Round Bale Burner Has A Built-In "Stir Stick"

Round Bale Burner Has A Built-In "Stir Stick" ENERGY Miscellaneous 31-5-32 Guy Swanson of Pictou, Nova Scotia, says his big bale furnace has some important new features that other outside boilers don't have. "It'll burn 5-ft. dia. bales right down to the last straw with very little smoke. One or two large round bales a week will heat an average size house for less than $30," says Swanson. "And if you run out of straw or hay, you can burn wood in it." The furnace has a 5 by 5-ft. 4-in. fire chamber and 5 by 6-ft. water jacket and weighs more than 4,000 lbs. It has a full-size door 15 in. off the ground that opens up for easy loading of the bale and for ash removal. Big bales are loaded into it with a tractor or skid loader. The fire chamber is built with 1/4-in. thick steel plate surrounded by water, including at the bottom part of the chimney, so it can collect heat as it exits the furnace. "This design reduces heat going up the chimney by 30 percent," says Swanson. The loading door has a domed design, with a heat shield built inside the door, to keep the door from warping. A fan mounted inside a metal box outside the door blows air into the furnace. One of the furnace's key features is a steel arm and blade inside the fire chamber that slowly rotates around the bale, loosening hay at the bottom of the bale as it turns so air can get to the hay to keep it burning. The arm and blade mount on a shaft that's chain-driven by an electric motor at the back of the fire chamber. The blade mounts on the end of the arm, which slowly rotates around the fire chamber like the hands of a clock. The blade passes under the entire bale at the perimeter of the firebox to pull hay off. As the bale gets smaller, the blade lifts the bale part way up the side of the fire chamber, and the bale then tumbles back down into the fire again. "It works on the same principle as burning a bale in your yard. If the bale doesn't burn fast enough, you take a pitchfork and push it around to let more oxygen into the bale for better burning." The furnace is not a boiler and operates at zero pressure. "It uses a forced air draft instead of a natural draft in order to do a better job of burning," says Swanson. "Our furnace is open to the atmosphere. The water jacket around the outside of the firebox captures heat and pumps hot water to the building to be heated." Swanson has used the furnace to heat his shop for two years, and cut his heating bill by more than 75 percent. An aquastat keeps the temperature in the water chamber steady, and a thermostat controls the temperature in buildings. "The fire chamber is completely surrounded by water inside a metal insulated jacket, so the outside of the furnace is the same temperature as the outside air," says Swanson. A heat sensing relief valve dumps hot water into the fire chamber to dampen the fire if the power ever goes off or the pump stops. Since the furnace operates at zero pressure, you can use it with unit heaters made from used car radiators or old school bus heaters. Price with automatic temperature control and circulator pump is $15,600. Comes with a 10-year warranty. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Guy Swanson, Waterside Ranch, 1264 Shore Rd., RR 3, Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada B0K 1H0 (ph 902 485-9348; gswanson@eastlink.ca).

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