Sales manager says stove cheaper to run than wood, propane
By Mike Surbrugg
Globe Farm Editor
FREISTATT, Mo. — Steve Schoen says demand for stoves that burn corn exceeds supplies.
Schoen is sales manager at Schoen Equipment in Freistatt. The farm supply and implement store sells the stoves.
“If you want one to heat your home or building next year, you better place your order now,” he said.
He has almost 50 names on a waiting list to buy such a stove at prices ranging from $1,800 to $3,000, depending on the size of stove and accessories.
For the past 10 years most interest in these stoves was concentrated in northern states. Interest has expanded with higher costs for wood pellets and propane. Demand for wood products made from sawdust has jumped in the face of major hurricane damage, he said.
The industry anticipates corn-stove sales will jump from 65,000 to 250,000 in two years. Area corn buyers were paying about $2.25 a bushel for corn on April 7.
“At this, or even higher prices, corn is a cheap source of energy. It is energy that farmers grow in their fields each year. It is a way to reduce this country’s dependence on foreign oil,” Schoen said.
Schoen Equipment has three sizes of the corn stoves on a display floor. He cleans the window of one with a wet paper towel, and removes the cool burning bin to remove ash that is potash and sugar. “It can be spread in a flower garden,” he said.
In a residential house, the small burning bin needs to be cleaned once a day.
To start a fire, he puts starter material inside the cleaned burning unit, which is placed back in the stove and ignited with a small flame. Corn needs a starter fire because it burns at high temperatures, he said.
A bin in the back of the stove holds 100 pounds of corn. A few kernels at a time are moved into the burn bin where it turns black and then ignites. Controls on the stove govern the speed of fans to blow heat into the room, and set the flow rate of corn.
Outside air is pulled into the stove, is circulated to force a lot of air into and through the burning chamber to assure fire does not move to the corn bin.
The stove generates no smoke and only a slight smell of corn.
“We burned one here for a year before we started selling them last fall,” Schoen said. The stove is the primary source of heat for the large display and sales room. Propane is a supplemental heat on extremely cold days, he said.
The displayed stoves have 30,000, 50,000 and 70,000 Btu ratings. Each stove produces a dry heat, he said. The smallest size could heat a 1,000 to 1,500- square-foot house with proper venting, he said.
Schoen sees potential demand for larger stoves suited to use in poultry houses or other large areas. The dry air from the stoves would improve the environment in poultry houses, he said.
He believes a solution to high fuel costs facing poultry growers would be for the poultry companies to deliver shelled corn with the feed they bring to farms.
“Corn stoves could help rural areas by creating another market for corn and put Americans to work building stoves,” he said.
Schoen believes more markets for farm crops is better than paying farmers to take land out of production.
It would be better for the government to make 30-year, no-interest loans to firms to build stoves and use loan payments to make more such grants to reduce fossil fuel use, he said.
