An Illinois farmer says he heats his house, office, and garage using discarded seed corn that he buys from local seed corn companies.

Don Magelitz, of Waverly, stores the corn in a pair of conventional bulk feed tanks and uses three flexible steel augers to deliver it into a pair of corn-burning furnaces -- one to heat his detached garage and the other to heat his house and attached office. Each auger is powered by a 1/2-hp electric motor.

"It's a very flexible system that's clean, trouble-free, and about as convenient as you can get," says Magelitz. "I purchased the auger and other corn handling components from a local hog equipment dealer. All of the corn is moved either by electricity or by gravity. All I have to do is load it into the bigger of the two tanks.

"I find that with my system the economics of heating with corn are fantastic. Many people with houses like mine spend so much each winter for heat. I've used corn to heat my home for the past 10 years and, have saved a lot in heat costs."

Magelitz installed an "A-Maize-Ing Heat" corn-burning hot water furnace in the basement. Hot water flows from the boiler to baseboard heaters in the house.

The detached garage is heated by a Traeger corn-burning forced air furnace. Corn gravity-flows into it from a 1/2-ton hopper mounted in a room directly above the furnace.

Corn is stored in a 9 1/2-ton tank outside. From there it's augered to a 8 by 10-ft. metal building that houses a fan mill to clean the corn. From the fan mill, corn is augered either to a 3 1/2-ton tank that supplies corn to the boiler, or to the 1/2-ton hopper inside the garage.

"Both tanks hold enough corn to last all winter," says Magelitz. "The flexibility of my system is unreal. Using a switch box, I can deliver corn to either hopper from the fan mill or go directly from the bulk bin to the hoppers. The A-Maize-ing Heat boiler burns up to 30 percent screenings and the Traeger furnace will handle 100 percent screenings. I use the fan because it removes fine screenings and cob chaff which makes the burners work better.

"I chose the A-Maize-ing Heat boiler be-cause at the time I bought it, it was the only one with a self-cleaning pot. That way I don't have to clean it out every two or three days like with some other models. I liked it so much that I became a dealer. The forced air furnace is made by Traeger Co. of Waco, Neb."