I've got a cornflame 3000. It's my first season burning, and I'm already looking to upgrade my stove. My old drafty house needs a few more BTUs and I want a stove with a stir pot/ash pan and larger hopper.

The reason I'm posting this, is because I see a lot of posts about people converting their stir pots to clinker pots. I'm only accustomed to the clinker style stove, so I'm wondering which one is better.

I've converted my exhaust and have been mixing pellets and corn since I began burning. I really like the thought of being able to burn straight pellets and easily emptying out the ash pan instead of shutting the stove down to manually clean it. Can anyone provide some insight? Should I move to the stir style or finish out the season with what I've got? Thanks!

Also had another thought.. Not sure if anyone else has done this. It looks like the room blower fan on the 3000 is 125CFM. After converting the exhaust to a negative pressure system, I've limited the blower with a fan controller to lower the speed. On the lowest setting, my firebox holds at about 600-650 degrees and normally 450 degrees at the heat tubes.

I've been looking up fasco motors to upgrade my room blower. I've found a 200CFM model that looks like I can make fit. Does anyone think changing this out might be beneficial to get a little more heat out of the stove?

If the electronics on the stove can control the fan then I would do it. You will be stripping more heat from the stove and moving more air around the house. The air coming out might feel cooler than what you are used to but you'll be moving more heat around in the long run.

I've gone from stir pot to clinker pot and will NEVER go back to the stirrer, but that's my stove and not yours. You could try using the stirrer, I just wouldn't expect to get anything much better than what you have with running clinker style.

That's exactly what I'd like to hear.. Opinions, why do you prefer the clinker over the stirrer? I'm imagining a stove that simply runs after refueling with less cleaning.. Judging from comments from friends that have pellet stoves. Is that not the case?

I think my mind is set, I'm definitely going to upgrade the blower. Dayton makes a 220CFM blower that is 'almost' identical in size. Looks like it's just shy of an inch shorter in width, but I don't think that will matter after examining the frame and cut outs. I'm picturing a 1/2" loss on each side. Shouldn't be a problem for the air movement and I'll only need to alter the side mounts a tiny bit.

Still searching for the motor itself. Trying to find a larger replacement motor without the blowers.

I prefer the clinker pot because I burn 100% corn 95% of the time and with the stir pot the carbon builds up on the stirrer and bangs around, stops the motor, makes a bigger mess with ash in the stove. I've tried adding oyster shells to the corn and it helps some but not enough for me. Also the corn eats up the stirrer. I even had two stirrers make of stainless steel and I burned both up in one heating season.
With the clinker pot, I pull the clinker once at night (although I could go 3-4 days depending on how hard I'm running) and shut down for a general cleaning once a week with very little ash compared to the stir pot. Most of the ash stays as a clinker and it's a lot easier to deal with than spending money on drywall shopvac bags to vacuum the stove all the time.
My stove runs hotter with the clinker pot because the stirrer stirs up ash and that ash gets up in the heat exchanger and all over inside the stove so I would have to clean more.

This must be the 10th year I've had the Countryside 3500. Over half off those years I used the stirrer and the stirrer pot burning 100% corn. I used oyster shell to control the "clinker" build up on the stirrer. Removing the "clinker" from the stirrer was a regular chore and cleaning the ash and "clinker" from the burn pot was an every day or two operation. A few years ago the clinker burn pot became available. Depending on the feed rate of the fuel determined the amount of time the stove could run before the clinker built up and had to be removed. Without the stirrer the stove runs cleaner.
Then somebody built their own clinker burn pot. I decided to do the same. I can run the stove longer between removing the clinker than the stock burn pot. It works better to start the fire and in other ways I like it better. At the same time the price of corn got so high that I started burning wood pellets. I burn pellets 100% now. But the clinker pot works equally well with either fuel. The wood pellets are less work; no cleaning the fuel, easy to handle, no long drives to buy corn, etc. But if I had my druthers I still like to burn corn.
The 3500 has a large hopper and will run more than a day on a hopper of fuel unless the weather is extremely cold and the burn rate is high and that rarely is the situation. The ash drawer can hold a lot of ash, almost more than I want to carry out and it can go more than a week or two at the lower burn rates.

There ya have it. Ten years with the same stove! I'd buy the same one if I had that much good luck. I like my 6039 but doubt if it will survive that long.

Tallcorn, I'm lucky, I can still get corn here at the same price as a ton of good pellets. 13 miles one way to get it, four hours to transfer it, so it takes a little more time than picking up a ton of pellets but I know what I have and am never surprised by opening a bag of pellets and finding half of it a solid mass of sawdust from getting wet somewhere along the line.

With my stove I never had much luck with the oyster shells, tried every mix suggested, maybe just me or maybe my setup with my stove, it just didn't work very good for me.

I'm not that lucky. Cedar Rapids is the destination for corn. The closer you get to here the higher the price. "Cedar Rapids is one of the largest cities in the world for corn processing. The grain processing industry is Cedar Rapids' most important sector, directly providing 4,000 jobs that pay on average $85,000, and also providing 8,000 indirectly."

Ethanol, high fructose corn syrup and corn starch and by-products produced by PSADM, Cargill and Pen-Ford. One bid for corn today $6.14 per bushel.

PS Bought premium wood pellets yesterday for $3.99/40#.

Forgive my ignorance, but this is great info.. Huge reason why I'm asking. I'm burning 50/50 corn and pellets, but burning straight pellets just makes a mess in the stove and there isn't much of a clinker to remove. I was shutting it down and cleaning it out completely almost daily.

How do you empty the clinker pot burning straight pellets in the 3500? I feel like I'm missing something..

I have 2 or 3 ways to remove the clinker or ash. One way is to use the stove tool, that tool that looks like a small hoe that works so well with the stirrer burn pot. Just open the door and dig the ash and clinker out to the side of the burn pot into the burn chamber. There might be a little smoke. Work fast and either leave some embers in the burn pot and the fire with start up again or have a cup of pellets and 1/2 a Strike-A-Fire match crumbled up ready to dump in the pot and light with a kitchen (farmers) match.
Or use a clinker hanger for the clinker to build on in the burn pot and lift the clinker out of the burn pot and dump it in the ash drawer. If you let the fire burn out the ashes usually stiffen up enough to lift the ashes out if you are careful and don't bump anything.
Or lift the hopper lid and let the fire burn down to where there isn't much smoke or let it burn out until there isn't any or very little embers. If you use heavy leather, insulated gloves you can lift the burn pot up and out of the air box and dump the ash or clinker in the ash drawer, hot or cold. I start the vacuum cleaner and wrap a paper towel around the end of the hose so that I can wipe the soot off the door glass, then vacuum the door ledge at the same time. Then I start a new fire. If you do it hot the fans don't shut off and the auger with start as soon as the hopper lid is closed. The stove keeps right on running like nothing happened.