have the heat available when burned. Now lets compare that to some common fuels u
In Ontario we have an abundant source of dry shelled corn. The corn used as a fuel in stoves does not have to be Grade No. 1, but can be of lower quality. There are however two requirements of this corn fuel: • The shelled corn must be dry, preferably 15% moisture content or less. Corn which is higher in moisture will have a lower heat value per unit weight than “dry” corn. Moist corn may also cause flow problems through the fuel loading auger. • The shelled corn must be free of fines. Dirty corn which has a lot of fines and cob pieces will cause problems with the fuel loading auger. The storage, moving and handling of grain corn has evolved to a point where there are very few unknowns. Every year farmers harvest, dry, convey, and store millions of bushels of corn. The equipment to do all these things is readily available. Consequently putting a corn storage system together for a home heating set up is possible with augers, conveyors and storage bins which are readily available. Two re
In Pennsylvania we have an abundant source of dry shelled corn. The corn used as a fuel in stoves does not have to be Grade No. 1, but can be of lower quality. There are however two requirements of this corn fuel: • The shelled corn must be dry, preferably 15% moisture content or less. Corn which is higher in moisture will have a lower heat value per unit weight than “dry” corn. Moist corn may also cause flow problems through the fuel loading auger. • The shelled corn must be free of fines. Dirty corn which has a lot of fines and cob pieces will cause problems with the fuel loading auger. The storage, moving and handling of grain corn has evolved to a point where there are very few unknowns. Every year farmers harvest, dry, convey, and store millions of bushels of corn. The equipment to do all these things is readily available. Consequently putting a corn storage system together for a home heating set up is possible with augers, conveyors and storage bins which are readily available. T
