Winterr heating

[ianben]

Anyone any experience with a stove burning corn or wheat as a form of heating?
Oil gas prices/wheat price make it look attractive but does it work in practice?

[redhen]

You might want to check out these websites for some info.

Lehman's online catalogue of odd and unusual off-the grid items at: www.lehmans.com

The New Farm for a searchable data-base of innovative planet-friendly solutions:

www.newfarm.org

[farmers_son]

See:

http://www.producer.com/registered/articles/1999/0223/news/02181999news15.html

ELGIN, Man. -- With commodity prices at dismal lows, Steve and Lisa Tufts have found a novel use for their grain.

They burn it.

The Tufts installed a heating system in their farm home last month that uses grain as its fuel. The grain-burning stove generates enough heat for the house, which has 1,380 sq. feet on the main floor and equivalent space in the basement.

During a cold, windy evening last week, Steve poured a bucket of rye into the stove's small hopper. As little as one bushel of grain can heat their house for a day.

Also:

http://www.producer.com/subscriber/articles/2005/0929/news/20050929news17.html

BRUNO, Sask. - In what has become a winter ritual at the Hering farmhouse north of Bruno, somebody goes out to the attached garage twice a day, carries in a pail of fall rye and pours it into a hole on the top of a black stove in the living room.

Delmer and Janet Hering bought their grain stove after moving a house onto their farmyard that was heated with propane. The propane system cost them $10 a day in the winter and they quickly went looking for a cheaper alternative.

The Envirotec grain stove, which they installed in 1993, burns a bushel of rye a day and last year the Herings paid $1 a bushel. After paying for cleaning, Delmer Hering said it cost $1.25 a day last winter to heat their home.

According to his estimates, electricity is 8.6 times more expensive than burning grain and natural gas is 3.3 times more expensive. He estimates that he uses 125 bu. of fall rye a year.