I have heard that in some parts of the country, there is a pellet shortage.

wish I could get those prices on pellets....but the shipping costs are a big issue.

When I saw the price of corn last fall, the time at which I usually buy about 300 bushels for the upcoming heating season, I quickly did some math and came up with a plan to buy pellets instead. Bought 6000 pounds at $174/ton, no tax in Minnesota on pellets. Of course, when that was gone, I had to pay $219/ton for the next 4000 pounds. The price has since came back down to $199/ton. It might be slightly more expensive than corn, but I have to admit, I am enjoying the boiler's performance on pellets. Maintenance on it has been nearly nill and I haven't had a single flame failure all winter. Compared to corn, the burner just doesn't have to fire as hard. This has been a cold winter with many days below zero temperatures and I still am not seeing the burner run harder than a 25% burn rate. The ash pan gets about a large coffee cup size pile of ash once a week and I just need to use a little compressed air to blow the dust off the flues every so often. No flame outs, no ash accumulation to speak of, no fly ash all over the roof, no clinkers and sticky starch build up in the burner, no problems with contamination in the fuel..stones, stalks, dirt etc. etc. I haven't even pulled the burner for cleaning once this year and usually by this time I have pulled it apart at least three times. Only problem is....I bought this boiler so I could grow my own fuel and I doubt I will ever be able to grow wood pellets! They have to be trucked in from the other side of the state. I have tried corn mixed with pellets and also corn mixed with barley, barley mixed with pellets. For me, they all work, but not as good as straight pellets. Now if I could only find a local source for bulk pellets.

I had a similar problem to what you were having JA...and ended up putting a 110 gallon water tank in line where you have pump #1. So anytime the boiler was running, pump #1 would be operating and with valves in line also, I could reduce the flow through my boiler, properly setting the differential temperature across the boiler. The rest of the hot water loop then had to come off the tank, not the boiler and this solved my problem. I put in lots of extra valves so that helped in balancing. Am sure you figured this problem out by now....

On the net, I located a chart put together by NDSU (North Dakota State University) which has a tremendous ag program. Although we aren't really in corn country here, NDSU lists shelled corn as 8500 btu/# at 15.5% moisture. When I burned more corn than pellets, I use to use 60# as a basic weight per bushel. Concerning the efficiency. That always seems to be a major question. The resulting products of combustion which are exiting the stack are probably the best indication of your efficiency along with stack temperature. In my case here, I was probably only making about 80% efficient. Lots of ash both in the pan and going up the stack out onto the roof. Never could get it to burn well on corn, no matter what.

Ok on the Traeger. Maybe I can catch up with him and see how his boiler has been working. I have looked at the Traeger boilers but since they were being built so far from my location, shipping costs would have been a considerable issue. The YAR I have was built down the road here a couple hundred miles, so shipping and product support was not a long distance situation.

"Baby Boiler".....??? U got me on that one! The YAR is a solid made unit but the burner on it just never worked well for corn, or at least I never had much luck with it on corn. For the past several years I have been running it on 80% barley/ 20 percent pellets. Did ok...but lots of ash. This year...straight pellets. Works perfect!

Well as some of you probably heard (most probably don't care)...the Year A Round company who built corn fired hot water boilers (one of the few available in the U.S.) sold out and now the boiler they once made is no longer available. A few parts left I guess...but otherwise, no more YAR boilers. Mine is running on straight pellets this year.