I vacuumed the last of the corn from my gravity wagon into the hopper of the boiler on Saturday, then added that last 1/2 bag of pellets. I monitored the boiler mid-day Sunday until I noticed the fire level in the burn pot dropping.

I scooped the last of the fire out of the burn pot, to avoid a burn back into the auger (lesson learned at the end of last season).

Still have approx. 400 gal of pre-buy propane to use, so we are back to LP until Thanksgiving. At this point in the season, and with the price of corn, it isn't worth dragging the gravity wagon back to the farm for a small load.

We'll miss the abundant hot water...

I have about 2 weeks of corn left approximately and I'm shutting down also. We have about 60% in our LP tank so we're good....but I hate burning it!!! I have a nice pellet stash but just haven't cared for straight pellets yet...maybe some more tinkering is in order.

I have 4 tons of pellets stashed for next year, but will try not to burn more than 1/2 ton this spring. I still have around a ton of corn to burn up before summer. After all the work getting the boiler up and running, I hate to shut her down, especially since I am getting close to having the DHW on line. Should have had the done earlier, but too much other things going on.

You guys must live down south ! Ive still got two months to go !!! Below zero tonite and the rest of the week !

Nogas,
The DHW is what we will miss the most. When I did my install 3 years ago, I bought the "side arm" heat exchanger and tapped it into my regular hot water tank, between the drain and pressure relief ports. The thermo-siphon works really well, giving us almost limitless hot water.

I kinda had the same thought, I've bought 6 tons of corn and 5 tons of pellets this year and I have 1 ton of pellets left on the floor.

I got about 50% in the propane tank (thats at least 20% more than I usually have at this time of year)

I was thinking maybe I'll just stretch out the pellets and use some propane.
I've been on straight pellets for about 2 months. And I'm tired of handling all them bags of pellets and besides I miss my corn. It just seems to burn better and be a lot less work than pellets but at $250 + a ton its almost the same as propane.

I burnt the last of my corn last night. I still got 1.5 tons of pellets so thats what I'll finish out the heating season on.

hobby farmer wrote:


What type of device are you using to heat with? Do you have any controls to pump to your side arm or does the water always flow thru it? Are you using a temporing valve to control the amount of hot water out of the hot water heater?

Nogas,
I'm burning a Universal Grain 1020 Outdoor boiler. Underground PEX to the inside of the basement, through the side arm, then to the 30 plate water to water heat exchanger. The boiler water is always circulating through both heat exchangers.

I did put a tempering valve on the water heater, otherwise I would have 170deg. F DHW.

I'll try for some photos this week end.

We will keep burning until we have to open the windows. I'm guessing End of March first of April??