We love the playroom we created in our basement but during the winter the basement is too cold. I don't like to use an electric heater because it is expensive and inadequate so we have been investigating corn and pellet stoves.
We are leaning towards this corn stove because it is easy to convert to pellet burning:
The local farmers grow a special corn that is high in oil and low in starch (developed as cattle feed) and being harvested for corn stoves. The cost for fuel is around $185 per ton - perhaps enough for the season. The stove is about $2k. We like the idea of having an affordable and flexible fuel source which is local (corn) or widespread (wood pellets). (It can also handle other 'bio-mass' product like cherry pits.)
Other alternatives include the following pellet stoves which are a little more sophisticated:
Wood pellets run $180 - $300 per ton and these units run $2k -$3k. Venting runs around $500 and installation another $500 (unless I do it myself).
Thelin Gnome Quadra-Fire Castile Quadra-Fire Santa Fe
UPDATE - See November 2005 post for complete updates
New guest David recommends the Bixby Corn Stove
Also found these corn stoves from St. Croix
The Greenfield stove
A better corn stove is the BIXBY. It is fully automatic, even cleans itself! goto bixbyenergy.com
Posted by: david | September 14, 2005 at 03:02 PM
Welcome David!
Thanks for the link - looks like the Bixby 100 is innovative. Unfortunately their site has a lot of unfinished pages and there is no local dealer (all the dealers seem to be on the other side of the state +100 miles away). If I can get out there soon I will check out the products. It is fairly frustrating that most corn/wood pellet stove dealers won't reveal list prices let alone provide web based ordering.
Posted by: Stuart Berman | September 14, 2005 at 09:58 PM
We've been looking at the Gnome. I'll confess that a certain amount of it is because of the "cool" factor. I'm gonna spend a lot of time very close to this baby, so it would help if it looked cool. I read the owners manual online--you have to vacuum out the ash with a shop vac because there is no tray for the ash. Advantage? Disadvantage? Maybe a vacuum is the cleaner way to do this anyway...
Posted by: Amy Stewart | October 01, 2005 at 12:45 AM
Welcome Amy!
Yes, my wife and I really wanted to buy the Gnome - it looks great. Since the stove needs to go in our basement however it is less of a centerpiece and the functionality is more important... still it is a beauty. Our biggest problem with the Gnome is that we can't just let it run for a few days - it seems to require daily attention and their is no automatic start.
With the corn stove (we finally bought the Baby Magnum, but we are still waiting on some of the 'corn vent' pipe that is on backorder) there is an automatic lighter however that feature only works with wood pellets not corn - so we have two different ways to go - something I really like. I also expect wood pellet prices to skyrocket since a significant portion of the price here is the cost of shipping.
As far as vacuuming - you should consider a specialty vacuum that is built for stoves between the risk of hot ashes and the fine (motor eating) ash.
Posted by: Stuart Berman | October 01, 2005 at 12:09 PM
Stuart
How do you like the stove? I'm thinking of the Magnum T40. We live in NY and the gas prices have doubled. Time to get a stove! Let me know what you think of the Magnum brand please.
Thanks!
Posted by: James Martorano | October 14, 2005 at 08:13 AM
Welcome, James!
Sorry to say we have yet to fire it up. We have been waiting for a DuraVent 'T' on backorder. The local corn is about ready to harvest and I hope that within a week or two we will have the unit up.
My initial impression is pretty good. The system looks well designed and well built. The only problem I noticed is that a few of the screws seemed to have worked loose during shipping - so I strongly suggest you check each screw and bolt before installing. In our case it was the blower assembly. We wound up getting the 12 volt system even though I preferred the 120 volt system this is due to a severe shortage of available stoves and we just didn't want to wait until January for the anticipated shipment. I am guessing that there will be a huge demand for pellet and corn stoves as people realize that fuel prices are going to shoot up this winter. I imagine that the DuraVent (we ordered Corn Vent which has stainless steel lining) backorders are due to unexpected demand.
I will update you once we get everything running and perhaps upload some photos of our installation.
Posted by: Stuart Berman | October 14, 2005 at 09:33 PM
We bought a Baby Magnum this fall for my home. ( I've had a Countryside stove at work for 5 years - works great). I went w/the Baby because of my experience with the Countryside but we have had a number of problems todate. The vac switch which senses when the door is open or negative pressure was so sensitive it "shut down" the stove all of the time. We finally by-passed it to keep the stove running. The room air fan is very noisy. You would not want it running in a room you spend alot of time in (e.g. watching tv). The company sent me a replacement and it was louder so I sent it back. As the weeks went by the stove seemed "starved" for air and burned very poorly if at all. I was performing routine maintenance (vacuuming the exhaust pipe) every couple of weeks. Finally, I was able to talk directly with the companies technician and he diagnosed the problem. The fresh air intake at the bottom of the fire pot was getting plugged by ash/corn indvertently being pushed into the opening, reducing the fresh air intake and causing the problem. The company is supposed to be sending out an "adapter" which will prevent the problem. You need to vac out the fresh air intake every two weeks or less to take care of the problem. I also seem to have a "negative pressure" issue with this stove. Open the door and ash/sparks fly into the room instead of the exhaust. The company says its my house. Overall, if I had to do it again I would have went with the Countryside stove or maybe spent another $1,000 and tried a Bixby.
Posted by: robert schwartz | February 10, 2006 at 11:24 AM
Robert,
Thanks for the feedback. This is my first experience with corn stoves so my judgement is without a relative perspective.
I have wondered lately how this stoves compares to others in the market. I have found it to be a bit dirtier than I would like - that is deposits of ash in the room I assume from opening the door while it is running. I also notice that it is noiser than I would prefer but not intolerable. I seemed to also suffer from air 'starvation' but by changing the firepot this seems to have gone away. I will take a much closer look at the potential corn build up.
Overall I am very happy with the stove. We still have 6 sacks of corn left of the 72 we initially purchased which will get us into March. Then I will switch to fully automatic with a few sacks of wood pellets for the occaisional need. Our basement has remained toasty warm while reducing our overall heating costs and the stove is reliable and running almost 24 x 7. I suspect that the basic problem is that such a small stove fights physics and that the quality, design and production issues are a fact of life for products that don't enjoy mass manufacturing.
Posted by: Stuart Berman | February 26, 2006 at 12:54 AM
I stumbled across your blog while I was doing some online research. The only drawback to a corn-burning stove, I've heard, is that the stored corn attracts mice big-time. Many pellet stoves also burn corn, so that might be a wiser choice.
Posted by: thebizofknowledge | August 07, 2006 at 03:12 PM
Biz,
I expect that is a concern for some. I chose to store the corn in our basement and our cats would welcome some mice. Some people use a large steel hopper to store the corn although we just stacked it on some wood 2x4's in the bags they arrived in. The Magnum burns pellets or corn (or both) so we hedged our bets.
Posted by: Stu | August 07, 2006 at 05:40 PM
I'm curious about The Bixby 100, and 115. Does the auto ignition work on a "corn only" mix. Are they as clean and efficient as stated. I have a country flame "Harvester". It's loud, and needs cleaning every day, ash box emptied ect..... also, there is alot of manual adjusting on the air intake to get straight corn to burn on the lower settings. Even though it heats my home of 2300 square feet perfectly, I'm ready to make a change. as with other postings, i'm a good distance from a bixby dealer. Any info is much appreciated. You should have seen the look on my propane deliverer's face last winter when he came to fill the tank. It was priceless! I didn't need a drop.
Posted by: Monty Smith | September 21, 2006 at 10:34 AM
Monty - I don't have experience with Bixby - you might contact David (see link above) to get his perspective.
Posted by: Stu | September 22, 2006 at 02:46 AM
i stumbled upon this blog while searcing for the bixby stove and took the liberty of reading the posts. i am a certified dealer of the quadrafire products and just got done with their product training classes we dealers participate in. their new mt. vernon (ae) model is due to release soon and looks to be quite a remarkable product. we were "amaized" at all of the improvements and upgrades they have added to this stove. unfortunately, their web site does not have any new information available yet but i will e-mail my dealer info to anyone interested. mcci@comcast.net
Posted by: dennis w. | October 09, 2006 at 02:12 PM
Dennis,
Thanks for commenting - I have had plenty of people asking about information on a variety of pellet and corn stoves.
Posted by: Stu | October 09, 2006 at 08:58 PM
Stuart, I'm heating over 6,000 sq ft with two corn burning stoves. One is a Country Flame "Harvester" and the other one is a 30,000 BTU unit that came from Fleet Farm. We are starting the 5th year with the Harvester and the 3rd year with the other one. At the beginning of the season the Harvester gets started and runs 24-7 for 5 to 6 months through our cold winters in Northern Iowa with out missing a beat.
I will make the suggestion to anyone that they buy the hot ash vac (appx. $185.00) when you purchase your stove. We have one at each stove and you can clean the stove out while it's running! I also made a purchase a few years ago of a .9 ton self standing Poly-Bin (http://www.americanroyal.net/page/page/3244987.htm) that sits behind my garage. Our local elevator will deliver our corn in a feed truck and auger it into our bin for a $10.00 delivery charge. No more dollar a bag charge!
The best part of this was when the gas company showed up last year to inspect my gas meter. I think they thought I had been tampering with my meter, because I wasn't using very much gas!
Posted by: L. Zbornik | November 02, 2006 at 02:08 PM
I purchased the Bixby 115 this fall. So far I've been still tampering with the feed rate to get the burn right. I guess I was expecting to start her up and let her go...but I've run into issues when I run it overnight and shut it off in the morning. I thought I had the feed rate right and it seems to burn great when I leave it burn 24 X 7. Apparently, though, the shut down / start up procedures are cause to clean it almost everytime before restart. Also, getting the vent cap off to vacuum the exhaust is a job in itself. All of the pipes "snap" together and are siliconed. I still have not been able to get the cap off to clean out the exhaust. Has anyone experienced this problem with the stove and if so...any suggestions??
Posted by: B. Ambrov | November 17, 2006 at 07:43 PM