(I don't know anything about this beyond it showed up in my mailbox.)

Subj: Grain Comfort certified to burn wheat, rye or corn Date: 7/2/01 1:32:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time From: grainstovesinc@odyssey.on.ca (Grain Stoves Inc.) To: scharabo@aol.com Hi Scharabo folks, My friend began selling two corn-fired heaters 12 years ago, said he could build a better one and did. His innovative stove, the Grain Comfort, with more efficient heat transfer, easier cleaning, sealed hopper to forestall backflow of combustion gases and more heavily built for longer life went into service ten years ago. Some competitors have used some of his ideas, only partially due to worries about patent infringement, as his stove has over a dozen. You don't get a patent unless you have a unique idea. It is certified UL, ULC, CSA by Warnoch Hersey to burn wheat or rye as well as corn. Can be located near any outside wall (ends and back are cool) with 3" heavy exhaust pipe inside a 6" air intake pipe bringing outside air which combustion fan pushes through fire, like the old blacksmith forge. Forced draft means almost complete combustion, exempt from EPA air to fuel and particulate restrictions. Very low polluting products of combustion, no noxious exhaust. No smoke, no chimney, no creosote - insurance companies love them. Five inch double walled firepot has perforated inner wall to feed air to the fire. Residual clinker must be removed from firepot at least daily, not difficult, done withut shutting down fire. Will heat 1,500 sq. ft. or larger home with good insulation and circulation, using a bushel or slightly more of fuel daily. Hard to believe that much heat from five inch firepot Another friend who bought one of the early ones told me the other day that he's happy with his, has had to replace one motor, which he got locally. Sturdy, dependable stove, no trouble. Lowest cost fuel. Buying the heating stove is just the down payment - the real cost is in buying fuel to feed the darn thing! Why force yourself to buy fuel from a member of the international petroleum cartel, when you can choose a fuel available from any of half a million farmers, with no expensive intermediaries? There's an international cartel of half a dozen privately owned companies that control world grain markets who make few reports to anybody of their activities. They keep grain prices paid to farmers low, which will work to your benefit. If a million or so homeowners buy stoves like these, making a grain market that the cartel can't control, maybe the price of grains will rise a little and the farmers need lower subsidies to survive. Visit www. grainstove.com or www.grainstovesinc.com or www.cornstove.com to learn more about the Grain Comfort. Good wishes to you for an enjoyable summer. Ed Baker P.S. I later sold for a while the stove that my friend sold at first, before he built his own. EB

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), July 03, 2001

Answers

Umm, you're kidding. I have a real hard time with the concept of burning food for heat.

EEEEEP!

-- Sojourner (notime4@summer.spam), July 03, 2001.

(Follow up to questions I asked - see end of this message.)

Subj: Re: Grain Comfort certified to burn wheat, rye or corn Date: 7/3/01 10:40:48 AM Pacific Daylight Time From: grainstovesinc@odyssey.on.ca (Grain Stoves Inc.) To: Scharabo@aol.com Ken Scharabok, Hi Ken, The inventor and current mfr. of the Grain Comfort first sold a stove from N. Carolina twelve years ago, then another brand that didn't work well, at which time I sold the one he'd sold the year before for a while and a sucessor to it. He said he could build a better one. I'm just filling in while the office staff's away and am not really familiar with things, but think that the retail on the Grain Comfort is about US$2,250. - 2,500. Alex usually delivers the stoves, when there are half a dozen at a time in an area. Doubt whether UPS possible - they weigh 350 lbs. More likely one or two on a skid shipped by truck -maybe $350. part way across the States. They have power draft, so almost complete combustion, no smoke, no creosote, not need a chimney, just a vent through any exterior wall. For short distance, 3" heavy pipe with cap at end, which is installed inside a 6" insulated pipe to warm the combustion air as it enters, all supplied, with detailed installation instructions. Not a difficult situation, any handy person can do it. Code requirements in a number of urban areas might be a problem but many city people aren't familiar with the daily maintenance needed for wood stoves so would probably balk at this - it seems to be more readily acceptable among rural people, Many insurance companies aren't familiar with this system, but those who have become so love it, as it's probably the safest heating system available - except the wood stoves that are installed in a shed outside the home and feed hot water through an insulated pipe. I hear a corn-fired boiler to be available soon for similar application. With the rising cost of fuels, likely there'll be many corn heaters coming out of the woodwork so it'll be important for home operators to choose carefully in order to get a quality unit that'll work well without a lot of hassle. As you know, one doesn't get patents unless one can show unique applications - the Grain Comfort has more than 20 in the U.S. and Canada. Some competitors have partially copied some of them - not fully, for patent infringement concerns. A friend who bought one of the original Grain Comfort units ten years ago tells me that he enjoys its dependability, ease of operation, no hassles and economical fuel cost (he grows his own corn). Had to get a new motor a while ago, but one available locally so didn't have to get one from mfr. One lady on internet the other day told of having sourced corn from a local farmer but it had a lot of fines in it and caused trouble, so she was going to give up on that and buy from a dealer. I told her it'd be o.k if she wanted to pay about half more, but there's a lot of farmers out there and I'm real sure that she can find one with clean corn if she shops around a bit. The Grain Comfort's auger flighting fits a bit looser in the tube than some so it can handle small pieces of stalk or bits of cob without trouble, but none of that kind of heater likes fines. Think I told you before, but check www.grainstove.com or www.grainstovesinc.com, also www.cornstove.com, the site of a dealer in Union City, Indiana about half way down, near Ohio border. Good wishes to you and to your loved ones. Hope you have a glorious summer. ----- From: Scharabo@aol.com To: grainstovesinc@odyssey.on.ca Date: Monday, July 02, 2001 6:08 AM Subject: Re: Grain Comfort certified to burn wheat, rye or corn

What does a typical model cost? Can they be shipped UPS? Is factory installation available through a certified installer (required by some insurance companies)? With this information I'll put you e-mail on the Countryside and Small Stock Journal forum at www.countrysidemag.com.

Ken Scharabok

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), July 03, 2001.

Sojourner:

So, for heat, you would rather utilize a non-renewable energy source, such as fuel oil, kerosene, propane, natural gas or electricity. What about firewood? Trees can take up to 20-years to replace themselves if one is planted for every tree harvested for that purpose - up to 50 if you let nature do it herself. Grains are an annual crop, of which the U.S. produces a surplus, so why not consider it as an alternative heat source? Since you buy locally, you largely support local agriculture.

Sounds to me to be a bit like when Sweden, as I recall, wanted to use the heat produced by crematoriums to heat buildings, but was met with opposition.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), July 03, 2001.

Hi Spammy,

As I worked for a time as a missionary in Korea just after the Korean War where half of the population were farmers but no more square metres of farmland to be found, and factories shut down due to war, thousands of refugees were having a difficult time, I understand where you're coming from in saying that high quality product useful for food shouldn't be used for low priority service as fuel.

But many farmers tell me, "I may as well burn the darn corn - I can't get a decent price for it". And there's a lot of corn in storage.

I don't suppose you'll be very enthusiastic about a lot of farmers' plan that they're calling "Focus on Sabbatical" to try to take thousands of acres out of production for a year, to produce a scarcity and, hopefully, raise prices.

By the way, you can use scrap stuff, some say mouldy will be O.K as well, etc.

But - it takes millions of years to produce crude oil or coal, we've been using it up for just the last century like it's going out of style, and it's a very bad polluter of the atmosphere. It takes forty years to make a tree and burning it produces quite a bit of pollution, some of it rather noxious.

Products of combustion from grains, when combustion is aided by power draft, as it must be to make it burn, are minimally polluting, none of it noxious.

Good wishes to you.

Ed Baker.

-- Ed Baker (eddbaker@yahoo.com), July 03, 2001.

Hey, I'm the first to say that the farmer ought to get a hell of a bigger piece of the pie. Why do so many non-working middlemen get the lion's share? When corn is $2 a bushel and a box of cornflakes is $4.50, it's pretty obvious to me that something's really wrong, and its not on the farmer's end. I've said for years that commercial farmers (guys who sell to the commodity brokers) are little better than serfs. They have no choice. What else are they going to do with the tons of grain they raise except sell it to the commodity brokers? That's the way our agricultural laws are set up, to protect the corps (or should that be corpse?) and not the farmer who did the actual work.

If they are going to take thousands of acres out of production in an attempt to drive up prices, I say go for it! More power to them! I don't think it'll accomplish anything - but anything at this point is worth a try.

But having been hungry myself, and having lived in places where hunger is not only well-known but commonplace, I can't help it, the thought of all that food going up in smoke really bothers me.

I know some corn goes to produce ethanol, and that's not food. Some grain goes to produce whiskey and beer, and that's not (really) food. But actually BURNING it? The thought makes me shudder.

As for the "renewability" issue, do you really think that entire cities can be heated by burning corn? And what makes you think that the price the FARMER gets is going to be affected by demand for fuel, since he already gets the short stick from the corps? Urbanites use the vast majority of power in this country, and I guarantee you they won't be buying directly from the farmer. They'll be buying from some sort of distributor, and the farmer will still get the shaft.

Firewood IS renewable, when properly husbanded. I have about 19 acres in woods. I couldnt BEGIN to deforest 19 acres of woods for my own heating uses. I'll be lucky if I keep up with the culls.

The thought of food going up in smoke almost makes me sick at my stomach. It doesn't follow that I want the whole country to run on nuclear power or that I don't want commodity farmers to get their fair share. C'mon, guys. Be fair.

-- Sojourner (notime4@summer.spam), July 03, 2001.

Our local farm implement store heats with a corn burner. Whenever I've been in even on the coldest days it's always warm. I guess you burn what you have they seen to have an abundance of corn. I personally would rather eat corn than burn it but whatever works for them. They probably go the grocery rather that grow there own food so dry field corn is not thought of as food. Linda in Indy

-- Linda in Indy (freeinindy@yahoo.com), July 03, 2001.

Sojourner- I emphasize with your horror at the thought of burning good food, BUT, the reality is that there is plenty of food to feed every man, woman, and child in the world- there is NO food shortage. Rather, there is a food distribution problem, brought on not by supply or logistics, but by politics. Remember the Live Aid and Farm Aid concerts? I worked on Live Aid and the first three Farm Aid productions, and learned quite a bit about the realities of food distribution and world hunger, and there is a huge misconception amongst the general population regarding these issues. Also, as an aside, you might be interested in reading Robert Rodale's "Save Three Lives" (Sierra Club Books). In it he discusses how the loss of forest cover in Africa has been the desert's strongest ally. I too have traveled throughout much of the world including Africa and other 3rd world countries and have seen hunger up close, though thankfully I have never experienced it firsthand. It is a huge problem and one which weighs heavy on my mind and in my heart, even as I enjoy the prosperity which my life has afforded me. BUT, realistically, burning one stove or a mountain of corn will not make a difference to people who are hungry, whether here in the US or abroad.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), July 03, 2001.

Sojourner:

As a mental exercise, think of it as fuel - not food. OK so far? Now, let's assume you need a tonne (or in your case a ton) of fuel to get through the winter. A poor to average grain crop will produce that from an acre, every year, from day one - some crops MUCH MUCH more. A wood lot will take many years to produce fuel, won't produce every year from every acre, and can only coppice a few times before the trees need grubbing out and re-planting - massive labour. It's likely the total yields are similar, but the capital investment (land) is much less for grain; as is the labour (labor?) cost, and surprise! - so is the cost per tonne (ton).

And this fuel has the advantage that you can eat it or use it as stock food if you need to.

I admit, I react the same way to the idea of burning food. I also feel that woodlots have a real place - if they do need renovation, it's no more frequently than once a generation. In fact, one generation's superannuation fund (timber) can keep them and the next generation in fuel - if you've got the land.

And the big disadvantage in my view - you can't burn grain without electricity. But it's worth thinking about objectively - lots of people are set up so they can't burn anything without electricity; or they can only burn fossil fuel, or both.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 04, 2001.