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Basement Bin Makes Corn-Burning Easy
After years spent carrying corn in 5-gal. buckets to a corn burning stove in his basement, Joseph Rupinski of Twining, Mich., decided there had to be a better way. So he built a large corn bin in his basement that supplies the stove via an electric feed conveyor.
"It's a clean, easy way to get corn into the st
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Basement Bin Makes Corn-Burning Easy ENERGY Corn Burning Soves 33-1-30 After years spent carrying corn in 5-gal. buckets to a corn burning stove in his basement, Joseph Rupinski of Twining, Mich., decided there had to be a better way. So he built a large corn bin in his basement that supplies the stove via an electric feed conveyor.
"It's a clean, easy way to get corn into the stove," says Rupinski. "All the corn is handled mechanically, with no hand labor."
Made with 2 by 4's and plywood, the bin measures 8 ft. square and 6 ft. tall with a sliding plywood cover on top. The bin is filled through a window in the basement wall. A screw conveyor runs from the bin to a flexible plastic tube. To fill the corn stove Rupinski just swivels the tube over to the stove and flips a switch.
"The system works much like the coal bins people used to have in their basements," says Rupinski.
Rupinski grows and harvests all the corn that he uses in the stove on his 40-acre hobby farm, using an antique 2-row corn planter and a small Gleaner self-combine combine. "I originally bought the planter to plant wildlife plots to attract deer. Now that I heat my house with corn, the deer get less and I get more," says Rupinski.
He says he paid $4,200 for his Bixby corn stove but that it has been well worth the money. "This stove burns efficiently and starts up easily with the push of a button, using electricity to start the fire. Using the thermostat, I can electronically adjust output between 8,000 and 50,000 btu's on a touch pad. It has a special high-burn system which automatically clears the firepot of ashes periodically, but doesn't disturb the operation of the stove at all. With many other stoves you have to clean them out by hand every day or two. The only limitation is that you have to be somewhat mechanically inclined to get the hang of it."
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Joseph Rupinski, 2531 Williams Road, Twining, Mich. 48766 (ph 989 873-8213).
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