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Al, the furnaces actually burn the shell corn, not the cobs. We use cobs to start fires in the wood stove - they burn fast & easy, but give off a lot of ash for the heat you get out.... The corn stoves get filled once a day, 7 an auger meters in the corn to the heat setting you have. Most have a 'clinker' you need to remove every day or 2 - the ash residue left from the fire. The stove kind of needs this ash clump to keep the fire going, so most designs have the cleaning requirement. Some folks set up a hog feed bin outside the house to auger the corn right in, no bukets of corn to carry... I guess most I have seen are smaller units, that look 'nice' like for a living room heater. As a farmer, I'd prefer a more rugged model you put in the basement & use for full heat. I think that would have more appeal to us farmers. Unfortunately the 'nice' looking yuppie models require the owners to buy corn at retail prices, while us farmers would see some real cost savings with our bins full of wholesale corn & no transportation costs.... Corn is about $1.75 here locally, that competes with currnet LP & heating oil prices. --->Paul
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