520 Questions

Just discovered this forum and have already learned a great deal about my stoker. I bought my house in 1996 and it had a 4 year old DF 520 as the heat source. I have been running it relatively trouble free ( a few fire outs here and there and I just replaced the timer this summer) since then. I clean it every fall, but am not sure I am doing a thorough job. I remove the flue pipe and brush down all of the heat exchanger fins that can be reached and remove all of the fly ash in that area. I also brush down all of the fly ash from inside the main chamber through the access door. Am I missing anything? Also, I grow corn, and I was wondering if anyone is burning alternative fuels in their EFM. I read that the amish are mixing coal and corn 50/50 and are successfully running their boiler w/o even changing the settings. I will probably be doing some trial burns later this winter when my corn dries a little more. Is there any reason that this is a real safety problem and shouldn't be attempted? The only problem I can envision is a fire back through the feed tube. From a performance perspective, I would also be worried about the corn gumming up the fire grates. Anyone out there with any experience?

A steel wire brush or scraper will get off the hard deposits inside the boiler. The fan housings tend to collect dust after many years which would affect the volume of your air.

50/50 corn/coal is used successfully as you suspect, without adjustments. In the '70's the lab stoker was run on 100% corn, but it had to be a 24/7 operation.

Just being curious here. Coal is inexpensive and is a great source of heat. I'm planning on switching from oil to coal this summer. Why would you want to mix corn with the coal?

stoker-man wrote:A steel wire brush or scraper will get off the hard deposits inside the boiler. The fan housings tend to collect dust after many years which would affect the volume of your air.

50/50 corn/coal is used successfully as you suspect, without adjustments. In the '70's the lab stoker was run on 100% corn, but it had to be a 24/7 operation.

Thanks stoker-man. I really appreciate all of the work and info you have put into this forum. EFM's are great units.

billw wrote:Just being curious here. Coal is inexpensive and is a great source of heat. I'm planning on switching from oil to coal this summer. Why would you want to mix corn with the coal?

Basically because I have the corn and can grow it cheaper than I can buy coal. I would anticipate significantly less ash as well. Without getting into the whole global warming thing, I would also be reducing my net carbon emmissions. If the amish are doing it, it's got to be cheaper

How about the other post about a farmer wanting to burn manure? In his case, he was heating 500,000 sq. ft. with natural gas. People will try anything to save money.

Burn corn in a boiler? Next thing you know, he'll want to run his car on the stuff.

If some of the stoker manufacturers could make a modification to burn 100% corn they could probably pick up a bigger customer base as I'm sure corn is available in the more central/midwest region for far less money than coal. I wonder if they've looked into that.

There are several all corn furnace / boiler & stoves out there on the market already here are a few of them

http://www.cornheat.com/corn_boiler.html

http://www.americanroyal.net/page/page/3075421.htm

http://www.bioadvantage.com/?src=google ... HgodSTs3sw

http://www.kernelburner.com/

http://www.profab.org/home/index.html

hmm.. I'm not convinced that corn is the way to go. The advertisements say one thing but every place I asked corn costs $10-$11 per 100 pounds. That's $200-$220 per ton for about 50% less heat than coal. I know folks who use corn, they mix the corn with wood pellets for reasons I'm not sure of, I suspect the sugar gums up the mechanism with straight corn.

I think corn has a few more BTU than that, but here's a comparison chart between the fuels.

It won't upload here, so I will put it on the efm site.

http://energy.cas.psu.edu/burncorn/shellcorn.html This site does a good job of comparing various fuel sources. I think it will confirm what we all know.

Corn has around 6,810 btu per # (if you consider the energy required to deal with 15% moisture content). By my figuring that is about half the value of coal which averages around 13,000 btu per #. According to the professor sited in the link many stove companies exaggerate the energy output of burning corn. Besides cleaning and drying are large variables in the process so just like with coal you can have widely varying results.

I have looked at several corn furnaces in operation, don't like the carmelized mess that seems to accumulate in the burn pot. As another Forum member said, its a crime to burn something that you can drink (or something to that effect ). Buyer beware, with all the corn being used to make alternative fuel for cars, it is bound to go up at a rapid rate.

I like the idea of someone with a corn burner just so I could throw a pile of popping corn into the mix and hope they wouldn't notice!

e.alleg wrote:hmm.. I'm not convinced that corn is the way to go. The advertisements say one thing but every place I asked corn costs $10-$11 per 100 pounds. That's $200-$220 per ton for about 50% less heat than coal. I know folks who use corn, they mix the corn with wood pellets for reasons I'm not sure of, I suspect the sugar gums up the mechanism with straight corn.

Hey Ed. it is 125.00 a ton down here