Heating with Pellets

[snowmansimon]

I am wondering if anyone is burning corn in a pellet stove to heat with? I have just under 2 acres that I could plant, have a small Kubota BX I purchased to do my landscaping (looking for uses for it now),I heat with electricity, have a tiller. Does anyone do this on a small scale like this? My thoughts with no real experience are to pelletize the stalk and corn and burn the pellets. Am I crazy to try and do this? I would love to use the land and the BX to benefit me somehow and not just look at it. Local company sells sawdust for $40 for a tote bag. Looks to be about 4' x 4' x 5'. Could possibly turn these into pellets?

 

[coobie]

Burned wood pellets/corn for 18 plus years.Corn has to be a certain moisture rate to burn efficiently.I stayed with the pellets after a few Hugh corn clinkers in my auger.

 

[Ken45101]

Sawdust is made into pellets via high pressure machinery which squeezes out the moisture, AFAIK, it's not practical or economical to do on a small sale.

You can mix dry corn with pellets in some stoves or even burn corn alone. Back years ago, they sold corn stoves, but the ethanol boondoggle jacked he price up and made it uneconomical unless you grew and processed your own.

 

[snowmansimon]

Sawdust is made into pellets via high pressure machinery which squeezes out the moisture, AFAIK, it's not practical or economical to do on a small sale.

You can mix dry corn with pellets in some stoves or even burn corn alone. Back years ago, they sold corn stoves, but the ethanol boondoggle jacked he price up and made it uneconomical unless you grew and processed your own.

Sort of what I was thinking. Growing my own. I have 1 acre that used to be farmed by previous owner and could easily be used. I have a little under an acre of smaller areas combined. If I could grow 1-2 acres of corn and chop up the entire stalk/cob and run this through a hammer mill and pellet mill then I could heat all winter with this possibly. Currently my electrical bill is around $80-90 in the summer months and goes up to $400-500 in the winter months. Growing and burning my own pellets would decrease winter usage and maybe a small grid tied solar setup to make up the rest.

I have the BX and land and feel I could be putting it to use. I just don't know the costs I would be getting into to set all this up.

 

[Carl_NH]

If you don't have a pellet stove now, that will set you back $1500 or more plus installation. I cant imagine growing, harvesting and drying an acre of corn, then shelling it manually!

IMO you would be better off looking into a 12000 BTU Mini Split heat pump set up for $2K plus $1K or so for installation - would provide heat and AC and are 300% efficient vs electric baseboard heating 100% due to the way they operate. Then put up 10-15 solar panels and essentially you have free heat with minimal labor. Yes the cost of the solar panel setup is probably $10K+ but you get a third back in tax credits.

 

[LouNY]

As I read the original post I believe that he wishes to use the entire plant fodder and grain to produce his own pellets for heating fuel.
If you search for bio mass pellet equipment you will find considerable information.
Pellet mill plant and briquetting machine from Gemco Machinery are ready to make pellets and briquettes for you!

 

[YanmarFever]

One of our heat sources is pellet, we purchased a Harman XXV pellet stove.
Do I like pellets, NO! I like wood heat a lot better, but we had to try it, so here we are with this boat anchor.
Pellets do not heat as good as a wood stove in my opinion. Plus pellets are 249.00 a ton.
However, as we age wood cutting gets to be a pain although I love doing it.

 

[shooterdon]

There is a guy here (5030??) who heats with "free" corn. He should pipe in shortly.

I know a couple that installed a pellet stove in their first house and "loved it". They did not install one in their next house. When I worked the numbers, it was not a cheap way to heart but cheaper than electricity. Burning wood is the least expensive option in my area even if I have to buy wood for $180/cord.

 

[snowmansimon]

Our electricity rates are not outrageous but they are still there. My house is a 3 car garage with a 2 bedroom loft above it. I heat the garage to 5C to keep everything from freezing and it helps heat the upstairs a small amount. The garage is probably my biggest expense as far as heating as its electric heat. The living quarters is mainly heated with a mini split.

My idea was to heat the garage with a pellet stove to help reduce the electricity used. Pellet stove would maintain the garage at 5C minimum and if I go down to work I can crank up the elec heat to get things warmed up quick. Now if I could grow then make my own pellets for fairly cheap then my heat would almost be free for the garage. Even if I had to purchase sawdust and make pellets with this. I guess I just dont know the cost involved with getting a proper setup going.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

IF you plan to grow corn and make pellets, there is NO "fairly cheap"!!!!

SR

 

[BrokenTrack]

I am wondering if anyone is burning corn in a pellet stove to heat with? I have just under 2 acres that I could plant, have a small Kubota BX I purchased to do my landscaping (looking for uses for it now),I heat with electricity, have a tiller. Does anyone do this on a small scale like this? My thoughts with no real experience are to pelletize the stalk and corn and burn the pellets. Am I crazy to try and do this? I would love to use the land and the BX to benefit me somehow and not just look at it. Local company sells sawdust for $40 for a tote bag. Looks to be about 4' x 4' x 5'. Could possibly turn these into pellets?

I do this!

What I have found is, a wood pellet blend of 2/3 with 1/3 corn works the best, or at least for my stove. If I went to a higher ratio of corn to wood pellet, it was just plain too hot. The moisture content for my stove does not matter because it has a hopper, and dries the corn out before it is burned.

Money wise it works out better, even buying the whole corn for livestock feed because there is twice as much heat in burning corn, and because they come in bigger bags (50 pounds instead of 40 pounds). Of course producing your own corn would save even more money. But it need not be corn, you could also produce sunflowers and burn the seeds as well.

I looked into making my own pellets, but there was no feasible way to do that. The equipment was expensive, and the production was small at only 600 pounds per hour. The amount of time it would take to do all the steps, just defeated the whole purpose. That was when I realized, instead of using expensive equipment to make a consistently sized pellet that would burn, why not just grow something like corn or sunflowers that was already consistently sized. Every scenario I came up with, penciled out.

Myself: I do not grow my own corn or sunflowers, or at least not yet. I cut a load of tree length firewood (9 cords) sell it, and then buy wood pellets with the money (3 tons). If it gets really cold, and I want my stove to put out more heat, I just mix in some corn at 1/3 mixture.

 

[BrokenTrack]

This was the first year we heated this house (2600 sq ft) with wood pellets, and we are definitely doing it again. We have never been so warm, with so little effort, for so cheap.

We did have the stove given to us, so that helped, but we burned 3 ton of wood pellets this year, for a total cost of $750. If we had burned propane, we would have spent $3000, so it is a huge savings.

I could have gone with firewood, but here is where the amount of work involved, just does not pencil out. It would have meant felling, limbing, twitching, bucking, splitting, hauling, bringing into the house...firewood. Seven steps that would have taken a few days, and then there would have been all the mess in the house.

In just one day, I can fell, limb and twitch nine cords of tree length firewood, sell it, and pay for wood pellets. And wood pellets is better heat because it is even heat: why do all the work of firewood just to sweat to death when the fire is raging, and freeze when it needs to be stoked? Wood pellets is nice even heat that is very controllable.

If I had to buy my stove, I would consider a coal stove instead, and buy coal as it pencils out even better. But again, I had my wood pellet stove given to me, so that is why I used it.

 

[snowmansimon]

Some good info. I am just across the border in NB so similar weather. I wish I could grow something on the land to make a few dollars on the side. Heating with what ever I grown sounds like its not feasible.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Some good info. I am just across the border in NB so similar weather. I wish I could grow something on the land to make a few dollars on the side. Heating with what ever I grown sounds like its not feasible.

I was not saying that at all, to me the numbers looked favorable.

If you do not already have a pellet stove, you could buy a flex-fuel stove and perhaps burn 100% corn. If that is the case, then you might be able to grow your own corn. I cannot remember the numbers off the top of my head, but it was like 1 acre of corn equated to 3 ton of corn kernels. There is no free lunch, a person would have to buy fertilizer, some seed, etc to get it to grow, but time wise, what does it matter? If you are putting in a garden, just make it bigger and grow an acre or two of corn. It would not be that much more time.

As for harvesting, corn is nothing like making wood pellets. There are lots of videos on youtube on how to make homemade machines that strip the cob. I would just wait until frost kills the corn and gets some serious dry-down, then harvest the cobs and run them through a chain beater. In the end you would have an acre or two tied up in corn, but it is no different then the people that have a few acres of forest to have enough firewood to heat their home. And you would be producing far more then a few hundred pounds of wood pellets with $10,000 worth of pellet-making equipment.

As I said, the numbers looked pretty good for me, and I was just calculating on a 1/3 mix. FOR ME...it just makes more sense for me to cut 9 cords of tree length firewood and sell it, and in one days time, get enough money to buy 100% of my wood pellets that I need to heat my home. If I did not have a free wood pellet stove, I would have bought a coal stove, and did the same firewood-sell-for-coal-thing. But again, that is me, your situation would be/may be different.

I do not think making wood pellets would work. It would be a tall order to get the sawdust, run it through a hammer mill, then run it through a pellet-maker, all at 600 pounds of pellets per ton, get it down to 6% moisture content...all for less than $230 per ton.That is a lot of time spent doing it, and on the equipment.

But corn...is already that size, you just need to get it off the cob. The same could be said for sunflowers too. They grow well here, and maybe where you live...I do not know. They only yield 1 ton to the acre, but I think the cool-factor would be nice: a few acres of beautiful sunflowers in the summer, knowing they will heat your home all winter.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Boy, you guys sure think it's easy to plant, grow and harvest corn!

I see a lifes lesson coming, for most of you!! ha ha

SR

 

[LouNY]

Are you thinking deer damage, root borers, rust, smut, mildew, weed control and we haven't even thought about tillage and harvesting.
I think it would be interesting to watch and listen in on. :confused2:

 

[Jaylegger]

I owned a Harman about 20 years ago. It was a bottom feed and advertised to burn wood pellets, corn, and coal. Unless you have the capability to maintain the corn at a relatively consistent low moisture content (memory is thinking 5%-10% or so) then all you're doing is buying a headache.

Achieving this is near impossible without significant investment.

 

[Ortimber]

I can't comment on the corn, but in general, we love our pellet stove.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I can't comment on the corn, but in general, we love our pellet stove.

Me too.

We have never been so warm, so for so little money, with so little work.

 

[Billy Bee]

Boy, you guys sure think it's easy to plant, grow and harvest corn!

I see a lifes lesson coming, for most of you!! ha ha

SR

Yup, and not cheap