In July 2006 I purchased a US Stove 6039 Multi-fuel Corn/Pellet Stove to
replace an open fireplace. The house is a 1996
sectional.
It is 2000 square feet and besides
the bedrooms is very open.
Prior to using the corn burner I typically contracted 1500 gallons of
propane a year.
Originally the shop which
is a separate building was also heated with propane.
Close to 1000 gallons is consumed for heating
the main residence.
For the amount of time i spend out there in the winter the thermal mass of the concrete floor and insulation it
stays above freezing for almost the entire winter. The water heater, clothes dryer and cook range/oven are also propane.
US Stove sent the modified burn pot
and 5 finger agitator along with the
version 34 program. The stove generates a more large
ash than
I would like but with oyster shell the clinkers
have been brought under
control.
| Oct 15 2006 | I start running the stove in early October. The gravity wagon was delivered around October 15 with 170 bushels of corn. the 170 bushels was just a guess. I am hoping to not have any leftover but I also would like to not have to run the furnace either. |
| Sept 28, 2007 | 176 bushels and I ended up having about 6 bushels left over from last years. I did a test burn early in September with about 7 pounds of corn to see if the old stuff was still good enough to burn. It seems to burn okay, it will be a bit challenging to clean as the critters hatched out over the summer and at one point I had a garage full of corn millers of some sort flying around. The top of the tubs of corn have a lot of spiderwebs and caterpillar silks stuck to them, but I am going to try and burn it as i just dont want to throw it away. |
| October 7, 2008 | The house propane tank was down to 23%(500 gallon tank) from 2007's summer fill of 400 gallons. I did a minimum fill of 200 gallons this time. Barring no problems with the corn stove this should again get me through to next summer. |
| November 2008 | Corn is here. 215 bushels, I came up a little short last year and asked Darrell to fill the wagon a little fuller. Its a lot of corn and its dirtier than the last two years. I've been burning it for several weeks and no jams. Apparently the 6039 stove's auger has enough room and is short enough to be able to deal with most of the stalk sizes. |
| September 2009 | A SolarsHeat 1500GS has been added to the house. This is a solar air heat collector with a built in 20 watt pv panel to power the fan. I'll be stocking a little less corn with the hope that on sunny days it will allow me to shut the stove down at least for part of the sunny daylight hours. |
| November 10, 2009 | Corn has been delivered, 182 bushels. |
| October 13, 2010 | Corn straight from my field, approximately 170 bushels. Late last spring I converted the stove to a clinker stove. Purchased a deep clinker burn pot and will be running without the agitator hopefully all winter. It runs so much cleaner as a clinker stove. |
| October 28, 2011 | Corn delivered, 201 bushels, off and running. |
| September 23, 2012 | With the drought this year my field produced 1/3 of its normal yield of corn. Corn prices at the time of harvest were 7.70 a bushel. I can buy the same btu's of wood pellets for half of what corn would cost me to heat with. I have between 30-50 bushels of corn left over from last year. So, this year I am going to be burning a mix of corn and pellets. Planning on acquiring around 4 ton of pellets in the next few weeks. |
| October 25, 2013 | Corn prices are down to 4.20/bushel. Now have 197 bushel in the wagon as pellets are still going for $4.00 a 40 pound bag. no contest, corn this year. |
| October 2014 | 197.5 bushels delivered. This is the muddiest day I had to put the wagon up. Stuck twice in the mud and ended up borrowing a much bigger tractor to get out. Thankfully my 19 year old daughter was home from college and was able to help me. Both of us woke up sore and stiff next morning. |
| October 2015 | 189 bushels delivered at $3.56/bushel. |
| October 2016 | 153 bushels delivered at $3.??/bushel. approximately 50 bushels left over from last year. |
| November 2017 | 141 bushels delivered at $3.17/bushel. approximately 40 bushels left over from last year. |
| October 2018 |
177 bushels delivered at $3.15/bushel.
Also, Dumped FerrellGas after getting tired of being overcharged for gas and being locked out of gas i owned in 'their' tank when i had a leak on my side of the equipment. I got the leak fixed, and bought a tank from a provider more willing to work with rural and farm customers. If i never see or have to deal with "Feral Gas" again, it will be too soon. |
| November 09, 2019 |
165 bushels delivered at $3.70/bushel.
With all the wet weather and late planting i have burned around 800 pounds of wood pellets until corn was available. Now back to corn. |
| October 14, 2020 |
192 bushels delivered at $3.62/bushel.
|
| October 22, 2021 |
154 bushels delivered at $5.00/bushel.
|
| October 22, 2022 |
172 bushels delivered at $?/bushel.
|
cleaning the corn cleaning the stove
Short running flame video(Windows media stream) Short running flame video(mpg)
Other Corn burning related web sites
US Stove